by Wesley Chu
Most of all though, Makita blamed terrible television programming. Bad programming, boredom and those damn weeds in his garden that just wouldn’t die. He had never been a patient man. People were supposed to become wiser and more patient as they aged. Makita found the exact opposite to be true. Maybe it was because he had used up all his patience over the course of his long life, or maybe it was because he knew his days were running low. Regardless, he could no longer tolerate wasting time.
Like he was right now. Standing here outside the office waiting to be disciplined. Fortunately, the wait was not too long.
The door opened, and the commandant of the Academy poked her head out. “Thank you for your patience, Instructor Makita. Please come in.”
He gave the commandant a curt nod and followed her inside, but not before noticing security guards appearing at both ends of the hallway. There were no such things as coincidences.
“I’m glad to see you up and about,” said Lauren, walking around to the other side of her desk. “The medics reported you took quite a beating.”
“I am as good as can be expected,” he replied gruffly. “Thank you very–”
“You can quit the fake Japanese accent,” a gravelly and now-familiar voice chirped from somewhere behind him.
His hesitation was brief. The woman never liked him. Not since he first stepped foot on campus. He didn’t much care for her either. Makita figured he could play this one of three ways. One, try to maintain his cover by feigning ignorance. Two, accuse her of lying or mishearing him. Three, quit this stupid charade.
Or four, head back home to his boring life watching bad television. Especially in light of recent developments.
Four almost won out. Almost. Makita decided against any of the above. Josie had an exemplary record. Trying to throw her under the bus wouldn’t work. Lauren wasn’t a slouch either. She was much more likely to believe her head of security than a visiting instructor who had been on campus all of one week. Besides, he had never been that good of a liar. Option four wasn’t a possibility anyway, unless he was willing to fight his way off Academy grounds. In the end, he decided to try to keep both his identity and enlist their aid. It was time to pull the get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Pull up my personnel file,” he said finally in his normal voice. “You’ll find an encrypted hidden attachment under the miscellaneous notes. Open it with base binary code: one, one, zero, zero, one, zero, one, one, zero, zero, zero, one.”
“I knew you were a fraud,” heckled Josie, chuckling. “Smelled it a kilometer away. What kind of remedial language for dummies did you use to learn Japanese? I mean–”
Lauren’s face went deathly white, and then the commandant flicked her hand and sent the hovering display over to the colonel. The snark died and was replaced by a period of extended silence interrupted by an occasional uncomfortable cough.
Makita tried to bury his smugness and keep his gaze locked on the commandant, but his smirk won out. He couldn’t stop himself from turning to preen once at Josie. Twice actually. He berated himself for not keeping his cool. It had been a while, and he was out of practice. He was never that great at keeping it in anyhow.
The commandant’s response was exactly as he expected. “What can we do to help support your mission?”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he replied. “The first thing I require is my anonymity. It’s imperative I maintain my cover. Next I need to know what the Genjix–”
An orange flew past Makita’s head. Josie’s response, on the other hand, was not what he expected. “This is crap. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Makita turned to her. “Were you not listening? I just said my identity needs–”
“I heard you, and I don’t believe you for a flaming second.” Josie hopped to her feet. “First of all, I’m a twenty-year operative with the highest clearance. Any official operation would go through me. Second of all, I’m the one on the ground. You don’t operate under my nose without my say-so.”
“Yeah but…” sputtered Makita holding up the commandant’s tablet. “I have a missive from the Keeper…”
Josie knocked it out of his hands. “That’s what I think about your stupid directive. If you were sent here, that means you must have known something was coming. Keeping me in the dark was a security risk. If I had known of a possible attack, I could have been prepared. We lost ten good people last night, including those in the ops room.”
“Lana didn’t make it?” asked Makita quietly.
Josie shook her head. “Lost too much blood by the time the medics got to her.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We couldn’t risk it.”
“Who is we, and what is this all about? If you don’t come clean, I’m going to arrest you and ship you back to Prophus Command in a straitjacket.”
Makita didn’t blame her for being furious. He would be too, in her position. His need for secrecy had a cost, and left the Academy unprepared for an attack, but it couldn’t be helped. If the Genjix had caught wind of his activities at all, he might as well have just sent them a telegram letting them know where to look.
Part of being undercover meant the operative had to know who to trust and when to divulge his mission. He decided to trust Josie. Makita looked up and waggled his finger in a circle. “Can we get a cone of silence up?”
Lauren looked at Josie, who nodded. The commandant reached under her desk. A moment later, a low-pitched resonance filled the room. The three waited as the noise grew gradually higher and quieter until it was no longer audible to the human ear. Satisfied, Makita sat down opposite of Lauren. He pointed at the empty chair. Josie chose to remain standing.
Makita shrugged and made himself comfortable. “Eight weeks ago, a location contract was put out on the black market for the whereabouts of one of our hosts. There’s usually a dozen such long-standing contracts, so it’s not a big deal. However, this one was for three million US dollars.”
Lauren’s eyes widened. “Just for a location?”
“Somebody really wants to find them,” said Josie.
“In any case, Command decided to do nothing,” continued Makita. “The whole thing felt like a fishing expedition. The host was a new one in training, well-hidden and part of the Host Protection Program. Command surmised that any activity – relocation, movement or a protection detail – would simply draw attention.”
“Why couldn’t they do it quietly?” asked Lauren.
“Because our network security sucks,” he said. “Infiltration tech has far outpaced defensive firewall measures, so our data is always potentially vulnerable. That’s why protocols are in place to cut main lines at the slightest intrusion. Speaking of a sieve…” Makita stood up abruptly and headed for the door. He swung it open and caught the guard standing outside by surprise. “Hello.” He reached for the man’s holster.
The man caught Makita’s wrist way before his fingers got close to the sidearm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Let him go,” said Josie.
“I really have lost a step.” Makita rubbed his bruised wrist when the man complied. He turned to Josie and threw a thumb at the guard. “Can you send your man away?”
“I’ve seen you in action, fake instructor,” she replied. “Niko stays.”
Makita shrugged. “You’re just creating more paperwork for everyone. You might as well come on in then, Niko.”
He closed the door behind Niko and returned to his chair. “Where was I?”
“You were explaining about the host with the location contract, but you haven’t explained what you’re doing here,” said Lauren.
Josie glared at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re not supposed to be here. At least not officially. You’re off-book, aren’t you?”
Makita pointed at Josie and grinned. “Nothing gets past our head of security here. Someone close to the Keeper has a special interest in this host and was concerned enough about the giant p
rice tag to ask the Keeper for a favor. Since we can’t use an active agent, especially one who may leave a paper trail, she dipped into the retired pool and asked me to babysit.”
“So how goes it?” asked Josie.
“How goes what?”
“The babysitting.”
Makita hesitated. “I ran into a snag. I was unable to pull the host’s identity from the HPP’s database without making it an official request and raising a bunch of flags, so I thought I’d do it the old-fashioned way. I snuck a Penetra scanner onto campus.”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “Those are strictly forbidden on campus for the hosts’ safety. If the enemy discovers the identity of new hosts who are not ready to defend themselves, then their Quasing’s lives could be at stake. It also negatively impacts a student’s training if their peers know they are a host.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Makita dryly. “But I had no other choice. The only information I have on the host is a name. Once I realized the name was washed, all I could do was to scan for them.”
“And?” asked Josie.
Makita shook his head. “I couldn’t locate them. I blanketed the entire campus over the past week and couldn’t find any host who fit their description.”
“It’s a pretty large campus, and we have thousands of students,” said Lauren.
“It isn’t that big,” he replied.
Josie frowned. “As head of security, I know the identity of all our host students. I accounted for all four last night after the attack. “
“Actually,” said Makita slowly. “There are six.”
“What?”
“Six,” he repeated. “There are different levels of confidentiality in HPP. Four are in the regular program. Two are special need-to-know cases. One is the second son of the Bhutan royal family, and the other is the one I’m supposed to be looking out for.”
Josie threw her hands up. “All that snow in Greenland has frozen their brains. Fine, there’s six hosts. Which one are you looking for?”
Lauren pulled up an image of the Bhutan royal family on her comm. Her eyes widened. She pointed at one of the boys. “That’s Ugyen, one of our third-years. I should have guessed. That boy is literally the perfect young man.” She scanned the royal family’s profile. “His real name is Dorji. That suits him.”
“My only option,” continued Makita, “is to match the host’s encrypted serial identifiers to the master historical call list. Which I believe is what the Genjix were after last night.”
“I can pull it up.” Lauren tapped a few buttons on her tablet and handed it to Makita, who began to match the numbers.
“So who is this host?” asked Niko
“My money is on that Ling boy,” said Josie. “He’s always a little too smart and polished for a student.”
“Mine is on Ruskov,” said Lauren. “That boy has impeccable manners.”
“Ruskov has two left feet,” chuckled Josie. “Maybe it’s Kim.”
The three nodded in consensus. All eyes turned to Makita.
“You’re all wrong,” said Makita as his program began to filter out the candidates. “First of all, it’s not a boy. Second of all, she’s…” His face noticeably drooped “…aww man.”
“What is it?” asked Lauren. “Is there a problem with our mystery host?”
“You can say that.” Makita slid the tablet across the table toward the commandant. “This explains why I can’t find her. You expelled her six months ago.”
Chapter Four
Home
India, one of the major battlegrounds, was devastated during the war. Ella, along with millions of other refugees, was abandoned and forgotten by the rest of the world. She found her way to a slum known as Crate Town, where she eked out a meager living, begging and stealing on the streets.
Ella was eventually taken in by the owner of a laundry and bath house named Wiry Madras. The woman was strict and used Ella as a slave, forcing her to work long hours cleaning, folding and carrying water. Wiry Madras, however, also kept Ella safe from the dangers of the streets and allowed the girl to grow and mature. It was a difficult and formative period of her life, and the reason that to this day Ella chafes at authority.
Ella melted into her seat as she rode the Tozai Line toward the east end of Tokyo. The night had lasted much longer than she had anticipated. The truck had gone straight from the Prophus safe house to the bar they used as a storage facility. It took almost as long to unload the goods as it did to load in the first place.
By the time they had finished, Lee had to take the truck back to work. Kaoru was late for the night shift at the lab at the university. Daiki and Pek had to hurry home to get some sleep before school. Ella sent Hinata to speak with a few parties who could be interested in the guns, leaving her to do all the organizing by herself. It was closer to sunup by the time she finished moving the goods from the loading area into the store room. She had considered just sleeping on the crates like a dragon on her pot of gold, but she wanted a soft bed. That, and she smelled like she had been wading through sewage the entire night.
Ella was so exhausted, she almost passed out on the way to the station. Io had to help keep her upright as she staggered into the train car to find a seat. She definitely would have missed her stop if Io hadn’t woken her. She left the Nishi Kasai Station and weaved through the lightly trafficked street, which was not uncommon at this time.
Home was a tiny worn-out low-rise in the Nishi Kasai district, affectionately named Little India. She hadn’t intentionally sought out her people in this sprawling city of thirty-four million when she first decided to settle in Tokyo; they just had especially cheap rent. The entire neighborhood was shut down for the night with the exception of a few twenty-four-hour convenience stores and breakfast shops.
Devanagari letters scrolled down the signage, and the smell of curry and marigolds and sandalwood drifted into her nostrils. An elderly couple passed by on their morning walk speaking Hindi. The familiar foods, sounds, and words were tremendously comforting in this alien world. No pun intended.
Pun totally taken.
Ella sighed. Homesick didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. She could never go back to India. It was now thoroughly Genjix-controlled. Crate Town no longer even existed. Shortly after she had fled, the regional government bulldozed and flattened the slum, and evicted all of its residents. It was now just one massive Genjix base.
Ella bit her lower lip. She wondered what had happened to all the people she had grown up around: Wiry Madras, Manish, Melonhead, Congee, Mogg, even the Fabs family, who had tried to sell her out. They were probably scattered all over the place like dandelion seeds in the wind. Crate Town was gone and would likely never rise again.
“Not like that’s a bad thing,” she grumbled. “Crate Town was a dump.”
But it was her dump, her home. She missed it. Badly. And Japanese food sucked and was weird. Who eats raw fish?
Sushi is popular all over the world.
“Barf.”
As always when her thoughts wandered back to Crate Town, which was almost every day as she made the six-block walk from the train station to her apartment, Ella ended up thinking about her outfit’s namesake, the mutt who used to live outside her old container home. The moment that mangy dog entered her consciousness, she would work herself up into tears and rage. Her eyes watered, and her hands balled into fists as she stomped all the way home. She had technically avenged her dog’s death, but her revenge felt incomplete.
Because revenge is hollow. Nothing good comes from it.
“I should have been the one to kill him.”
It would feel just as hollow regardless.
Ella finally reached her building, a raw concrete structure with flaking paint. Iron bars covered every window in the front, and only half the ceiling lights were working. The streets were immaculately clean, but that was common across much of Tokyo. She dragged her tired body through the wrough
t-iron gates and up the stairs. Stale dampness filled her nostrils. Water dripped from the ceiling, and a blinking fluorescent light flickered around every corner. A baby cried somewhere above her. Someone was shouting something incoherently on the third floor. A television was blaring from the side.
As she walked down the hallway to her fifth floor unit, a door to her left creaked open. One of her elderly neighbors, Luna or Roona or something like that, poked her head out and eyed Ella suspiciously, as if she were a thief trying to break into her home, never mind that the two of them had crossed paths dozens of times since she moved in. At Luna-Roona’s feet was her yappy jerk Pomeranian, appropriately named Yappy. The little fuzzy ball of asshole had a bark that could shatter eardrums.
Ella hurried past. She could feel the old woman’s accusatory gaze follow her until she reached her apartment door. She had tried to be friendly when she first moved in, and was rewarded by Yappy drawing blood from her ankle and Luna-Roona somehow blaming her for the bite. Ella had stopped trying to be friendly to her neighbor when Luna-Roona accused her of being a prostitute.
Her apartment was a small dilapidated room facing the back alley. There was barely enough space for a bed and a cooking range on one side of the unit and a toilet on the other. Her only window opened to a rusty fire escape that obstructed almost all of her view. She didn’t mind it that much, since the view was the building on the other side of the alley, and it was just as ugly as hers. Living directly across from her was a weird mustached man who would stare out of his window for hours on end. Ella was at first disturbed by his continued presence, but eventually came to the conclusion that he was probably mostly harmless.
She locked all four locks on the door and pushed her dresser in front of it. It was partially for added security – mostly out of habit – but also because her place was so small the dresser blocked her toilet and refrigerator.