They stalemated.
“The poison metal within you is impressive, but you are still slower. I did not know your kind worked so hard on technique.”
Sadako narrowed her eyes. “You try to intimidate me, but I know you cannot keep this up for long. You will tire long before the wires burn me.”
She slashed and advanced, he turned each strike before he bled, but suffered a few rips to his coat. Sadako faked a sword stroke and spun in the other direction with a kick. He caught her ankle, boot an inch from his face. He twisted his grip, forcing her foot away as a thin plastisteel blade snapped out from between her big toe and the next, leaving a cat scratch on his cheek. She grunted, trapped for a second.
“I had to learn or die. The NSK teaches with steel, not wood.”
Mamoru threw her leg to the side and raised his weapon, still powered down.
“Why aren’t you attacking? My metal poison does not make me tired. This will end in my favor if you hesitate.”
“This is no fight, Sadako. You are committing seppuku.”
With a series of lunging swipes, she forced him back. The speed disparity allowed him to keep her Nano sword at bay, sparing his katana any damage. Scraping, buzzing, angry sounds echoed over the bare concrete parking deck. It was a game of angles. A direct meeting with such a sharp edge would destroy his blade, but the hypersonic katana could also shatter the synthetic diamond if he managed to slash it on the spine. Her technique faltered with desperation, she lost focus of her environment and overextended. Mamoru’s defense knocked her sword to the left in a wide arc that sliced a head-sized chunk out of a column.
“You are not really trying to kill me,” he said, rasping for breath.
He backed away while she struggled to free her weapon.
“Please, Mamoru… leave Japan and do not return.”
“You know I cannot.”
Sadako put her foot on the column. “Then, you must spare me a horrible death.”
She yanked her sword loose, and ran at him with the blade high and to the right. Ten feet away, Sadako leapt. She passed overhead in a somersault, swiping down at him. Mamoru kicked his legs forward, letting gravity take him to the floor.
Sadako is going to kill me if I don’t end this now.
She recovered from the maneuver and started back at him. He rolled over and flowed to his feet, pushing his powers to the point of pain. Vaporous energy billowed across his arms and shoulders, a flickering beacon that bathed the entire area in eerie light. Sadako, even with her neuralware on, slowed as he brought his body to the limits of his chi. Fire burned in his lungs, every muscle felt as though it was on the verge of peeling loose from his bones.
Her ninjato came around, going for his throat. He threw his weight forward, sliding under her strike and scoring across her side with an unpowered katana.
Sadako skidded to a halt on her knees a few feet away, having lost her grip on the blade. She cradled her side with both arms, spitting up blood from a punctured lung. The blow was not mortal, given access to medical treatment, but it left her in no state capable of fighting. She leaned forward, letting a tendril of snot-blood fall from her lip. He remained motionless, sword held out, as he let his power ebb. Mamoru closed his eyes, trying to force guilt out of his heart. At the sound of his blade sliding into its scabbard, she grunted in pain and looked up.
“F-finish it. If you leave me like this, I will be forced to kill myself.”
“Do not lie to me, Sadako. Your kind have no honor. This is a ruse intended to lure me close enough for some hidden poison.”
“You are wrong, Mamoru.” Her head sagged and she coughed up blood. “I do not wish to kill you, nor could I if I wanted to. Your power is too great. Why do you spare me? I have failed.”
Mamoru remained quiet for a moment, listening to her labored breathing. She tried to get up, gasping and collapsing to the floor when her arm gave out. He moved behind her and took a knee. She lifted her chin, exposing her neck. He put a hand on the side of her head and leaned around, staring at her dark emerald eyes.
“Beautiful things should not be broken carelessly.”
Blood seeped through her lips as she tensed in pain. Energy simmered along his arm as his thoughts ran through the wiring embedded within her flesh. Sadako convulsed, spitting a glop of red slime over her chin. Her arms fell away from her wound. Metal claws shot out of her fingertips and retracted an instant later. The glow faded and she slumped to the ground, eyes closed. He replaced her sword in its sheath before gathering her in his arms and carrying her like a rag-doll to the nearest hovercar.
“You would have won, Sadako, if you were really trying to kill me.”
A hand on the roof allowed him to invade the electronics and open the doors. He eased her to rest across the back seat, and climbed in up front. Glow seeped over his arms while his consciousness inhabited the machine. Unlike the Fūjin, embodying a hovercars came as second nature to him. After the battle, even that small exertion hurt, but he had no time to wait. The car leapt skyward with practiced grace, slipping through the narrow gap at the west edge of the parking garage. With the navigation unit part of his thought process, Mamoru turned in the direction of the Sapporo Medical Pavilion as if second nature.
Less than three minutes later, he set down on the roof by the MedVan arrival pad. Two security officers, their dark blue uniforms unkempt by Matsushita standards, approached, gesturing as if to shoo him away from an improper landing. Mamoru caused the right rear door to open, giving them a clear view of the unconscious woman in the back seat. Their shouts summoned an attendant with a hover gurney.
“W-where are we?” asked Sadako, barely awake.
Mamoru’s voice filled the cabin over the stereo. “Recover your strength. Do not fear their wrath.”
The security officers put their hands on their sidearms at the sight of the ‘burning’ unconscious man in the driver’s seat. Once Sadako was clear of the car, he jumped airborne again and closed the rear door with a roll.
Approaching four hundred miles per hour, Mamoru flew in a direct line to Shōrishima. As the glittering artificial island drew near, he slowed and aimed for the center where the NSK had established its domain. He landed on the roof of a residential tower within sight of the starport and disengaged his mind from the vehicle. Mamoru slouched in the seat as a penetrating ache ran up and down his limbs, one that he would know for a few days.
He drifted in and out of sleep for about an hour before he summoned the desire to move. A stray thought popped the driver side door, which rose with a weak hiss. He pulled himself to his feet and made his way to the edge of the roof, pausing to gaze out at the artificial city. The placid quiet let him release his anger and fear, and he attempted to bring calm to his mind.
The starport resembled a pink-orange basin scooped out of the metropolis, surrounded by a ten-story perimeter wall intended to divert the powerful thrust of starships. The sky over it came alive with thousands of flying specks of light. The hologram-lit city around it appeared dark by comparison. From this vantage, Shōrishima seemed quiet and peaceful, but he had heard stories of street warfare between the NSK and Yakuza.
He closed his eyes, took several slow, deep breaths, and clapped his hands twice. Kami, watch over Sadako. Guide her to safety. He clapped again. Cold ocean-touched air ran up the face of the building and lofted his hair. Mamoru bowed in thanks, taking it as an acknowledgement, and went to the stairs.
The starport had a modest crowd, even at this hour. Most of its traffic was cargo the NSK handled between the various corporations of Japan and points beyond Earth. With the current treaty arrangement, ninety percent of cargo leaving the country was destined either for Arcadia city on Mars or to more distant colony settlements under the protection of the UCF. All parties tended to ignore a small degree of trade with the ACC, primarily with the intention of maintaining the tenuous peace that remained on the planet of humanity’s origin.
Mamoru clung to the strap holding h
is deck against his back as he traversed the concourse, one unassuming figure among many. He followed a handful of people through security checkpoints he did not permit to detect his katana. After a short walk through a boarding tube, he settled in a seat near the back where he had “purchased” tickets for the entire row. Added to the bag with his Matsushita Oni deck, the concealed sword escaped the notice of the flight crew.
Vigilance remained for the near hour it took to get airborne. Mamoru feigned rest, but kept a wary eye out for another visit from the NSK. He glanced out the window as the hundred-meter long craft shuddered and rose from the landing pad. When it had cleared the level of the starport wall, acceleration pushed him against the seat. In seconds, the ground fell away and the midnight blue of the sky darkened to black.
He thought about Sadako, wondering where she was within the narrow strip of light that Japan had become. His homeland receded to a speck in the ocean, which soon became a shrinking blue and white marble rotating beneath him. Sunlight crept around the distant edge, shimmering over clouds that resembled soap bubbles. Daytime at the edge was still hours away from reaching his home. For a moment, he pictured Nami’s face superimposed on the Earth, the last worried look she had given him before he left the robot.
What shall I do if she is genuine?
Kill the Messenger
wenty-seven hours after Mamoru left Earth, the shuttle landed amid a plume of crimson dust. To his right, the city of Arcadia glistened like an immense snow globe in the Martian desert. A city as large as Tokyo blinked and flashed under a transparent multilayered dome supported by a framework of plastisteel spars.
“Attention passengers: Please note that atmospheric terraforming operations on Mars are incomplete. While some areas of the planet’s surface contain breathable air, many do not. Depending on the prevailing wind conditions, air quality in the area around Arcadia city can vary from acceptable to toxic. For your own protection, RedLink Corporation asks that you follow the safety procedures mentioned in our pre-flight media presentation. We are not responsible for injury or death occurring from improper use of doors. The boarding ramp will be arriving in a few minutes and a complimentary tram will take you to the city.”
He gathered his bag and took a position among the stream of passengers jockeying for position at the exit. After some time, a motorized ramp met the curved outer hull with a thump and a hiss, creating a passable seal. Inside, the air held a dry, metallic flavor that left deep breaths tasting like dirt. RedLink operated an external facility separate from the city, a sprawling shuttleport campus covering several acres that spared the logistical problems of letting huge interplanetary shuttles through the dome.
Some passengers who had elected to have their bags shipped to their hotels went right for the monorail to the city while others lurked by the baggage carousel. A handful of desperate individuals went over to a coffee and refreshments counter, rather than obtain better for fewer credits from inside Arcadia.
Mamoru followed the first wave boarding the tram, which ferried them through a sealed tube out of the network of landing pads and toward the city. Less than a quarter mile from the dome, it halted at a platform that resembled any Earthbound commuter station, except for the RedLink logo depicting a cartoon-eyed shuttle doing a figure-eight around a smiling Mars and Earth.
Towers of charcoal-colored glass and plastisteel stretched out before him, interwoven with an uncountable number of advert bots. Somewhere within this place lurked the answer he sought and his ability to return home. He disembarked, finding it strange walking on a planet with less than half of Earth’s gravity. Several locals chuckled at his awkward bounding gait until he got a feel for it and headed off down the street. The Kami were present in all natural things, however, nothing about this place was natural. One out of every five or six people he passed felt wrong somehow, like dolls even though they appeared human. It took him more than half an hour to recall the existence of synthetics.
Two design paths intent on the same goal produced two different types of being. Dolls had rigid bodies formed of plastisteel plates sandwiched between Myofiber muscles and artificial skin. High-end models indistinguishable from humans often had living brains, the mechanical body serving as a prosthetic replacement in cases of grievous injury or disease. Military versions were far stronger and faster than any human could expect to be.
Synthetics, or synths as most called them, were almost all AIs. They had plastisteel bones, but everything else approximated “living” by virtue of nanobots. By and large, the capabilities of synthetic bodies were on par with that of humans except for being unaffected by most hostile environments.
After a brutal rebellion almost three hundred years ago, the vast majority of synthetics migrated to Mars and the manufacture of synths was outlawed on Earth. Unaffected by the lack of atmosphere, they played a pivotal role in early colonization and were rewarded by assimilation into Martian society like any other ethnicity. Intellectuals still debated if they were truly alive despite being made of metal and silicon. Rumor, no more than whispers, held they had discovered a way to reprogram their maintenance nanobots and in some situations could reproduce.
Mamoru thought of Nami. What is life but finding a way to survive and adapt?
A chance encounter with a Japanese-themed restaurant made an immediate need apparent. Fortunately, the place used vat-grown fish, identical in every way to ordinary fish other than being made in forty-pound slabs. By the time his sashimi arrived, an in-table terminal had allowed him the opportunity to create an alternate identity in the network and pad his credit statement enough to be comfortable.
While eating, he left one finger on his NetMini and searched for any references to “Araphel” or “Raziel.” Only a handful of anonymous postings turned up, most of which referred to Araphel as the jewel of freedom. One entry connected it with a quasi-terrorist group that called itself the Martian Liberation Front, or MLF. A query on that term brought up thousands of entries on the official NewsNet Mars channel, ninety-eight percent of which condemned them. The handful that didn’t explored their motives in a way that made them seem noble, but sorely misguided.
He absorbed the content faster than reading would allow, integrating it with his memory as he ate. The MLF had declared war on the UCF and the ACC, wanting them both off Mars. The Red Planet had been in various stages of colonization since the year 2160. Now, two hundred and fifty-eight years later, some people bristled at the rule of an oblivious government housed on another planet.
The MLF was the only link he had to finding whatever Araphel was. The context in which the postings mentioned it made him think it to be a place, though whether it was actual or virtual remained to be seen. A waiter dropped off a plate of sliced oranges and a NetMini reader. Mamoru waved the device over it, making it beep.
The waiter bowed. “Thank you, Mr. Tanaka.”
“Gochisōsama-deshita,” said Mamoru while returning the gesture. At the confused stare he received, he put on a plastic smile and swallowed his contempt for someone who could not be bothered to learn their culture’s own language. “The food was excellent.”
According to the annoying voiceover in the automated taxi, Arcadia City was the only place on Mars where the PubTran Corporation fully integrated with the infrastructure. The recorded voice reassured him he was safe here from potentially unscrupulous living drivers who would be as likely to take him where he wanted as drive him to a dark tunnel and rob him.
The car took him through the city along a highway elevated fifty stories above the ground, driving among countless other self-driving vehicles for a touch over six miles. Advert bots cruised up to the window, soliciting support for a vote to lift the ban on hovercars. Two bots simultaneously explained he could have been at his destination in a third the time if he were the owner of an unjustly deprived modern necessity. Mamoru leaned back and closed his eyes, meditating through the occasional jostle of a lane change or turn.
“Thank you for choosing Pub
Tran Corporation for your transportation needs. You have arrived at your selected destination. Caution: This area experiences a crime rate higher than the average for Arcadia City. Please note that PubTran Corporation is not responsible for injury or death sustained as the result of an unexpected Violence Event. Have a nice day.”
Mamoru emerged through the self-opening door as it swung upward from the side of the boxy, silver vehicle. He shook his head at the whine from little ten-inch wheels as it sped off. The inanimate thing behaved as if eager to get away from this part of town. He glanced over the building at the address he lifted from the NewsNet.
Plain grey metal walls bore the scars of several laser blasts and a handful of dents from physical bullets. Beneath a thick layer of dust, the painted words Sergeant Dean’s spread off to the right of the door. A rough-looking woman with a black metal arm leaned against the structure below the “n” in Dean, flanked by six much younger, thinner, and prettier women. All had paper-white skin. Three still showed their natural black hair, one blonde, one red, and one white. They flirted while the augmented one squinted.
He paid them no mind and went inside.
The door led past an abandoned coat check to a dusty room with poor lighting. On the left, a long bar took up the majority of the wall. Tables occupied the center, clustered about columns with small holo-bars displaying Gee-Ball matches. A few men and women in well-worn clothing, some of it camouflage, sat around watching the games while sucking down synthbeer and devouring orange wads of breaded something. Mamoru had never smelled anything like the sauce they swam in. He cringed, finding it eye watering and nauseating.
Grey Ronin (The Awakened Book 3) Page 14