“Please don’t kill me. I’m really alive.” She offered a weak smile and pointed two index fingers at her face. “Living girl here. Not a machine.”
Mamoru glanced at the signs by the door. “I am not here to harm you.”
“Good. Those damn Jobbers scare the shit out of me.” She raked her nails through her hair. “Um, first flight out isn’t till six. Did you want me to set up a booking?”
“Should you not be grateful to… whatever a Jobber is? It would seem to me that the reason you are working here at all is they have cost your employer too much money replacing artificial workers.”
“Yeah I guess.” She fidgeted, twirling hair around a finger. “But, them Jobbers is not the smartest peeps. They get high enough they think I’m a doll and… well, you know.”
“Nice shirt,” said Sadako.
The girl forced a laugh.
“You seem like a nice young lady. I cannot wait for your company to begin its operation at the usual time. I wish to borrow one of your shuttle craft.”
Her fear evaporated in an onrush of confusion. “What? Uh… I don’t think we rent them. I’d have to check with my manager Marie, and she’s on break right now. Can you wait like twenty minutes?”
“It matters not. If your company desires compensation for the use of their craft, I will address that issue when I arrive in West City. Can you tell me the fastest way to the tarmac?”
“Um, I’m not supposed to do that.”
Mamoru reached over and examined her nametag. “Mika. Cute. All right, Mika. I would prefer to omit you from any unpleasantness. To preserve your relationship with your employer, we must create the appearance that you were not involved in my acquisition of one of their aircraft.”
Mika slid her hand towards a purse. “Uh, that sounds like it’s gonna hurt. I don’t really like that.”
A tiny dart appeared in her forehead.
“Ow.” Her eyes crossed trying to look at it. “I think it’s stuck in bone.”
Mika went limp and fell out of sight behind the counter with a muted thump. Sadako vaulted over and recovered her projectile.
Mamoru glanced at the unconscious teen girl for a moment before frowning at the gang members outside. He touched the booking terminal and linked himself to the building’s electronics, locking the front doors. After that, he hunted down and deleted the security video of their entry before he shut off the recorders and added himself to the terminal’s employee roster with full privileges to the facility.
Sadako was at his side when he opened his eyes. “I skipped the secondary tranquilizer. We have about ten minutes before she wakes up.”
“We will be in the air by then.”
He made his way along the concourse past a security checkpoint. A small door marked with Employees Only in an armored wall opened on its own at his approach, leading to the monitoring station for the body scanners. The other side continued to the secure terminal area and a hallway that hooked a ninety-degree turn to a long downhill grade. Starting about halfway, the right-side wall gave way to windows looking out over the landing area.
Sixteen non-orbital shuttles parked in a neat row in size order. The largest was half the size of the craft used to go to Mars, the smallest looked intended for about twenty or so passengers. Mamoru picked his stride up to a jog along the downhill. At the bottom, he entered a red-tiled food court lined with closed shops and a handful of sub-sentient cleaning bots. He followed the route he lifted from the computer and headed right for another employee-only door. It opened for him without protest.
“How are you doing that?” asked Sadako.
“For the next two hours, we have full access to this facility.”
“You added us to their security system?” She grabbed his shoulder. “Careless!”
“It is a self-deleting program. It will leave no trace.”
He smiled and jogged down three flights of stairs through a plain, unpainted shaft. The final door opened inward, allowing a stiff breeze trapped by the walled-in shuttleport to blast him back a step. She held on to his arm to fight the wind, pressing herself against his back as he went for the smallest shuttle.
He touched the landing strut and felt around the inner workings for a moment. Sadako twitched at a hiss from above where a hatch had opened. She took a step back, staring up at it before spinning in a cursory search for a portable boarding ladder.
Mamoru let go of the mind link and appraised the door. “Get on my back.”
“No need. I have a flea.”
He itched. “What?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a street name for Myofiber boosts in the legs. Synthetic muscle fibers. I can make that jump. It’s only two stories up.”
“Why didn’t you jump the fence before, then?”
“I did not know what was on the other side.” She sighed, squinted at the door, and leapt clean through it like a cat.
Mamoru clapped for a moment. She rolled her eyes and backed away from the entry. He concentrated on empowering his leg muscles, glowed, and jumped. His flight was not as graceful, though he aimed well enough to land in the doorway, though he flailed his arms in an effort not to fall backward. Sadako grabbed him by the belt and pulled him in, still smirking at his relative clumsiness. After a brief pat on her shoulder, he walked to the cockpit and flopped down in the single seat.
“Where does the other pilot sit?” asked Sadako
“Here.” Mamoru tapped the console. “There is an AI. Only one human pilot, who is technically the backup.”
Sadako shivered, folded her arms, and leaned on the back wall. “I don’t like that.”
“You should take a seat in the passenger cabin. It is dangerous to stand while in the air.”
Mamoru placed his hands on the console. Lights raced across the displays and up the walls as readouts, controls, and indicator lights came on.
“Who are you?” asked a genderless electronic voice. “You are not on the pilot roster.”
His mind linked to the shuttle, integrating and overpowering the AI. The decaying digital scream echoed through the cabin and sent Sadako running back to his side. He barely noticed her grip on his arm.
“It is fine. Please find a seat.” His voice came from overhead speakers. “I am having a word with the onboard AI.”
It screamed again, broken electronic noises oscillated from human to buzzing and back again. After another moment, silence.
“Greetings, sir. The shuttle is yours, you have primary control.”
Confinement spread throughout his body, a feeling as though he held his arms tucked tight to his chest and his knees curled. His desire to stretch his legs manifested as the engines firing up. A touch over a minute later, roaring ion thrusters pushed the craft skyward. He leaned to his right and the shuttle slipped in that direction, facing west. Mamoru spread his arms, extending collapsed wings.
Such a feeling of freedom. Mamoru lunged upward. While nowhere near as nimble as the Fūjin, this small, inter-coastal craft was far less ponderous than the military cargo shuttle. The ground fell away as the sky embraced him. It no longer struck him as odd that he instinctively knew which way was north or could feel his altitude. The shuttle gained altitude and picked up speed. His thoughts wandered amid daydreams of being a crane or hawk, free from the burdens of honor and gravity. Onboard night vision system let him look down at the Earth, over passing buildings as East City retreated into the distance behind him.
Words buzzed at the periphery of his consciousness, military sounding voices that demanded he identify himself and his flight plan. He poked the AI with a mental finger, urging it to handle the communication.
City gave way to grassland. From the sky, the skeletons of abandoned civilization appeared clear and obvious, dotted between the shiny web of modern plastisteel roads linking citadel-like settlements in the Scattered Lands. The sight teased Mamoru with an idea. They could disappear there. This place lacked the ever-wandering danger of the Badlands, but offered enough
civilization for comfort. He wondered what the technology was like. His life had been a mixture of contrasts. As a boy, he adored technology. As a man, he craved anachronism. Could he accept a life away from the net in trade for his sister’s safety? In trade for… Nami?
Thoughts of her brought sadness and a loss of altitude. He snarled at himself, as Kutaragi-sensei’s voice emerged from his memory to call him a coward. Only seconds remained before he was too far from the city. A hasty decision launched a text message to Hokama Kiyomi, the identity he created for her.
I must know if you share my feelings…
Her name whispered through his heart as music… Kiyomi.
Boom.
Searing pain wracked his entire body, as if his nerves ignited and burned beneath his skin. Mamoru’s scream crackled over internal speakers. His vision turned red amid endless warnings, so many, all he could make out was ‘system failure’ repeated in a hundred separate message windows. One of the engines had exploded. The AI had smoothed the unexpected takeoff over with the military. Sensors reported no hostile contacts, no incoming weapons fire, yet one by one, every mechanical system onboard his plane shut down.
The AI no longer responded, and the manual controls had become sluggish. Mamoru struggled to fly, a bird with lead weights tied to its feet. Air engulfed him, drowning him, as the inexorable pull of gravity exerted its authority over a hurtling hunk of dead metal.
Out of instinct, his mind clenched in the same response an inhuman leap triggered. Brace for impact. He could not stay airborne―this bird had become a stone. He sensed no damage to the skin. It was as though every individual component decided to fail all at the same time. The windscreen grew bright with night vision green as the ground raced up to meet him.
Blackness.
Together in Eternity
omething tickled the back of Mamoru’s throat. The urge to breathe battled his inability to do so. Pain circled his chest in bands, blood and sweat trickled into his eyes. A great cough burst out of his lungs. His next eye-watering breath drew in the flavor of burning plastic and dust. He reached up to touch his face, and plucked a broken control button out of his cheek. He let it fall with a clatter. Smoke filled the air. No light came in from the windscreen, now a cracked, featureless wall of dark metal and splintered safety glass. A few dangling fragments of clear material glowed with static, while others caught flecks of the sunrise from behind.
Mamoru turned to his right, and his mouth fell open. Sadako lay on the floor at his side, face smeared with blood. He attempted to jump to his feet but could not get out of the chair.
“Sadako!” He reached for her, screaming.
She did not react.
He tried again to stand, this time noticing the harness holding him down. Wind blew over him from behind. He twisted, gazing through frazzled hair at the cockpit door. Early morning sunrise peered over mountains and illuminated six rows of seats―all that remained of the front end. The rest of the shuttle had disintegrated along a debris trail scattered through a long trench.
She left her seat to secure my belt.
He flung the harness off and fell on his knees. His tears created clean spots on her cheek, displacing blood. Her voice spoke in his memory, afraid their time together would be short. He grasped her shoulders and gave her a light shake, but she did not stir. Mamoru lowered his ear to her nose, and felt no breath. He shuddered. Grief peaked with the thought he had only one honorable thing left to do.
Before he did, he sat up and pulled her limp body close in a tight hug to say his farewell. In his mind, she was still the little girl thigh deep in the Sumida river, trying to get a boy who didn’t have time for old ways to believe in Kami. Mamoru’s composure cracked. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he sobbed. He lowered his head, resting it against her shoulder. This burden weighed too heavily on his honor. His weakness had been her death. He would remain with her here.
Forever.
“Forgive me, sister.” He eased her flat and arranged her arms at her sides.
Mamoru grasped his katana. He slid it from the scabbard and held it flat across his belly. For a moment, he meditated on his failures. Had he been patient, they could have purchased tickets and flown in comfort. Had he remembered to secure his seatbelt, she would not have had to give her life to save his. Had he obeyed Father, she never would have been forced into a life of servitude and cruelty. Mamoru drew in a breath in preparation to slice himself open. His fingers tensed on the rubberized handle. If he was quick enough, the vibro blade would cut him in half before he fainted.
“I shall walk with you for eternity, Sister.”
A small bubble of blood swelled out of her left nostril, and popped.
She’s breathing.
He put the sword back in his scabbard and hovered over her, examining her injuries with a gentle touch. She had a pulse, albeit weak. Her right arm had broken where she struck the console, and her right leg had not fared much better. Mamoru could not tell for sure through her suit, but assumed a few broken ribs as well. He hurried to his feet and climbed through the remnant of the passenger section, squinting at the acrid fumes of burning plastic, as he moved to the shattered end. Glittering metal fragments dotted a desert-like landscape on either side of several hundred meters worth of trench. Here and there, wisps of black smoke rose from the scorched ground. Fleeting memories of thrusters coming back on at the last second returned. He had managed to regain enough control to allow a survivable crash landing instead of a crater.
The Badlands.
Woozy, he stumbled over to a large block of debris, which turned out to be the former cockpit security door. The crash had damaged it, imparting a slight curve that would make for a decent sled/stretcher. He dragged it back to the wreckage and padded it with seat cushions.
A soft whimper issued from Sadako as he slid his arms under her and lifted. She moaned once again as he set her down on the makeshift stretcher and tied her in place with scraps of cloth. He looped scavenged wiring through the top end of the door, creating a pull sled.
Metal creaked as he walked once again through the forward end of the dead shuttle. White energy licked across his arms. He bolstered his strength and picked her up, stretcher and all, and carried her out of the wreck. Once on solid ground, he eased her down and squinted at the rising sun, trying to remember where he was in relation to the map when everything went to hell.
He looked to the dim west, back to the sun at the east, and again at the dark. After moving Sadako to a patch of shade under the broken hull, he rummaged through the wreckage until he found the galley. Mamoru scavenged two cases of trendy bottled water, which he secured to the bottom of the door, below her boots. No edible food existed in any form other than beige goop, OmniSoy that splattered everywhere when the tank ruptured.
He glanced at the arid land and the mountains to the east. I must be farther from the east. He gathered the wire and headed west, dragging Sadako at a brisk walk, hoping he was closer to West City. Guessing wrong would send him deeper into the Badlands.
For two hours, he walked. Mamoru flung off his coat, no longer able to tolerate the heat. He paused to open Sadako’s suit and give her water. She moved, but seemed out of it and unaware of what had happened. It reassured him when she took the water, aware of the world enough to drink on her own.
His trek continued with renewed determination, gaining speed once he found a stretch of intact road to follow. The improvised stretcher scraped over the paving, making a lot of noise, but it slid with less resistance than over dirt. When the sun reached its zenith, he stopped again to give her water. Sadako seemed able to drink more easily that time, and he poured some over her brow. He removed his white shirt and tucked it around her head, a shield against the burning rays.
The scuff of a boot from behind made him spin. Four men in tattered leathers and jeans clustered on the far side of the road, two with ancient rifles not quite aimed at him.
“Howdy,” said the eldest, a Caucasian man in h
is later forties.
“Hello.” Mamoru eyed them with suspicion.
A scrawny dust-covered man, maybe twenty, leaned closer. “Yer wife hurt?”
“She is my sister.”
All four smiled.
“She is not available. I must get her to the city as soon as I am able. She needs medical help.”
The youngest, a boy of about sixteen, lifted a red cap from his head and put it back on. “Which city?”
“The city,” said Mamoru. “West City. All the way on the coast.”
“Ain’t nothin’ there but a wall o’ fire that’ll burn yer ass to a crisp,” said the Elder. “You’d best make for Querq. Word is the Prophet’s livin’ there now. Cain’t say for how long tho.”
One of the two with rifles used it to tap the oldest in the arm. “Paw, din’ you hear? When weez in Littlefield, dey sayin’ sheez diffurnt.”
“Diffurnt how?” asked Paw.
“She ain’t no takin’ kind to raiders. Got a whole armee now ‘tectin her. Ain’t gonna leave Querq.”
“Meh,” grumbled Paw. “Jes matter o’ time fore a big ‘nuff group comes ta tek her. You best get on over there ‘fore it happens.”
Mamoru gathered the sled cord. “Why would I do that? I don’t have time, my sister is dying.”
“Prophet kin fix ‘er. You g’won to Querq,” said Paw. “Head northwest from ‘ere, you hit path 40 inna bout free hour’ an, you just follow it west. Goes right ta Querq. Yew don’ wanna g’win from the east tho. Circle it. G’win fromma south. Old city got’s bad critters roamin’ it. Spesh-lee at dark. Right nasty.”
“Yaw, should do it,” said the youngest, now at Sadako’s side. “She ain’ lookin’ like ye got ‘nuff time what ta get to the curtain’ o’ flames. Best git ‘er to the Prophet if you wanna keep ‘er.”
Mamoru whirled on the boy, startled at not noticing his proximity. He blamed his aches and pains, crash-addled mind, and worry.
Grey Ronin (The Awakened Book 3) Page 35