Cyber Shogun Revolution

by Peter Tieryas

  “I don’t belong here,” she said. “I just wanted to make cool mechas. But it’s too much for me . . .”

  Without any notice, they were inside another room. There were mecha toys scattered all over the ground. A young girl was playing war with them by herself. She made exploding sounds as they fought each other. Was this a younger Reiko? Bishop looked around the room. On the walls were news printouts of popular mecha battles, art from their films, and mecha statues of varying sizes. Suddenly they zipped ahead many years and Reiko was older. She was still playing with her mecha toys, but the walls were covered with new mecha paintings Reiko herself had done. They were stunning and looked like something out of an animated portical show.

  There was a ring on their front door. Reiko grabbed two of her favorite mecha toys and went outside her room. At their front door were two men. They took out their badges and Bishop realized they were Tokko. What were they doing there?

  “No no no!” Reiko yelled as she ran down the steps. “Don’t go with them,” she pleaded to her parents.

  Did the Tokko arrest her parents? He saw them put bags over their heads, cuff them, and inject them with drugs to pacify their minds.

  Suddenly they were back at Bishop’s torture camp. The black shadows were watching more greedily.

  “This is not about me,” Reiko said. “This is about you.”

  “What about me?” Bishop asked.

  “All of this is over. It was over years ago.”

  “Not for me,” he replied, but he wondered more about her past and what those Tokko agents had come to her house for.

  “Do you realize this is just a Cyber Bubble?”

  Bishop looked again at all the shadowy figures. “I think I do.”

  “Good. Let’s burst it. Just come with me this way.”

  But as she was walking away, he swore there was something unusual in her gait. It seemed stiffer than normal, as though she had a replacement leg. One of the Nazi officers who’d interrogated him had an artificial leg. She loved demeaning him, hanging him up on chains, whipping him, and asking how much he could endure. Was this woman even Reiko? Or was she an imposter, pretending to be her so she could get the truth from him.

  “Bishop! Where are you going?”

  “Stay away from me!” he warned her.

  “Bishop.”

  “I don’t know where Bloody Mary is. I don’t know who you are.”

  “You idiot!” she yelled. “This was years ago. They’re exploiting your memories to entertain themselves. Stop falling for it!”

  Bishop thought again of the thought police coming for her parents. He had to know more about her past. He followed along through a bright door.

  * * *

  —

  When Bishop woke back up, he was relieved to see Reiko, not Nazis.

  “W-where am I?”

  “In reality,” Reiko replied,

  Bishop remembered the biomech and the Tokko coming to her house. He wondered if those had been her actual memories, but she avoided his eyes. “I’ve already given you something to counteract their drugs. I’m also going to give you a shot of steroids to give you a boost and help clear out your system. You need to drink lots of water.”

  Before he could object, she stuck a huge needle inside his arm, injected, and pulled out. She handed him a bottled water and ordered, “Drink this all down.”

  He did, and tried not to think about everything he’d experienced. It had felt so real, and he shuddered as he thought of the memories he’d fought hard to suppress. Despite all his efforts, he’d betrayed himself emotionally, and this in front of anonymous strangers on a Cyber Bubble. A part of him still missed Felicia. Missed wasn’t the right word. Was there a word for the kind of regret a person could have even though they knew there was nothing they could have done differently?

  “Where’s Bloody Mary?” he asked, looking around. They were inside a motel room.

  “They’re attacking Los Angeles right now.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they’re attacking’?”

  “Bloody Mary, General Watanabe, Daniela, and another mecha are in full-out attack mode.”

  “Is the situation bad?” he asked, thinking immediately of his niece.

  “It’s devastating,” Reiko replied. “They began their attack four hours ago and have wreaked catastrophic destruction on the city. Casualties are high.”

  Bishop had to find a way to reach his niece and get her and her mother to safety. But his head was throbbing and he felt disoriented. “How did—how did you find me?”

  “You were a room away from me.”

  “I thought I saw a doctor and a nurse.”

  “I took care of them,” Reiko said grimly.

  From the vicious glint in her eyes, Bishop understood her meaning.

  Reiko handed him his portical and gun. “I found these next to you.”

  He grabbed both and turned on his portical. The feed connected again to his eye lens, but there was no connection with the kikkai, so nothing else showed up. He called Lena and Maia multiple times, but the call did not get through.

  “I’m not getting any reception,” he said.

  “The whole kikkai network is down. I’ve been trying to reach out for help,” Reiko said. “But I haven’t been able to contact anyone yet. I do know there’s a mecha station nearby because I visited it a few years ago. They should have a combat mecha there.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “You,” Reiko replied.

  Bishop frowned abashedly. “I’m ready.”

  “Can you walk?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  Bishop tried to stand, but stumbled. The effects of the drug made him nauseous. He sat for a minute, drank more water. The steroids were kicking in, giving him extra strength. It took a few more tries, but he was able to steady himself. He swung his feet around, rotated his head, and flexed his fingers. “Anything to eat?” he asked.

  She tossed him a bag of wasabi chocolate chips. He took a bite, and though it wasn’t that good, he was starving. He chomped the whole thing down.

  “Feel better?” Reiko asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Need a few minutes?”

  Bishop shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said.

  They exited the room.

  In the lobby, the motel clerk had a wild-eyed expression and warned, “It’s not safe outside.”

  “We’ll manage,” Reiko said, returning the key card.

  They navigated around the makeshift barricade the clerk had set up. As soon as they exited the motel, Bishop smelled smoke and his eyes became itchy. A man ran across the street with his clothes torn up. “Hey!” Bishop yelled at him. But he ran ahead, oblivious to anyone.

  Aside from him, the streets were abandoned. It was eerie that no cars were present either.

  “It’s four kilometers from here,” Reiko said, and they hurried their pace.

  “That whole whatever it was . . . I’m glad it’s over,” Bishop said, still having a hard time grasping it’d been a Cyber Bubble. “Thanks for, uh, rescuing me.”

  “Sure. It’ll still be a day or two before you’re fully clear. But I got all that junk out of you.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “I have a chemical defense system,” she replied.

  “That should be required for all Tokko agents.” He rubbed his head. “I never knew this was how Cyber Bubble experiences got made,” Bishop said. “Did I say anything weird to you?”

  “You kept on calling me Felicia.”

  “Sorry . . . that’s . . . that’s my ex-wife.”

  “I figured.”

  “You saw my bubble?”

  She hesitated, and by that, he already knew the answer.

  “After the Nazis sterilized
me,” he said, “they tortured me for another week . . . I was unconscious when they rescued me.”

  “Our soldiers?”

  Bishop shook his head. “Bloody Mary.”

  “Bloody Mary saved you?”

  “Hard to believe, right?”

  “You never betrayed her.”

  “No,” Bishop said. “Not out of courage or anything like that. It was just because I was so pissed off at the Nazis for what they were doing to me. It was the only thing that kept me going. It took me months of recovery. Our doctors had to regenerate my body because the Nazis tore out so many of my muscles and tendons. It took me half a year just to walk naturally. Felicia waited for me. But my brain . . . I was totally messed up in the head and couldn’t tell anymore what was real and what wasn’t. I . . . I couldn’t do that to her . . . She thought I just needed to get a job, join the police, and fight through it. But I insisted she leave and made her life miserable until she accepted.”

  “Why?” Reiko asked.

  “It was her dream to have a family. As long as she stayed with me, it’d be a reminder to both of us of what happened and what we couldn’t have. I couldn’t put her through that.”

  “Even if she was willing to sacrifice it?”

  He blinked, thinking back on how they’d yell at each other until their voices were hoarse and both were too tired to say another word, continuing only out of stupid spite. “I don’t know.”

  They arrived at the mecha station. Like many mecha stations, there was a dome and a larger underground structure. The dome had been badly damaged, and four of the security mechas within had been smashed.

  “Anyone here?” Reiko yelled.

  But there was no answer.

  They climbed over the debris and entered the inner chambers. They saw eight corpses, soldiers who had been killed at their panels by the blast. Reiko’s eyes narrowed.

  “They probably didn’t know what hit them,” she said.

  Bishop rushed to a walled communicator and tried calling his niece and sister-in-law. But he only got static.

  “Bishop!” Reiko called.

  A woman in uniform limped toward them with a gun. “Who are you?” she demanded. Her ranking indicated she was a major, and half of her body was covered in blood. She used a splint for her right leg to keep it steady.

  “I’m Captain Reiko Morikawa, army,” Reiko replied. “You were stationed here?”

  The woman nodded. “I am. What’s the security code for the week?”

  “Terra’s enigma is not an illusion but the blazing soul of Gaia.”

  She lowered her gun. “Who are you?” she asked Bishop.

  “Bishop Wakana of the Tokko. And you?”

  “Nori Onishi,” she stated. “I’m in charge of this station.”

  “I don’t know if you still remember me, Major Onishi,” Reiko said. “I visited the base a few years ago to review the Hazard mechas for the city’s fortification.”

  Major Onishi was ethnically African Japanese, a black officer with lots of medals on her uniform. “I thought you looked familiar. I remember your design suggestions for our Hazard-class mechas, Captain,” Major Onishi said. “We integrated the armor and generator changes in your proposal. They made a big difference.”

  Reiko was flattered the major had recognized her. “That’s kind of you to say. What happened here?”

  “General Watanabe and two accompanying mechas attacked us without warning. We didn’t know she’d gone rogue until she blasted the place to bits. I’m lucky only my leg got hurt. They’ve disrupted the kikkai, at least in this area, so I can’t send messages out on normal channels, but I have been trying to send OWL reconnaissance drones out to try to warn other stations.”

  “Any luck reaching anyone?”

  “Three other stations, but they’d already been attacked. They said strangers infiltrated their building and blew themselves up.”

  “Those would be Ulfhednar,” Bishop said.

  “What’s that?”

  Bishop explained about them and their involvement at the Alvarado Sento.

  Nori was irate. “That’s information Tokko could have shared earlier with the rest of the armed forces.”

  Bishop was about to defend himself, tell her they’d just learned about it, but then thought better of it. “You’re right,” he conceded. “It was an evolving situation, but we should have sent a warning out.”

  “Are there more out there?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach anyone in the Tokko,” Bishop replied. “So I have no idea.”

  “Do you have any combat mechas available here?” Reiko asked.

  “Why?”

  “So we can try to do something about General Watanabe’s mechas.”

  “I have a prototype I’ve been using,” Nori said. “If I had a good leg, I’d pilot it myself. I can show you.”

  Reiko had to help Major Onishi to the elevator, which they took twenty floors belowground. Underneath the dome was a cavernous depot for mechas.

  The mecha they saw was bigger than the Inago but had similar features, including a magnetic gun. Its armor was arrayed to make it mobile and dexterous, and its angular features made it resemble a work of samurai art rather than the typical mecha knights.

  “It looks like a taller Katamari,” Reiko said.

  “You’re familiar with the Katamari?” Nori asked.

  “I’ve piloted one for a year now.”

  “This is an evolution of the Katamari class, bringing it up in size and strength,” Nori said. “Unfortunately, the batteries for the magnet gun were damaged during the attack. But the rest is intact. Say hello to the Kamakiri.”

  “Hello,” Reiko said.

  The Kamakiri was almost 75 percent bigger than the Inago, and Bishop could see how excited Reiko was.

  They took a lift located at the Kamakiri’s foot all the way up to the bridge. Bishop noted the electrical motors for the auxiliary tech driving the hoists, steering gears, and exhaust pumps. They entered the bridge in the middle of the head. Lights were triggered by motion sensors, and the path lit the way in.

  The circular bridge normally held a crew of seven. The walls were transparent, giving them a fully open three-sixty view of their surroundings. Portical panels were minimalistic, as most of the controls were hooked into AR visuals that popped up for the user. Reiko went to the pilot’s seat. Bishop helped Nori to the munitions seat. He himself took a seat at communications.

  “You were trying to reach someone earlier?” Nori asked him.

  “My niece and sister-in-law. They’re out in Culver City.”

  “I haven’t had any luck either,” Nori said. “I keep telling myself Watanabe wouldn’t target my brother’s veterinary hospital. But I can’t get hold of him.”

  “I hope he’s okay,” Bishop said.

  “Will the Kamakiri run without a crew?” Reiko asked Nori.

  “It’ll be difficult, but I’m rerouting most of the other functions to me so you can just focus on the piloting.” She turned to Bishop. “You good at more than just reading people’s minds?”

  “I’ve served aboard a mecha before.”

  “Get over to navigation,” Nori ordered. “I’ve rerouted communications there too. I just turned on the help mode for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It treats you like you’re a first-time navigator and spells things out for you.”

  “I could use a help mode for life right now.”

  “So could we all.”

  Nori brought up the deployment interface. “The normal exit is destroyed. But there’s an alternate route we can take whenever you’re ready.”

  “Do you have access to the mecha database and pilot preferences?” Reiko inquired.

  “You want yours uploaded to the controls,” Nori surmised.r />
  “That would make things a helluva lot easier.”

  Bishop looked at his navigation panel. There were three rectangular displays. One showed a real-time map of their surroundings. The second had various measurements—for the weather, ground integrity, geographical bumps, and more. The third and final had a split screen, with cameras attached to both feet. The “helper” module informed him he could switch any of the panels around and customize fonts, adjust screen size, and map automatic calls to controls as he wanted. He could point his finger at any menu and get a pop-up describing its functions. He’d trained for this when he was fighting at Texarkana, so it slowly came back to him.

  “Hot damn!” Reiko exclaimed giddily to Nori. “You got all the preferences to match the Inago.”

  “Everything got through?” Nori asked.

  “It did. Even some of the obscure changes I made to the default settings are here. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  The Kamakiri was hooked to magnetic rails, where it moved down the tunnel to a wall. From there, it ascended straight up. A fake building was its exit, and the glass facade of the building opened up.

  “Take some time to get used to the bigger size and strength,” Nori cautioned Reiko.

  Reiko started moving, swinging her fusion sword around, playing with her Skaria magnetic gun even though it had no power.

  “This is amazing,” Reiko commented as she practiced a few punches.

  “I have a question, and you’ve got to be completely honest with me,” Nori said.

  “Of course.”

  “How much experience do you have in mecha-to-mecha combat?” Nori asked.

  “Compared to Niijima, Takemi, and Watanabe, minimal,” Reiko replied. “Are you concerned?”

  “Of course,” Nori said. “We have to stop them, and I have to plan accordingly.”