by Jude Fawley
He went back to the procedure room, where the seventh person was being drilled into. When the eighth was done, he conducted the maneuvers to exchange the two groups. For each one of the second group’s surgeries, he watched carefully, as the machine made its cranial hole, and pulled a portion of the skull away. Then the engineer deftly filled the aperture with a red liquid, then a small chip was simply pushed into the opening, and finally the machine sealed the hole back up. The engineer even did the stitching at the end, all under four minutes. In the course of slightly over an hour, all sixteen were installed and ready.
Mr. Perry was increasingly more paranoid as that hour went by. A lot could be done in an hour, he knew, and he was still worried about the absence of the several Kaishin employees. If he had really trusted any of the nineteen guards that were on the floor with him, he would have left matters in their hands, but Mr. Perry was far from trusting and not a single one of them spoke Japanese. Then there was Mr. Laurel, who seemed like the loyal, obedient type, but had perhaps developed emotional attachments to his Japanese underlings, which would render him incapable of proper leadership.
If the hidden Kaishin members had a plan to free the prisoners and resort to warfare, the sides would be almost exactly even, which were odds he didn’t like. If he could have fit more guards comfortably on the floor, he would have. The last few weeks had proven to him how quick and seemingly from nowhere a rebellion could start, and although they hadn’t won any battles against him, their spirits were far from waning. Objectively, he wondered if his paranoia was excessive, but he knew that people in his position were the first to die in high-tension circumstances like the one they were all in. A friend of his had died in a similar situation, at a former Russian company, back before Russia was deemed beyond salvaging. He had been thinking of that friend often, for the past few days.
“They’re all ready,” Saori said, indicating the prisoners.
“May I do the honors?” Mr. Perry asked.
“It would only be proper,” Saori said. She directed him to the computer that controlled the communication between the Kaishin devices, and briefly showed him how to use it. She said, “This button turns them on, and then this one forms the first pairings. This one is the one that moves to the next pairing stage, but it will be two hours before it is necessary to take that step, as was decided previously.”
“Good, very good,” Mr. Perry said, as he sat in an office chair and took a hold of the mouse. He had made his decision, one that would get him out of the room quickly, which had become his primary concern. He wasn’t going to stay there for at least another six hours, without knowing where the other employees were. “I’ll give you one last chance,” he said to Saori. “Tell me where the others are.”
Saori smiled sweetly, and said, “There are any number of places—”
Mr. Perry rapidly clicked the mouse four times, and stood up. “I think we’re done here, then. Guards.”
“What did you do?” Saori said, losing her composure. “That was not the protocol.”
“There was no protocol,” Mr. Perry said. In front of him, the prisoners had all begun to scream, some grasping and clawing at their heads, others collapsing. The screams were inhuman, as if the rapid electrical fluxes in their brains had seared away their human essences, leaving nothing but an animal in pain.
Saori panicked. She tried to reach for the computer, with the intention of turning their Kaishin off and sparing them any amount of further suffering, if she could, but Mr. Perry blocked her with his hand.
He gave orders to one of his guards. “If any of them are left alive after this, return them to their holding cells. We can discuss a time that they’ll be available for observation to the Kaishin team at some other point. That is, if this wasn’t enough time for observation?” The last sentence, he directed at Saori. Toru had rushed to her side to hold her up, since she had become unstable. Hideo also seemed disoriented, standing in a corner, saying nothing.
“What was the point of doing any of this, if you were just going to kill them?” Toru asked. “You could have done this somewhere else, quietly and discreetly, without shaming our project.”
“I thought it could be informative. Was it exactly like your rats? I didn’t notice anything different. Perhaps all of the work to be done has already been done, with them.”
“They weren’t our rats,” Toru said. “They were Reiko’s.”
“Arguing over the ownership of rats. Reiko. You’ve reminded me, I must be going.” He didn’t wait for a response, he headed directly to the elevator, followed by his three guards.
He turned around to watch the doors of the elevator shut, looking back into Kaishin momentarily before it was blocked from view. There was nothing to see, though, except a small lobby and an empty hallway.
Instead of going to the Ranch, which was his impulse, he went to the floor where the direct terminal to Karma was set up. He wanted to speak to the program immediately—about the sabotage of the cameras, and his suspicion of nearly every member of the Kaishin project. It was possible that they would all have to be dealt away with, which would set them back farther than Karma would like. But if he kept Karma informed, and asked for its help, it diminished his responsibility for the whole ordeal, even if it was a complete failure. He had done his part, faultlessly. The Japanese were just insufferable. And with any luck, Karma could perhaps unscramble the mutilated audio he had been collecting for days, and the audio would help him with his current problem.
The elevator opened up, and he rushed through the halls, following his memory around the various turns. He passed numerous Japanese employees, nearly all identical to his eye, with a minor divide between male and female. They all wore their business suits, all had black hair and brown eyes. As blinded as he was by the monotony of their appearance to him, one man caught his eye as he passed him down the hall, and instinctively he grabbed him by his shirt collar, holding on to it firmly and drawing him closer.
It took him a moment to recognize who he caught. “Noboru Wataya,” he said. “Recently fired, for his uselessness to the company. You fit that description, don’t you?”
The man said nothing, he just looked dumbfounded into Mr. Perry’s eyes. When his being captured finally registered in his mind, he began to struggle against the indignity of being held by the shirt collar in the middle of a busy hallway. Mr. Perry didn’t let go.
“And what’s this?” he said. He turned the man’s head, to find a fresh incision identical to the sixteen he had just seen performed. “Why would a former Kenko employee have such a remarkably coincidental cut?” He looked further down the hallway, where more employees were aimlessly milling about. He was one turn away from reaching Karma, and yet he had another prisoner on his hands, who he could hardly take with him to Karma’s small room. He decided to go back to the Ranch with Noboru, and then to return to Karma afterward.
“You caught me at a very busy time, but I’ll open up my schedule a little bit for you. Guards, could you please take this man into custody, and accompany me to the Ranch? I have a few questions I would like to ask him, certain things that I’m curious about.”
Noboru struggled wordlessly, but was no physical match for the men that took him by both arms and dragged him back to the elevator.
Instead of getting off at the floor of the Ranch, the elevator opened up at the floor below. On account of the recent tension in the building, he had seen to it that the entrance to his floor was sealed off with brick and mortar, so that even though the elevator would still open up on his level there was no direct way in. Instead, he had evacuated the floor below, filled it with guards, and installed a staircase at the end of a literal maze of cubicles. The staircase led up to one of the former guest rooms, which had not been living up to its intended use.
He carried a white flag that was given to him by two guards at the elevator mouth, which he held above the height of the cubicles to indicate to the interior guards that he wasn’t to be shot while passin
g. Still he was nervous as he took each corner, and nodded curtly to every guard that they passed.
The familiar, domestic surroundings of the Ranch calmed Mr. Perry, when he finally arrived. In the kitchen he leisurely poured himself and his guest a drink, before joining the group in the living room. He took his usual seat by the fireplace, and waited as the guards seated Noboru across from him. Only then did he speak to his captive.
“Once upon a time, I only used this place to persuade dissidents. Lately, I’ve been doing more interrogations, of instigators such as yourself. I would do the normal procedure, so as not to deprive you of its beauty, but sadly I’ve run out of firewood. I’ve sent for more, but for some reason firewood is hard to procure in this godforsaken city and I’m still waiting. So there will be no fire. But here’s a cigar, and we can still sit here and enjoy the atmosphere together.”
He stood up and tried to hand Noboru a cigar, but when the shaking man wouldn’t take it in his hands Mr. Perry inserted it into his mouth directly, and lit it for him with the gold lighter he kept in his pocket.
Mr. Perry resumed his place in his seat, and the interrogation. “If you have an acceptable reason for being in this building, and with that incision, then I can send you on your way, no harm no foul. I’m a perfectly reasonable man. But I have to like your reason—that is what I mean by acceptable. If you were involved in acts of treason, though, against this holy Kenko building, then your tragic fate is sealed. Do the terms seem fair?”
“No treason,” Noboru said, in a barely audible whisper.
“I get that a lot. A lot of you blatantly attack one of your supervisors, damage company property, and claim that they weren’t really your supervisor, that your supervisor mysteriously died a couple of weeks ago, and that the American that took his place has no right, the attack was warranted, and so on, so on. A lot of horribly racist thoughts and impulses is what it boils down to, really.
“What you all fail to realize is that this is still Kenko, and even though you might not like the direction it has taken, it is still the company that you’ve been so loyal to, up until recently. Our arrival has not changed that. Tell me, how did it change? The location is the same, the infrastructure is still largely intact, and they even still do science here, occasionally. How is this not Kenko, and how do you do ‘no treason’, when you carry out these subversive acts? And don’t think that being fired makes your case special in any way—this is still the company that fathered you, professionally.”
“You changed it,” Noboru said around his cigar.
“I changed it. I, who am only one ten-thousandth of the population of this company. Let’s play a hypothetical game. Let’s say that I was not Mr. Perry, the invading American, but I was Mr... Ishibashi, the ambitious young entrepreneur from Kyoto University. Let’s say I was hired at some sort of entry-level position, but quickly made my way through the ranks through merciless business maneuvers—the kind you see in the real world all the time. With me so far?
“I take over the company in this hypothetical world as well. And in this hypothetical world, the company flourishes. We make billions of dollars, create new jobs at the expense of others—yes, you are still fired, but other jobs were created as well, and the flux is what matters in the long run—does that not make my career a success? And Kenko, a success? Which employee would say that it was no longer the Kenko that they once would give their life for? Now, I ask you, what is the difference between the real world and the one I have portrayed? The machine in your head is proof that we will be a success, moving into the future—there is no denying that success. The only thing I can see that would make it a different story for you is that I am not Mr. Ishibashi from Kyoto University, but instead Mr. Perry from a university you’ve never heard of. It’s racism, it’s xenophobia at its base, that makes you so inclined to think you are righteous to defy me.
“On a larger scale, America is this Mr. Ishibashi. I have no problem calling it that, even if it is a Japanese name. We’re climbing the ranks of this business that is the world, in a struggle to reach the top. And we’re practically there, I don’t know if you’ve noticed. And now we’re doing what any good CEO would do, we’re making the business more efficient. Did you know that the whole world is now on course to have English as its official language, in just twenty years? That’s the official plan of the American government, and therefore the world. Do you know how many stupid problems that will solve? It’ll be one of the largest benchmark achievements in history. Think of the convenience, the productivity that will come out of it. People like me wouldn’t be necessary, I’m mostly just a messenger and a translator, rolled into one.
“I digress. The situation at hand, our problems. Perhaps it’s my violence you object to. But I insist to you that all the precautions I’ve taken have been necessary, and have been made necessary by the actions of all of you, who were prejudiced and hateful. You started this war, here in Kenko. Maybe not the invisible war happening around you, in this place you call Japan for convenience’s sake, but what has happened here in Kenko, that can be traced back to your actions as employees. What would I have to gain, by making you all angry, and turning you against me? Even with my guards, you still outnumber me by a very large ratio. I wouldn’t start a war I couldn’t win. But I would fight a war that I was forced into, because what choice would I have?”
“I really do have to make this short, since those friends of yours are undoubtedly running around at this very moment, wreaking havoc. Now tell me, why are you here? And why is that thing in your head?”
Noboru remained silent.
“Whatever suits you. I’m going to take you to this special room we have, in the back. Guards, would you mind?” While the guards carried Noboru off to the white room, Mr. Perry took his gun from where it hung on the wall, and then went to join them.
“You can stay out here,” he told two of the guards, to free up space. To Noboru, he said, “No matter where you go here, there are too many people in such little space. Even in my own house. I’m still not used to it. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, just fields and fields, as far as you could see. Not a lot of exciting things to do in a place like that, but at least you can move around. Me, I took up shooting. I’m almost an archetypal redneck, it’s disgusting. This is an 1873 Winchester that I keep loaded and up on the wall. It won the west, my real home. Now I’m going to ask you one more time, since I really want to know,” Mr. Perry said as he placed the tip of the gun on Noboru’s forehead. “What are you doing?”
His guard asked in English, “Should I be getting the rats?”
“We’re skipping the damn rats,” Mr. Perry said, irritated at being interrupted. “Does it sound like I need rats right now?”
“It sounds the same as it always does,” the guard said. “I have no idea what you’re saying. And usually you want rats. I asked because it looked different.”
“Just leave,” Mr. Perry said. He waited until it was just him and Noboru in the room.
“I can’t say ‘one more time’ again,” he continued. “It would spoil the rhetoric.” In one fluid motion, he worked the gun’s lever and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“What in the name of...” Mr. Perry said, turning the gun to look into the ammunition carrier.
Outside, he heard the sounds of a struggle taking place. “This isn’t possible,” he said, to no one in particular. “There are at least sixty guards in between here and the only entrance to the place.” He hid sidled up against the wall that the door was on, holding his gun like a club, waiting. Noboru tried to leave, and Mr. Perry was going to let him, when a guard quickly opened the door and shut it behind him, keeping Noboru inside.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Perry asked.
“One of the guards defected, or something. He was right outside your door, and killed Mark. Larry got him, but only barely. He was trying to get inside.”
Both men turned to Noboru, who said nothing.
“Evaporate this man
. And then follow me. Replace Mark. I need to get back to Karma, right away.”
“It’s not safe out there,” the guard said. “There’s violence breaking out on every floor, and we had to turn off the elevators.”
“Turn them back on,” Mr. Perry said. “Long enough for us to get down there. It’s an order.”
The guard turned to Noboru, took a Pen from his breast pocket, and pressed a button on the end of it. Noboru turned to smoke, leaving nothing but a metal chip when he diffused away.
Mars 10
Waiting for a Rocket
THEY WERE AT the space shuttle launch site, waiting to be let on to the ship. While they were waiting, Hardin spoke to Lucretia, since he could sense the strength of her apprehension. He moved his lips as he spoke, but instead of vocalizing the words he just projected the sound to her mind. To her, it seemed as if she was actually being spoken to—she couldn’t tell the difference.
He said, “So my original plan was to go there alone. I intended to get a job as one of these engineers they’re constantly sending up to Mars. I interviewed for this very same position, actually, right before I met you. These are the people that Space Engineering chose over me. That’s mostly irrelevant now, though.
“But if they would have hired me, I would have been taken care of. I would have been on Mars, with a place to live, food to eat, all of that. And when I wasn’t on duty I would have been secretly working on this elaborate plan I had to kill Darcy without anyone noticing.”
He noticed her looking around nervously at the engineers that were in small clumps, not too far away. He could also hear her thoughts, the ones that were concerned that they would be overheard. He told her, “Don’t worry. They can’t hear us,” then he continued what he had been saying. “But I somehow underestimated the difficulty of getting a job there. I’ve always known how saturated the job market is—people will do anything, even submit themselves to a decent education, just to get away from this place. But I thought technical skill alone would be enough. It’s hard to believe how wrong I was.