“But he’s going after Mutsuraga–” one of the men was protesting.
“I know. Bring him anyway.”
12:55PM
They were in a warehouse with aisles full of crates. Akiko didn’t spot any familiar logos and there was nothing on the walls to indicate where they were. She saw people scowling at her. Like the guards, they were a mix of different races. Akiko tried to memorize each face so that she could have them arrested when she got out. None of them spoke or made any noise.
They came to a pit covered by a transparent plastic floor. There was a latch opening a part of it. Underneath the glass, millions of ants swarmed over each other, organic dots swirling in an insect hurricane. Akiko spotted multiple skulls inside, every strip of flesh carefully and meticulously harvested for consumption. The noise they made was an orchestra of chitin thoraxes pounding, grinding, and screeching against each other. It was eerily alien, distorted wavelengths of construction, mandibles and abdomens crunching organs. Spiracles devoured gases and the dorsal aortas pumped haemolymphs through their bodies. Their language was simple. Consume, consume, consume. They did not differentiate between race, sex, religion, culture, or beliefs.
“Tell them what they want to hear,” Ben said to her. “Their American God forces them to forgive anyone who is repentant.”
“We only forgive those who are truly penitent,” Martha said. “Not those who only pay lip service.”
“I’m not repentant,” Akiko said.
Martha nodded. “I’m glad you’re honest.” She pointed to the insects. “These ants are from what’s left of South America, specially bred and genetically manipulated by rebels who were fighting off the Empire. They called them ‘ant cannibals’ because they love the taste of humans.”
One of the guards grabbed Akiko from behind, restraining her hand. Another thrust a syringe into her arm. She tried to resist, but the other guards held her in place.
“How long do you think it takes them to eat a human?” Martha asked.
“I don’t know,” Akiko answered. Her muscles were tightening and she felt her foot losing mobility. She tried to move her arm, but it was stuck in place.
“It’s different for everyone. They don’t like the taste of some people and they love others. Everyone has their own flavor. Isn’t it bizarre to think these ants have no idea you’re a human being? They have no concept of life outside of their tiny ant existence. Ants are cruel. They take slaves and they war on each other. Normally, I would ask you questions. But I don’t think there’s any point.” She signaled the guards. “What is it that you like to say to your victims? ‘If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off’?”
“Wait!” Ben shouted. “Spare her and I’ll give you anything you want.”
“Stay out of this, Ishimura!” Akiko yelled.
“They’re going to feed you to ants!”
“I’m not afraid of ants.”
“I’m amazed by the medical capabilities in the Dai Nippon Teikoku,” Martha Washington said. “They can cure anything. But when I think of the price… How many patients were butchered and given every type of disease imaginable? But it’s only because of everything the doctors learned from those deaths that the Empire can heal anything. Does that justify it? Millions were saved, are still being saved, but tens of thousands faced the most horrific deaths. I wouldn’t be able to live with that kind of decision.”
“That’s because you’re weak,” Akiko stated.
“If you call having a conscience weak, I’m guilty. Drop her hand in!” Martha shouted.
Akiko had lost control of the muscles in her body, though her face could still move. The two guards opened the hatch in the glass floor, bent her knee, and dropped her arm into the pit of ants. Even though she couldn’t move her hand, she could feel the ants swarming it. Their mandibles probed and bit. Little spurts of pain amplified, and the sporadic bites became a concentrated paroxysm of agony. The pain became unbearable as her fingers were eaten. They tore through the skin, pierced the muscles, the tendons, and the ligaments.
“How does it feel?” Martha asked.
Akiko wanted to slam her fists on the ground, writhe and free her hand. But it was locked in place and she could feel them slithering up to her wrist. She didn’t want to look down and see what was happening, but her eyes tugged in their direction. She was horrified to see a black mass where her fingers had been and she spotted nails being carried off, two of which were colored red. She felt faint. Next to Martha was her niece Jenna, mutated and full of viruses bulging from her face.
“How many have you killed?” Jenna demanded.
She didn’t remember anymore. Was it fourteen, or was it fifteen including Koushou?
“Not enough,” Akiko replied.
“Why did you kill them?”
“In service of the Empire.”
“Did they all need to die?”
Akiko hesitated to answer.
“Why did you kill them?” Jenna asked furiously.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you don’t want to say?”
“They were traitors!”
“How do you know?”
“I had evidence on each of them.”
“Me too?”
Akiko sighed. “I didn’t want to kill you. I thought it was enough to question you, but Command insisted.”
“So you followed blindly?”
“It’s sacrilege to say anything negative about our god!”
“What if it’s the truth?”
“What truth?”
“That your god can’t have children, or that your god will die.”
“Gods can’t die.”
“You’ve nearly killed the idea of our God. But you don’t really care about any of that. The only thing you fear is your own–”
“What are you blabbering about?” Martha asked Akiko.
Akiko’s hand had been removed from the ant pit. She did not look at it.
“Are you repentant?”
Akiko glowered. “I will die for the Emperor.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you? But I won’t give you that honor. You will be judged by the same measure you judge others,” Martha said. “Put her left hand in.”
The memory of her mother came back to Akiko. Her mother used to wait for her late at night as she studied for her exams, cooking her bread rolls and tea to help her stay up. Her mother thought she was working so hard to get into the Yamamoto Music School in Oahu, but secretly, she’d been working to get into the Berkeley Military Academy, despising the hours she was forced to play the violin. Right before she slept, her mother used to bring in olive oil and massage her fingers. Akiko thought it was a waste of time. But Mother always insisted.
“Not my other hand,” Akiko said to Martha.
“What?”
“Don’t put my other hand in.”
“Why not?”
“Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with? You’re all nothing but cowardly traitors and when the army comes for you, they’ll do far worse than anything you can do to me. You’ll grovel and beg for your pathetic lives and they’ll rip you–”
But as she went on, none of them seemed angry or even bothered by her words. Instead, a vicious glee shone on their faces. Akiko recognized it. They knew they were breaking her down, making her nasty and – worse – desperate.
She couldn’t resist the guard putting her hand down into the ant pit. She felt the ants throng her hand. They ate ravenously, thousands piling on top. The smell of her skin was making them greedy. The pain flared and she felt sweat break out over her body. She kept on thinking about her mother washing her hands every evening. She felt ashamed to admit she couldn’t remember a single song on the violin. The pinches were getting more aggressive as the ants cleaved at her fingers.
“Stop,” Akiko said. “Please stop!”
“Are you repentant?”
Akiko hesitated.
“Are you repentant?” M
artha repeated.
Akiko shook her head. She was Tokko, special police for the Empire. She couldn’t give into–
“Drop her arm deeper,” Martha ordered.
“No. Please no.”
“You’ve never asked yourself what the tortured actually feel, have you? You’ve been trained, been drowned maybe. But that doesn’t count because you know it isn’t permanent. I’m going to make sure you never torture anyone with your own hands ever again.”
“Please, my mother–”
“Don’t talk about your mother here! What about Jenna’s mother and father? They can’t even see her body!”
There wasn’t a sympathetic face in the whole crowd.
“She’s losing a lot of blood,” someone said.
“Patch her up.”
They took out her right hand. It was a skeleton stripped of meat from the elbow down. Akiko’s breath tightened. Her chest felt compressed. She started hyperventilating. A man had a short axe ready and placed her arm against the ground.
“W-w-what are you d-d-doing?” Akiko demanded in stutters. “W-w-what are y-y-y-you doing? S-s-stop! S-stop!”
They did not stop.
10:55PM
When she woke, she found herself in a bed. She looked at her arms and saw only two bandaged stumps. She would have started screaming if she didn’t feel numb with shock. It was too difficult to wrap her mind around what she’d suffered.
“Evening.”
It was Ben, leaning on the wall across from her, his face bruised up.
Her eyes hardened. “How are we alive?” she asked. “Why didn’t they kill me?”
“They thought letting you live with the humiliation of this would be a worse punishment than death.”
She closed her eyes and did her best to murder her tears before they could betray her.
“They made a mistake,” she said, shaking. “I’m going to kill every one of them personally and have their limbs torn off and fed to animals.”
“That’s one way of taking revenge.”
“What would you do?” she demanded, tired of his glib tone.
“I don’t know. I can’t even think about it.”
“I can get prosthetics and a gun arm with surgery, go after them before it’s too late.”
“That’ll take time and they’ll be gone by then.”
She shook her head. “Not if I just get a gun arm. It only takes a day or two and they do it all the time in Vietnam.” She checked her surroundings. “Where are we?”
“In the Anaheim County Hospital. The doctor wanted to contact your family to let them know, but they couldn’t find any–”
“No,” Akiko cut in. The memory of the night she had to tell her parents what happened to her brother came back to her. How could she explain that he’d been driven by misguided fervor to do the unthinkable? “My parents can’t know.”
“But–”
“I said, no,” Akiko snapped.
“Do you have a friend or a loved one we can contact instead?”
Akiko thought of Hideyoshi, the fact that she could never touch him again with her own hands. “I’ll contact him later… What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your hands are still in place,” Akiko said, as both accusation and verdict.
“They gave me a good beating, so I told them everything they wanted to know.”
“You idiot!”
Ben didn’t deny it. “I have to stay alive. I still have a long road ahead of me and I have a promise to keep.”
“What promise?”
“I’ll have to tell you some other time.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“After Mutsuraga.”
“You saw him?” Akiko asked.
“No. But I told them the truth about him.”
“What truth?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ben said.
“Does anything matter to you?”
“Of course,” Ben replied. “A lot of people died for nothing in San Diego. General Wakana was one of the few who tried to stop it.”
“General Wakana? How was he involved?”
“It was almost ten years ago. He arrived after one of the Washingtons killed a colonel. Tried to salvage things. But he had no chance. Like you said, maybe it’s a skewed circle and I’m just playing my part. In a few days, it won’t matter.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see. Goodbye, Agent Tsukino.”
“Don’t do anything dumb.”
“I always do.”
He left.
Akiko was flustered and wanted to interrogate Ishimura. But she wasn’t in any condition to try.
On the hospital radio, which was playing in every room, she heard an orchestra. The violinist impeccably raced down the strings, staccatos clashing. She reflected on her own life and its melodies sounded hollow and empty to her. She wanted to shut the station off, became angered thinking of the people she’d tortured. She suppressed the tears trying to broach her eyes. Crying was for the weak and she would not give in. You chose this life. Your only regret should be that you didn’t die for the Emperor. You’re the modern samurai. There’s nothing you should be ashamed of. I’m going to kill those GWs or die in the attempt. Still, she wished she didn’t have the kind of job where she felt the need to lie to her mother. That way, maybe she could have stopped the trembling in the arms that were no longer there.
TEN YEARS PREVIOUSLY
SAN DIEGO
July 2, 1978
8:05am
* * *
“What brings you to our lovely neck of the war, Major Wakana?”
The Otay Mesa base was not big, though it held an important strategic position in San Diego and had its own barricade with guards and Czech hedgehogs along the perimeter. Visitors were prohibited and all military personnel had to go through security scans. The main building was five stories tall and Major Wakana had made his way to the command station to find it empty, except for two young lieutenants playing a card game on their porticals. They had both put them down and were standing to bow.
Thirty-six year-old Major Wakana twirled his mustache, leaned on his ivory staff, and said, “Colonel Doihara was killed an hour ago in a terrorist attack.”
“Have they caught the terrorists, sir?” the one with the name sign Nomoto asked.
“It was a kamikaze attack,” Wakana said. “A white wig was found near the explosion.”
“A George Washington,” Nomoto said. “They should all be rounded up and shot.”
“We’ve tried. But this is the eighteenth attack in the past month,” the major said. “And they don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.”
“Like I was saying, round them up and shoot all of them, sir.”
“Where are your commanders?”
The other lieutenant, who had the nametag Ishimura, replied, “Not in yet, sir. Most were celebrating last night for anniversary week.”
“Then perhaps you can help me. Do you have an officer in your service named Shigeko Yoshioka?”
“Yoshioka is one of our best soldiers,” Nomoto said.
“He’s also killed many civilians and is to be arrested for war crimes under USJ Regulation 3432.23. Where is he?”
“Captain Yoshioka is not on the base at the moment, sir.”
“Where can I find him?”
The two lieutenants looked at each other. “We don’t know, sir.”
“Who does?”
“Captain Yoshioka tends to follow his own orders. He disappears at times and shows up when he pleases,” Nomoto explained. “He could be anywhere.”
“I see. So someone already told him I was on my way,” Wakana said. He leaned on his staff again and looked at Ishimura. “You look familiar.”
“I was in your Guerilla Tactics class at BEMAG,” Ishimura replied.
“Yes, I remember now. Beniko Ishimura. You were always late.”
Ben bowed embarrassedly. “Yes
, sir.”
“Lieutenant Nomoto. Go call Lieutenant Colonel Mutsuraga. Tell him I need to talk to him.”
“He doesn’t arrive until ten today, sir.”
“Tell him to hurry. Tell him I insist.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nomoto saluted and left.
Wakana put his arm on Ishimura. “Was Yoshioka here this morning?”
Ishimura hesitated.
“I understand you don’t want to rat him out. How long have you been stationed here?” Wakana asked.
“Three years now, sir.”
“So you’ve been here since the beginning of the insurrection. How is morale?”
“It’s good among the ranks, sir. Among the Americans, it’s complicated. Governor Ogasawara has made steps to improve conditions when she outlawed comfort companions and decreased the punishment term for breaking segregation laws. I feel she’d go further if Command allowed it.”
Wakana grinned. “Never thought a bunch of religious fanatics would pose so much trouble for us, did you? These George Washingtons are mean, tough, and absolutely devoted to their cause. Do you know what is it that they seek?”
“Independence.”
“Yes. Independence from the Empire. Can you imagine that? After how generously we’ve treated them, they’ve spit at our generosity. Do you know why that is?”
“Because they’re stupid and ruthless.”
“If they were stupid, they would not have lasted three years. Do you think us being Asian arouses their ire? If we were white like them, would they even blink if we went to war and annihilated other countries?”
“Respectfully, sir, the British and the Germans looked like them, but they still fought them.”
Wakana nodded. “True. Very true. So perhaps these Americans can never be tamed. I’ve heard they’re giving the Germans one hell of a time in Manhattan. Have you heard about the Hitler wing in the Louvre?”
“No, sir.”
“Hitler has a whole hallway dedicated to his personal paintings. There are cameras that record people’s expressions and anyone who laughs or makes a derisive gesture gets arrested. The French Resistance broke in and vandalized the paintings, but did it so none of the cameras could spot the problems. The officials didn’t know because anyone who saw it was afraid of getting arrested if they reported something and it turned out to be something the Fuehrer had intentionally painted.”
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