Grey Ronin (The Awakened Book 3)

by Matthew S. Cox

  A young woman wearing a plain black skirt suit materialized in the middle of the room, in front of a wooden counter. She bowed.

  “Many apologies, sir. Our production operations have been relocated. This GlobeNet site is no longer maintained by Mitsubishi.”

  He walked around the program construct, which followed and recited a litany of offers of information. She stopped when he passed through a door at the rear of the lobby, and vanished a second later. Up ahead, a shimmering green orb floated through the virtual mock-up of the factory floor. Deep within the sphere, a hole offered a glimpse at the real world. Mamoru reached out, cradling the glowing presence in his hands. He drew it closer to his face until he slipped through the opening. His vision blurred to monochromatic green crossed by raster lines. Status readouts at the corners of the square view displayed statistics about temperature, battery life and cutter status.

  The transition through the wireless control interface was tiring. His session in cyberspace felt as if he’d been inside for an eternity. He acclimated to the sensation of having eight limbs, and pivoted his borrowed body until he found the door to the small foreman’s office. Murmured voices from behind the door made him pause. Nami and Ayame talked about their lives before. Mamoru, the giant metal spider, slouched and listened.

  Ayame spoke of her grandmother and how the woman kept a small garden full of cats. She had two small brothers. Nami consoled her, saying little about her past life other than she was ashamed of what her father had done.

  One metal leg rose up, extended forward, and knocked. The women fell silent. A minute later the handle pivoted and the door pulled open an inch. Nami peered out, startled by the sentry robot so close. She froze in place, knuckles whitening on the doorframe.

  “Nami,” said the robot, projecting a crackling version of Mamoru’s voice into the world. “It is me.”

  Fear evaporated from her face. She pulled the door wide open. “Saitō-san? It is very late.”

  “I am pleased to see you are in good health.” The arachnid shifted, pointing one leg at the exit. “I have ordered you both clothes, food, and some things to help you leave Tokyo. Delivery bots should be arriving here within minutes. There is a new NetMini. I have created a PID for you under the name Hokama Kiyomi.”

  Nami reached out and touched the spider bot. “Kiyomi?” She blushed. “I am grateful for your compliment.”

  “The account has enough credits to allow you to establish yourself in Sapporo. I have altered records and made you owner of a respectable apartment. The details are in the ‘mini.”

  She leaned her forehead against the machine. Mamoru’s vision fogged from her breath. “Oh, Mamoru, when will you return?”

  Ayame appeared in the doorway, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “I do not know, Nami-chan. Perhaps when I am finished you will no longer need to wear the name of another.”

  “I am proud of the name you have given me. I am no longer burdened by my father’s shame. Please, do not be reckless.”

  “Saitō-san, what of me?” asked Ayame. She moved up to Nami’s side, and they held each other.

  Two women who would never have crossed paths, as close as sisters. The large robotic spider shifted to Ayame. “Your detention records are gone. You should have no trouble returning to your family. I located surveillance video of the incident that portrays your encounter with the security forces in a different light. If your name crosses their network again, a dormant program will transmit it to the GlobeNet. The loss of honor would be irrecoverable. I have ensured they know this and will not bother you again.”

  Ayame fell to her knees, whispering for her grandmother, mother, and father.

  Delivery bots floated in through the window. A short train of hovering machines left a pile of boxes outside the office.

  Nami, now Kiyomi, rendered a formal bow at the car-sized robot. “Mamoru, you are not like them. You showed us kindness beyond what our station deserved. Please…” She stepped back, gazing down. “If you will not forget Minamoto now, please find me when you are at peace with who you are.”

  Ayame wrapped herself around one of the machine’s legs, hugging it. “Yes, yes. Thank you.”

  “This robot will protect the two of you as long as you remain here. Kiyomi-chan, leave Tokyo as soon as you are able and do not return. Ayame-chan, be good to your family. I must go now.”

  Mamoru ceased concentrating. The rectangular green window filled with Nami’s face pulled back and sailed into the infinite black. His consciousness rubberbanded backward through the electronic world and crashed into his meat sack of a body. The reality of his miniscule living space flared in around him, the resplendent glory of dull green-tinted plastisteel and the stench of sweat. His work in the net had taken four hours of virtual time, a little more than one in the real world. Exhausted, he allowed the soothing warmth of the Comforgel pad to take him as the distant sound of happy children downstairs carried him off to sleep.

  The scent of autumn filled Mamoru’s senses. Somewhere behind him, the shrill laughter of a little girl tore the silence, filtered through the thickness of a dream’s fog. Pain spread over the side of his head. He lifted his face from the leaves in which he had fallen and moved to his knees, cradling his head in his arms. Blue hakama pants stepped into his peripheral vision. Out of instinct, he leapt away as a wooden boken struck the ground where he had once been.

  The startled cry of a young boy, tinged with anger, came out of him as he staggered backwards, glaring up at a man cloaked in an odd familiarity. Is that my father? He rubbed the side of his head, cringing as he touched the spot where a strike had sent him face-first into a pile of leaves, the result of his entire morning spent raking. Father relaxed his combative stance and walked away to a neutral distance.

  “Mamoru, you must learn to reach deep within yourself. Your chi is waiting. Pick up your weapon and ready yourself.”

  The boy scowled at the ground. Six feet away, another wooden sword lay where it had fallen. A little girl in a black kimono laughed at him, sparkling emerald eyes half closed, yet familiar. Sister?

  “Father, why must we live so far away from the city?” Mamoru trudged to his weapon.

  “There is nothing electronic here to distract you.”

  “It’s boring,” he whined. “There’s nothing to do here.”

  “There is nothing to corrupt your focus.”

  His father raised his practice sword, a stance ten-year-old Mamoru mimicked. They circled, drawing nearer.

  “If you continue to lose your head in those toys, you will not uncover your true potential. Again, as before. Do not let me see you being lazy, or I’ll give you another good whack.”

  Mamoru struggled to deflect a series of quick but light strokes as he backpedaled. When he did not counterattack, his father pressed the attack with more speed and strength. A blur of wood ended with an agonizing crack across the shoulder blades that knocked him flat. Mamoru rolled on his side, wheezing. Again, the girl laughed.

  “Disappointing, boy.” Father stomped off. “Get up. Again. You’re not even trying to strike.”

  Mamoru grunted and rolled to his knees. “Every time I try to attack you, you hit me.”

  “He hits you when you don’t attack, too,” chirped the girl.

  Ebon hair blew in his face as he squinted at her. She gave him a silent raspberry. His sister looked to be about two years his junior. Mamoru remembered being jealous of her not having to do this. All he wanted was to go back to their city home and enter the GlobeNet again. In there, he was as strong as a Kami. In there, he had power.

  A woman emerged from the trees with a tray bearing tea. Mother.

  “Pay attention, boy. If you want food tonight, you’ll hit me once.”

  “This isn’t fair.” Mamoru grasped the boken, leaning his weight on it as he struggled back to his feet. “I can barely move. I think you broke my back.”

  His father spun the wooden blade point-down, resting both hands on th
e end. “You are correct. This should not be a fair duel. I know you find it difficult to believe, but it should be you knocking me senseless. Tap your chi.” He gestured at the forest. “We are surrounded by nature, where the Kami dwell. To be here is to be with them. Call on them.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  The woman set the tray down near the girl. “Perhaps the reports were wrong?”

  “They are not wrong.” Father slid the false blade through his belt and moved behind him. Mamoru squirmed to look up as he positioned his arms in a proper stance. He is my father. Why does he hate me so? What did I do?

  “It is the same as with your electronic toys.” Father’s hands slid down Mamoru’s arms. “The white light will empower your body. Focus your desire inward rather than outward. Think of your muscles and bones as another machine.”

  Mamoru stared at his hands, clenched around a handle too large to be comfortable. All he wanted was for his father to show some hint of affection or approval. He wanted a mere scrap of the attention they showered on his sister. His fingers whitened at the knuckles as he tried to link himself to the wooden blade. There was no presence within it, nothing for his thoughts to touch. Father gripped his arms and helped him find a proper stance before moving away.

  His father drew the boken with a flip over his hand and faced him. Mamoru scowled, focusing on his feelings of resentment. Mother and sister having tea and smiling at each other brought strength to his sorrow. He gazed down the length of his sword at the trees. Father moved in, a blur in his periphery. Mamoru wanted this to stop. Anger swelled within his heart and he screamed, springing into an unexpected forward lunge.

  Wooden blades crossed, though Mamoru’s attack shattered his father’s boken and swatted the man to the ground. The boy’s body trembled with energy and rage; blade down and to the left, he kept his head low while the fire shimmered over his shoulders. A teacup clattered onto its saucer to his left, amid startled gasps from his mother and sister. When he looked up from the grass between his toes, he caught a fleeting glimpse of luminous wisps around his forearms. Father wound up some distance away on his back with his legs in the air. Mamoru’s jaw dropped as he took on a posture of concern.

  “Father? Are you hurt?”

  A growl became a cheer as the man swung his legs down with enough force to pull him upright, seated on the ground. “That’s it, boy. Excellent!” He blinked at the cracked boken, and tossed it aside. “I am proud of you.”

  Mamoru beamed. He had finally earned his father’s affection.

  From everywhere in the woods at once, a series of muted pops rang out, followed by fleshy thumps. Blood spurted out of his father’s mouth. His white haori turned red, torn left and right by a hail of unseen bullets. Sister shrieked. Mamoru spun, but mother had already fallen over. The tea set―and the little girl―were spattered crimson.

  Six men emerged from the trees with compact rifles aimed. Their skin-clinging garments shifted in a myriad of colors, making them appear as if they wore the forest. Seconds after they walked into view, the suits turned black. His sister jumped on their dead mother, wailing, screaming at her to get up. One of the approaching men fired two more bullets at the corpse of his father.

  The world flashed white with rage and sorrow. When sight returned, his boken swung with enough force to tear a man in half through the gut. His arms throbbed with pain, streams of energy wafted from them as he raised the blade again. One attacker pointed a gun at him, but another shoved him aside.

  “We want him alive, fool.”

  Mamoru swiveled to face them. The sharp turn caused his wooden blade to fall apart. He dropped it and ran at the nearest assassin, driven by blind hatred. His scrawny arm sank to the elbow in the next man’s chest, followed by a paralytic flash of agony. The wheezing man fell in a heap, alive but out of the fight. Mamoru cradled his bloody, broken hand. His anger stalled until the screams of his sister snapped him out of a daze. He sprinted for the figure who dragged her away from Mother by a fistful of kimono, failing to spot a leg sweep from another assassin that left him sliding on his chest.

  Before he could get up, the high-pitched whine of a needlegun screamed over him, and burning swarmed across his back. Pain became numbness. His muscles lost strength as he struggled with a man binding his arms.

  The forest blurred into darkness.

  Apex Horizon

  amoru awoke with the sound of his sister’s voice screaming in his memory. Exhaustion spread through his limbs, and he lay staring at the ceiling of his small sleep chamber for several minutes before moving. He had not thought of her in years. Was it the little beggar girl staring at him last night that triggered the memory?

  A glowing button with the kanji for “open” sat at the upper left corner of the space. He bumped it with an elbow, causing the hatch to whirr open on motorized struts. Mamoru yawned and swung his legs over the side, sitting for a moment with his face balanced in his palm. Never have I slept in such squalor. Chilly air rolled in, forcing the stagnant warmth out of his nest. With it came the stench of humanity, poverty, and horrible food.

  He wiped a hand over his cheek before balancing his chin on his fist. His tiny room sat near a corner, with bunks on both sides. The facing wall gave way ten meters to his right, where chain link fence covered the open areas that looked out to the central shaft. Dozens of holo-panels flew about in the middle, advert bots. The distant, echoing voice of a soft-spoken woman urged people to contact the NSK for employment opportunities on colony worlds. Better to be prosperous on a new planet than live in the gutter of the old one.

  A stretch worked some of the kinks out of his back and made him miss his attended bath. Eyes closed, he tried to remember how it felt to have servants bathe him. In seconds, his mind went to the face Nami made while under the influence of the strange creature. Mamoru forced the sight from his memory and ambled off toward the floor’s communal bathroom.

  Hot water jets inside the autoshower were a poor substitute for Nami’s delicate fingers, but they still managed to ease life back into his body. He stood like a statue, staring at the fluttering grey privacy curtain until the dry cycle stopped. Mamoru frowned at the narrow confines of the tube, wondering what had become of his former home and its opulent bathtub.

  After dressing, he returned to his tiny rented bed and used the wall terminal to summon real food. He busied himself by going through several warm up katas in the hallway until a silver box floated out of the stairwell and approached his chamber bearing his breakfast. He ate, seething about the golden angel, the likely source of his fall from grace.

  Several men in street-weary coats covered in gang symbols came around the corner. They proceeded in a methodical search of bunks, checking for locked doors. When they found one that was, and no one responded to a knock, the shortest of their number produced a handheld device and set about hacking it open. Several of them carried handguns, which caused him to raise an eyebrow. Few CEOs allowed firearm ownership among their citizens, even one as “modern” as Yoshida-Nakano Corporation. It was possible the local security forces permitted it, or simply turned a blind eye. Either way, it was not his problem to deal with.

  Mamoru finished off his food while the men looted the bunk. Annoyed at finding nothing of value, they continued opening and closing doors until they were near enough to see the black Matsushita Oni deck resting on the Comforgel behind him. The group stood idle for a moment, sizing him up.

  “Nice hardware,” said one with neon yellow hair.

  Mamoru turned a chopstick through his fingers. “It is adequate.”

  On the left, one with black hair with an inch of white at the end took a step closer. “Let’s have it.”

  “No.” Mamoru gazed at the rotating utensil.

  The gangers shifted and grumbled, some glancing at their displayed weapons as if questioning Mamoru’s sanity.

  One grabbed his pistol. Mamoru’s right arm burst with energy. A flick of his finger sent the chopstick through the h
and as well as the gun, lodging it in the man’s hip. The now-screaming punk stared the blood dribbling down his fingers while collapsing to the ground. Captivated by the glowing light, the others turned pale.

  “I have just enjoyed a restful night, a hot shower, and a pleasant meal. It would be regrettable for you to intrude on my inner harmony at this juncture.” Mamoru slipped his vibro katana across his lap, still in the scabbard. “By your armament, I see you have little honor and less respect for the law. I too, do not rely on the security forces to settle my affairs.” He snapped his gaze up, making them jump. “Shall we agree that what is mine is mine?”

  They retreated, dragging their wounded fellow to his feet. He had worked his hand free of the chopstick, but had not been able to get it out of his hipbone. Mamoru glared as they stumbled through a door to the stairwell, waiting for one to go for a weapon again. When silence returned, he withdrew to the coffin bed and secured the hatch. Now, he had work to do.

  Apex Horizon existed beyond the realm of known space in the GlobeNet. Stylized as the bastard offspring of a nightclub, a bar, and a temple to cyberspace, it sometimes appeared on network surveys as being located far off the western coast of South America most of the way toward Antarctica. Some had tried to reach it by navigating the virtual world using program constructs simulating aircraft or boats. It existed well removed from any area of the net where corporations had interest. None of that region had been defined beyond a basic blue-on-black grid, the bones of the net.

  Those who attempted the journey were often disappointed, as Apex Horizon did not exist in physical space in the sense one would have expected. Only those skilled enough to circumvent the GlobeNet Consortium’s travel protocols could get there, as to the outside world it was the size of a pinhead. Three pixels wide by one pixel tall, the entrance needed to be targeted with specificity as the landing point for a ‘teleportation.’ Most who knew of it described it as occupying a parallel dimension through a pinhole in a false reality.