Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  “This will not be all that we ask of you, Sanaa.” What else? “There will be training, and you will meet these men and women. You will become a part of their world while remaining separate from them. Torinozoku: to set apart, to remove.”

  Yes, I know this word and nod. Torinozoku also means to take away, and with the scope of information in front of me, I suspect I will be taking more from them than they are willing to give.

  Chapter

  Five

  I spend ten hours per day in the Data & Communications building for five weeks before coming to any clear conclusions of how the clans work in Nishikyō. I’m not required to work long shifts, but Sakai has ordered me to keep telling people I work at my old job. I can’t come home early, so when I’m done at Ku 1 every day around 7pm, I go out to dinner and continue working. This way no one notices the difference. Aunt Kimie and Lomo tend to only eat at home so this is the best way to keep the lie going. I hate secrets and lies.

  But I’m lucky to have my aunts. Maybe because neither of them are strict, or because I’ve been pretty responsible, but they’ve always given me the space I need to do what I want to do. Helena’s parents are almost completely absent, working their jobs non-stop, and Miko’s parents are over-protective. Aunt Kimie and Lomo are right in the middle, so I feel awful when I work straight through Aunt Lomo’s birthday in early February. I promise to make it up to her soon and write myself a reminder to ask for a day off from Sakai.

  I don’t meet up with Miko or Helena, though we chat online as much as possible while I’m out working and eating every evening. Miko is dating Yoichi. Actually dating, not just having dinner and going straight to a love hotel. I have the urge to ask about Jiro, but don’t. Why bother? I don’t have time for a social life. I don’t even have time to meet Chad for some quick sex. He’s disappointed, I can tell. His messages back are always clipped short.

  My routine never wavers. I join Sakai each morning at the dōjō. We eat breakfast together, and he escorts me to Ku 1. After our first trip to the building, we no longer check in. We are greeted at the door by the security scanners, and theater 3B is always unoccupied. Sakai leaves me to my work and comes back at noon with food for us both, though sometimes he skips lunch for meetings.

  After years of working with teams of people, I’m uneasy being alone every day. I talk to myself all the time and spend my lunch hours without Sakai wondering if I should strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to me eating by him or herself. I miss real conversations about life or love, even sports or news. It’s exceedingly lonely.

  During the first three weeks of my research time, Sakai was impenetrable and remained passive and quiet. He listened to all of my hypotheses, shot down those he deemed unworthy, and set aside the ones I had hit on correctly. Now he seems to be warming up to me and giving me his opinions instead of waiting for mine. But this whole job ordeal is truly frustrating because I have no idea what the hell I’m really doing. My research seems like such a silly waste of time. What do the inner workings of Nishikyō’s society have to do with the colonization efforts?

  The one thing that shocks me the most while examining video surveillance every day is how different Ku 6 is from other wards. It’s even more Japanese than I could have imagined. Almost every sign on each building lacks the English translation. The non-Japanese races are few and far between, practically nonexistent. I’ve even seen many men carrying swords. Swords! How do they get away with that?

  Yesterday, as I was leaving the theater, I pulled a hair clip out of my bag and twisted my hair up into a secured knot before slinging my bag over one shoulder.

  “Sanaa-chan?”

  I wasn’t paying attention to Sakai, but when I focused on him, he was sad.

  “What is it, Sakai-san?”

  He winced as if I had struck him. “I want you to call me Mark. ‘Sakai-san’ is not… right. It’s what people call me when they want something from me.”

  It seemed like this was a confession of some kind and made me admire him a little bit more. For weeks, I had been referring to him as Sakai-san. He must have come to trust me?

  “Okay. Whatever you want, Mark.” I smiled at him before I left, but his lips stayed in a straight line.

  Today, he is leaning over my shoulder and examining the data I compiled on the Minamoto family. In the beginning, Sakai was good enough to point me in the direction of the clan leaders, but tracking Yoshinori Minamoto, my first subject, required time. His family is big and following him through the Nishikyō Japanese population is an enormous task.

  It took five weeks to figure out what I could pull from the GDB and develop a routine, but I have a good idea of what Minamoto’s daily activities involve. I watched where he ate and tracked all the people who worked and ate there. I pursued the people he ate with and developed programs to accumulate data on those families. I followed his daily movements from home to the transitway to the restaurant he owns in Ku 7. Every night, he traveled to a bar or okiya and, most times, back home afterward, if he didn’t spend the night in a love hotel or passed out in his office at the restaurant.

  He is a family man: one wife, one son. He had applied for a permit for a second child ten years ago but his wife never gave birth again. I never view his wife on camera with him, and have no idea what his son looks like because they don’t spend time together. I should set up database searches for each of them but I’ll have to do it later. Minamoto is in good shape but drinks and eats too much. I can’t be sure without seeing for myself, but I’m almost positive he’s had at least three tattoos and a scar on his mid-section from a stab wound he received five years ago.

  “What do you think of this man?” Sakai asks as he examines the dossier I put up on the big screen.

  “I think he’s powerful. He commands a lot of respect from the people that work for him. Every one of his employees at the restaurant shows up on time and works late. He has bodyguards who tail him wherever he goes even though Minamoto is a black belt in karate. He has a thing for this blonde woman he meets at a love hotel every week, and he’s never with his family… Hmmm, there’s a lot here.”

  Sakai studies my data and nods. “Yes, but you will need to dig deeper into this man’s life in any way you can, Sanaa. You’ve done some good preliminary work here but we need even more. It’s going to come as no surprise to you that all of these clan leaders are involved in criminal activities the police can’t deal with.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the clans are powerful. Every time the police get close to them, something happens and the investigations go away.”

  “So, people are already working on this like I am? Why don’t you let them do all this research?”

  “I don’t trust them, Sanaa. I trust you.”

  A blush creeps to my face. I have gained a measure of his respect. If he respects and trusts me now, then now is the time I can figure out more of why I’m here.

  “Mark, why are there still areas of the GDB I can’t access? I’d like to analyze my family tree.” I had wanted to ask this from the beginning but was waiting for the right opportunity. I didn’t want to press this issue with Sakai. Over the past five weeks, he gave me many hints he knows a lot about my family, but, whenever I questioned him, he wouldn’t elaborate.

  Sakai observes my eagerness and sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to release any data that doesn’t pertain to these clans we’re studying.” He stops when I pout in disappointment. “What do you want to know, Sanaa-chan? I can tell you won’t rest until you ask me.”

  “Can you tell me more about my parents? They died when I was so young, and Aunt Kimie doesn’t talk much about them anymore.” I’ve tried for years and years to break the silence in my house with no luck. I have my photos and my memories, but that’s all.

  Sakai thinks for a moment. “I know your whole family, Sanaa. Kimie misses your mother very much. As kids, Junko and Kimie were inseparable. Junko was bright, so smart, and fun. The apple
of everyone’s eye.” I swear Sakai blushes for a split-second. He must have loved her, my mother. When he told me to call him Mark and not Sakai-san yesterday, he was probably thinking about how much I resemble my mother. It’s not a stretch to believe this. Everyone says this about me. I’m a little heartbroken for him.

  “Is this why you chose me for this job? Because you knew my parents?”

  “Yes, partly. I knew your parents. I trusted them both, and you got the best of both of them. You’re also completely trustworthy on your own.”

  I can accept this, I think, though I still want my old job back desperately. “What happened between my parents and my grandparents? I’ve always wondered.”

  Sakai sits back and folds his arms across his chest. “Kimie never told you?”

  “No. Just that she and my grandfather did not get along.”

  “Well, your grandfather was shocked when your mother chose to marry a non-Japanese. He was a traditionalist…” Sakai sighs. “I’m being kind. Your mother always called him a racist, and I don’t think she was wrong. Then Kimie married Lomo, and he up and disowned them both. His rejection was hard on your parents and your aunts. They kept trying to come back to visit him, and he would always turn them away.”

  My grandfather’s reaction to Aunt Kimie is shocking. It’s rare for anyone to care about men loving men or women with women anymore. People do what they want. With Nishikyō in zero population growth mode for the past one hundred years having children is a luxury only heterosexuals can afford, though. Hospitals stopped infertility treatments over one hundred fifty years ago. This was probably the reason my grandfather disowned Aunt Kimie. She couldn’t give him more grandkids. But still…

  “What a stubborn old man. What kind of arrogant bastard disowns his two daughters over something so dumb?”

  Sakai laughs at me. His face is so much more likable when he’s happy. “I see both your parents gave you your fire and your wit.”

  “And my temper,” I say narrowing my eyes at him with a smile.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He sits forward and smooths out his shirt. “I knew your father, too. We all grew up around the same ward. Max’s family was almost exclusively British, but they chose to live in Ku 6 with the rest of the hardcore Japanese because they believed in integration. Your father was bilingual, actually trilingual — he spoke German, too — to the core. I think he dreamed in Japanese. Your parents were in love from the first moment they met, no mistake about that.” Sakai, his eyes far off, is sad again before he cracks the smallest of smiles.

  “Sanaa, do you know what your name means?”

  “It means ‘brilliance’ in Arabic. My name was chosen because it wasn’t English nor Japanese.”

  “Yes. You are a multicultural mix, and your parents believed in the multiculturalism of Nishikyō, as do I. This is why understanding the inner workings of these clans is so important. They are strong and will try to rule for their own sake when we reach Yūsei. They want an exclusively Japanese nation, and we can’t afford that with the human race on the brink of extinction. We need all of this information, and you’re going to help us keep them in line.”

  I pause and hold my breath for a few seconds before releasing it. I’ve been so engrossed talking about my parents that I forgot about this job of mine I’m supposed to be doing.

  “Mark, if you knew my whole family, why did I never met you before now?”

  “Because I’ve kept my distance since your parents died. Kimie wanted me to have nothing to do with you or her family anymore. I respected her wishes for the longest time. But now you’re an adult, and this is all information you need. Everything you do and learn here each day will be something you should have learned growing up in Ku 6 but were never able to. It’s what your mother would have wanted. Kimie took you away from all that was meant to be a part of you. Your mother would never have done such a thing.”

  I’m not sure what to make of his statement. I love Aunt Kimie and Lomo more than anything. My father’s family immediately wanted nothing to do with any of us once he was dead, and only my Aunt Sharon from my father’s side hung on in my life until a few years ago. Aunt Kimie and Lomo respected my parents’ wishes and raised me. If what Sakai is saying now is true, then Aunt Kimie went against my mother’s wishes for my upbringing. Who is telling me the truth?

  “Come, Sanaa-chan. It’s lunchtime, and I think you’ve made a lot of progress here.” He gets up and straightens out his shirt. When he adjusts his collar, I get the slightest glimpse of a tattoo peeking over the edge and turn away quickly. I don’t want to embarrass Sakai when we have this understanding between us. “You have gathered a lot of data on Minamoto, though more work need to be done. Now we have other things to attend to.”

  * * * *

  We eat lunch together in the DataComm cafeteria. Sakai gets caught up on work on his tablet while I read stories from the Nishikyō News Service. Still no news about the old head of the Colonization Committee, Yamada, so I turn to my neglected inbox, and there’s a message from Chad.

  “Sanaa, where have you been? You’re never around the office anymore. Your stuff is here but you’re not. Get together soon? You’ve stopped answering my messages, and I’m worried about you. Let me know when you can spare a lunch break. Chad.”

  Ignore and close my inbox. I have no idea what to say to him anyway, but I’ll think of something soon. He’s going to think I disappeared off the face of the planet if I don’t contact him. He may even find someone else? I’m ambivalent about that. I don’t love him, but I have no other prospects, and the sex is fine even if it’s not meaningful. I doubt I’d find another casual dalliance so easily again. I don’t possess the womanly curves that make men buy me drinks at the bar. What the hell am I thinking? I don’t even go out anymore.

  Sigh. I move on to my favorite fiction sites instead.

  This quiet time is pleasant. I’m getting used to being in Sakai’s presence without being aware of my every movement like I was in the beginning. It’s almost comfortable, and I’m happy I went out on a limb and asked him questions about my family. He’s more real to me now.

  I eat and glance up to find him staring at his work. His hair is gray along the temples, but his face is still young. If he were friends with my mother and father, then that would make him forty-two or forty-three now. My mother and father had married young, as most people do now, and had given birth to me at twenty-two.

  After lunch, Sakai leads me out of the building and into the transitway system.

  “Where are we going now?” I sit next to him on the almost empty train.

  “We have a few hours this afternoon, so we’re going to Ku 8. You’ve never been before.”

  “No. How exciting! I’ve always wanted to visit the Extinction Ward.”

  Ku 8 is off-limits to the public. You either are employed to work there or hold classified status like Sakai. He is constantly going places that require special access. Once while viewing video surveillance of Ku 1, I saw Sakai make his way towards Chief Administrator Coen’s private residence. I was nosy and spied on him for an hour after that, then I felt guilty. I haven’t done it again since.

  “I’ve persuaded the administration into granting you access for today.”

  Our train pulls into the Ku 8 station, and we disembark with a few other passengers. Palm scanners at each exit ensure no one is allowed to enter Ku 8 without proper identification and access.

  “Everything in this ward will be packed up and shipped to Yūsei in the next few years, but still everyone is working on preserving what was salvaged from Earth before the Environmental Decline.”

  Sakai leads me into one of several holding rooms outside the station exit. The room contains a window on one wall, a door on the other, a table with bins, and a young woman attendant.

  “Place all of your belongings in the bins and step forward into the decontamination chamber,” the woman tells us. We are both only carrying our tablets in bags so those go into th
e bins. The young woman moves off to the right of the chamber to insert them into a machine in the wall.

  “Walk in and raise both your arms to the side,” Sakai instructs me. “You’ll be doused with a low-level radiation which will kill any bacteria you brought in.”

  I gulp. “Radiation?”

  Sakai ignores me.

  “On the other side, you will enter a locker room where we’ll store our bags and dress in hazmat scrubs.”

  The decontamination chamber is cold and the little whoosh of air that precedes the radiation beep makes me shiver. I try not think about the life expectancy of Ku 8 employees. You have to really love your work to be blasted with radiation every day.

  I join Sakai who is already dressed, and holding the hazmat suit in my hand, I consider my tasks with a renewed sense of purpose. If Sakai and all the people who work here are devoting their lives to saving what’s left of Earth’s treasures, then this cause must be a worthy one.

  Through the locker room door stands Section 1 of Ku 8. The Extinction Ward consists of twelve sections extending out from the city in a maze of spirals buried in the land.

  “What is this section made of? It looks like… Etooo. It looks so familiar.” I enter the long tube and wait for Sakai to follow. Stretching down each side of Section 1 are vast shelves stacked with thousands of artifacts.

  “Airplanes. Or they were airplanes. The city engineers managed to save several dozen that were sitting in a graveyard in the south. Since they were going to be used for storage, they were buried as is. The design of Ku 8 is a side-by-side spiral so some of these sections are two or three planes wide. Section 1 here is artifact storage.”

  He leads the way down the row of shelves, but I want to linger and admire every little thing. Each item is tagged, and, if my tablet hadn’t been confiscated at the door, I’d probably be able to access the section’s catalog. There are pots, jewelry, paintings (The paintings… So colorful), and two rows over are dead animals that are so lifelike, they’re actually a bit scary.