“Screw the police,” Kato said resentfully. “If they aren’t going to do their jobs, I’ll do it for them.”
“Thirty seconds,” Martin said. “Twenty nine… twenty eight…”
“Cut it out!” Kato snapped.
“Sorry.”
“I only had the money to pay for one minute,” Kato said. “Don’t take this away from me.” Kato silently prayed that somewhere, the right person was looking.
Chapter 24
Wu Chen sat opposite his second in command, Jiang Huen, at the table near the window of his hotel room. They ate a supper of noodles. “When do you think we’ll be recalled to Entara?” Huen asked.
Chen shrugged. “Not sure. I expect they’ll integrate us into the MX9 workforce at some point. Then, we’ll just be sleeper agents until needed. That would mean we get an extended stay on Earth or Mars.”
“Well, having no actual duties would be nice for a while,” Huen said. “We can explore the city in between training.” Chen nodded, as he carefully picked up a bite size piece of food with his chopsticks. He glanced out of the window, across Honmonji Park, towards downtown. What he saw next made him stop dead. Zara’s face was projected onto every single building. He turned back to Huen. He opened his mouth to say something, and then… didn’t. Huen was completely focused on his food and didn’t notice the display outside. Chen then forced himself to keep eating, just as before. He made a mental note of the Japanese words displayed, so that he could translate them later, although he could pretty much guess what they said. Soon, Zara’s picture disappeared, and the enormous vertical screens resumed their display of advertising. Huen hadn’t even looked up the entire time.
Huen eventually retired to his room. As soon as he was gone, Chen looked up the translation of the words he had seen. “Have you seen this woman? If so, contact police immediately.” Chen sighed. He thought as much. He pictured Zara’s beautiful face as shown on the buildings, her cheeks curving from her smile, her perfect teeth. He cracked open a TsingTao beer and laid on his bed. The room around Chen dissolved, and he was twelve again. His harassed mother, her careworn face belying her youth, cried and pleaded with the official of the High Council. He stood, tall and imposing, in their small living room, which was hewn directly out of the rock. “We have chosen Wu Chen to become an honored Servant of the Dynasty,” he said. “He is to come with us now, to be trained. He is permitted to bring only one personal article. We leave now.”
“No! No! No! He’s my baby! You can’t take him!” Panic as Wu Chen searched the room he shared with four of his siblings for any treasures he could take. Something, anything, which would give him a link to his family. A small stone statue of a horse, given to him by Mother when he turned ten. And, something highly illicit: a booklet describing another world. No time. The man was at the door. He shoved the book down his pants and the statue in his pocket. Something told him he was not coming back. The official’s firm hand on his shoulder. Mother’s wailing, pleading voice, as she threw herself at the man’s feet. Being led out into the hallway with the apartment door closing behind him. Then, a very long train ride through the center of Entara to the other side, and to life in a brutal military camp.
His days were spent in grueling training and conditioning, to fight an enemy that none of the trainees had any clue about. Nights spent in longing memory of Mother and home, clutching the statue. When the young Chen was sure the other eleven boys in the dormitory were asleep, he would take the booklet from its hiding place in his bedframe and read it by the dim nightlight. It described a huge planet, which teemed with all kinds of life. Crammed into its few pages were small illustrations, full of color. And many of the people lived there in societies that were free. Was it even real? Or just someone’s idea of a cruel joke?
Some nights, he and some other boys would be awakened and taken to cells, normally used to confine the weak or disobedient. The sharp blow on his back if he moved too slowly. Echoes in the cold stone corridors. Then… nothing for a while. A gap in his memory, as things too terrible to bear happened. Afterwards, back to the dorm, long before everyone else awoke. Staring at the ceiling until it dissolved into the blue planet. Dolphins leaping, glaciers, jungles… the sinking feeling as the (waking) nightmare returned.
Fast forward. Mother lay in a box in front of him. His seven siblings were crowded around him, looking strangely at the grizzled, angry, imposingly-uniformed man who bore no resemblance to the brother they had not seen in six years. After a service less than five minutes long, Mother disappeared into a hole in the wall. Chen only found out much later that she was ejected into space, so that the box could be reused. After that, he saw fresh-faced recruits. Their innocence and the spark in their eyes would be slowly extinguished, and he, Chen, now got to break them. And how. He was praised and promoted, even he chipped away more of his own soul every day. They, too, would look like haunted savages by the end.
One day, he was moved into a training center inside a large constantly-rotating wheel, which pinned him to the floor. Slowly, he was able to stand, then move, and finally fight in artificial gravity. Then… induction into the Gods! In the briefing, he learned that Master Seung Yi was in fact sleeping, not dead, and would be revived very soon. Even more overwhelming, however, were the twin facts that the blue planet was real and that we was going there.
As evening turned into night, Chen thought again about Zara. She would have long since awoken from the tranquilizer, and would now be frightened out of her mind in whatever place she found herself, aboard one of the Dynasty’s ships. Both she and Kato would be terrified; he had just seen the evidence of that.
What of the Master, Chen wondered? Who was he, anyway? Chen didn’t ask to be born into the Dynasty. He may be descended from the Master, but that was where it ended. The Dynasty had denied him love and replaced Mother with savage, crippling emotional pain. Chen’s childhood could not be replaced. He could never sleep well because of the terrible things that filled his dreams. And then they’d made him kidnap somebody so beautiful and free. She was so very un-Entaran. Chen was secretly glad Zara had stolen from the Master centuries before. He had it coming. But, the Master had left it to Chen to repay the debt.
Was it too late to right a wrong…?
The agents had all been issued Buzz units on arriving on Earth. Chen stepped into the street outside the hotel. “Buzz: get me Kato Sasake-Robbins. Hide my ID.” The dots progressed across his vision.
“Kato here. Who is this?”
“Kato, you don’t know me,” Chen said. “I have information for you. Meet me in the center of Honmonji Park at midnight. Buzz, end call.”
Chapter 25
Kato was startled and nonplussed. “Martin?” he said breathlessly
“Whassup?” came the response from the other side of the hotel room. Martin was slouched in a chair, reading.
“Some guy says he has information for me! I have to meet him at midnight!”
Martin now sat bolt upright. “Whoa! Who is it?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Right…” Martin ran his fingers through his thinning hair, apparently trying to process the news. “Are you going?”
Kato looked startled at the question. “Of course I am!” he said loudly. “I’ll do anything to find her. Even if it means putting myself in danger.”
“Are you gonna tell the police?” Martin asked.
Kato squished his mouth to one side as he thought. Eventually, he concluded: “No. I’m going to go alone. I don’t want to take a chance on ruining it. I’ll pass the info I receive along to the police, of course…” he trailed off.
At five minutes to midnight, Kato stood at what, as far as he could tell, was the center of Honmonji Park. It wasn’t very big, and it was still close to downtown Tokyo. The perimeter was lined with trees, but the center was open grass. A small lake was behind Kato, while tall buildings blazed colorfully all around. This meant that the park was never truly dark. Kato was thankful that what l
ooked like rainclouds in the afternoon had not lead to a downpour. His heart was in his mouth as he silently prayed for a good outcome of the cloak-and-dagger meeting. He looked carefully around for any signs of movement, for the mysterious man. Nothing. Kato looked down at the ground for a few seconds and saw that he had several faint, undulating shadows. They radiated in different directions from him, due to the light coming from several directions. He kept watching the time in his Buzz contact. 11:59 PM clicked over to 12 AM. Kato looked up again, surveying the park carefully. One minute past midnight. “Kato.”
The name whispered behind his right ear startled him. Kato’s head whipped around. He saw only the silhouette of a short, wiry man, standing out of arm’s reach. “Who are you?” Kato urgently half-whispered.
“Never mind who I am,” the man in black snapped. Kato thought he could detect a Chinese accent. “All you need to know,” he continued, “is that Zara has been captured by the Yi Dynasty. Seung Yi is alive. She is being transported to Ent… Ceres.”
Kato was stunned. “But… Seung Yi… died centuries ago!”
“He hibernated in the same way you did. He wants revenge,” the man said. Kato heard a scuffling noise behind him. He looked around to see what it was. When he turned back again, the man was already running quickly into the distance.
“Come back!” Kato shouted desperately. He was heading west, away from downtown. Kato ran after him as fast as he could. He was losing his only link to his daughter. “Where is Zara? How can I find her?”
Kato sprinted determinedly, but the man was gone. He had somehow melted into the shadows. Kato kept running anyway. The light from the buildings undulated. He scanned desperately all around as he ran. The next thing Kato knew, he was picking himself up off the ground. He had a nasty blow to the side of his head, and the wind knocked out of him. At first, Kato thought the man had hit him, perhaps to stop his chase. Then, he realized he had tripped over a tree stump in the dark and come crashing to the ground. At least he had hit grass. Nonplussed and desperate, Kato picked himself up and walked around the outside of the park. He held the sore left side of his head as he searched for the stranger. The search was to no avail. Eventually, Kato gave up and took a cab back to the hotel, trying to keep his dinner down as the reality of Zara’s fate hit him.
Martin met Kato in the lobby of the hotel. Kato was as white as a sheet. “Seung Yi’s got her,” Kato said.
“What? You mean his descendants?”
“No, I mean him. He’s still alive. He’s been in hibernation all this time, not dead.”
Martin blinked a few times. “Oh God…”
Kato looked Martin in the face. “Martin, he’ll torture her! I’m never going to see her again!” At that, Kato almost fainted. Martin whose arm was luckily still around Kato’s shoulder, caught him just before he hit the floor.
“Oh, crap,” Martin said. He slapped Kato’s right cheek repeatedly. An ambulance, called by the hotel desk staff, pulled up outside with its lights flashing. As the paramedics rushed in, Kato came around again.
“It’s okay!” Martin said, motioning for them to back off. “We’ve got urgent business.”
Kato and Martin stood at the front desk of the police station. Kato breathlessly told the desk sergeant about his encounter with the stranger. Two detectives appeared from a side door almost immediately. One was tall, and the other short. They escorted the men back to an interview room.
“Did you get any kind of a look at the man?” the taller officer asked, in an almost menacing tone.
“N-no,” Kato stuttered. “Except for him being short and having a Chinese accent.”
“Why on earth didn’t you tell us ahead of time?” the shorter man asked with a note of anger in his voice. “You could have worn a wire. We could have surrounded the park and used drones to track him. We would have caught him, for sure.”
“I… didn’t want to risk him seeing you first,” Kato protested. “He would have backed off.”
Both officers glared at Kato. Kato suddenly remembered something. “He misspoke when he said they were taking her to Ceres. He was going to say Entara.”
Tall Cop looked at his colleague with raised eyebrows. “That pretty much nails him as being from the Yi Dynasty, then. He knows the place as Entara.”
The shorter cop nodded. “Let’s get unmarked patrols going around the area. It’s very unlikely we’ll see him, but you never know.”
“You can trace her, if they took her off Earth, right?” Kato asked hopefully.
Tall Cop sighed. “No. They have their own private fleet. It would be very easy to smuggle somebody onto one of their freighters.”
“But, there are police in space, right?” Kato asked. “At the ETI, or wherever they’d dock?”
Short Cop shook his head. “There are customs and immigration officials, sure, but not everything gets inspected. Millions of tons of cargo pass through there each year. They could easily smuggle her through there in a container. They don’t inspect all of them.” He deflected his eyes, sighed, and then looked back at Kato. “Realistically, she’s probably already on the way to Ceres.”
Kato shut his eyes. “Oh no…”
Martin took over their end of the conversation. “Can you catch the ship?”
Tall Cop spoke. “Um… well, nothing like it has even been attempted before. A hostage rescue in space. There has of course been a heist involving a spaceship; Miss Sasake-Robbins herself was behind that one. Never a rescue, though. I’m not sure where we’d even begin. There isn’t a space police force. We will, of course, meet with our superiors, and the American FBI since she is a US Citizen.”
Kato and Martin walked the two blocks back to the hotel. Kato felt as though his heart had been sliced in two. It was even worse this time than after Susan’s death. He abruptly stopped on the sidewalk, and looked Martin square in the face. “Martin, I’m responsible for this. Zara came to save me. That’s why she’s even alive now, in the 24th century. The feud with Seung Yi was mine, not hers. He was my enemy,” he poked himself hard in the chest as he said this, “not hers.” Tears began to form in Kato’s eyes. “Zara was just an innocent kid when Seung and I duked it out in the business world. She was little more than that when he sabotaged my technology. I wasn’t the best father to her, and yet… she risked her life to save me. She gave up her life, really, since even if she succeeded she would never see Earth again.” Martin nodded. “She did this for me, Martin, and her reward is to be at the mercy of the most powerful enemy there is.”
Martin pursed his lips and nodded sympathetically. Then he shook his head. “I really wish I knew what to say, buddy.”
Kato sighed and looked down. “I honestly don’t know how I can live with myself…”
Martin spontaneously hugged Kato, to strange looks from passersby. “Don’t give up hope, Kato. She can’t be at Ceres yet. Their ships aren’t that fast. There might still be some hope.”
Kato hugged Martin back. “You’re a good friend. I hardly know you, but I can’t imagine what it would have been like going through this by myself.”
Martin smiled. “Anything for a friend.” He paused for a long moment. “I don’t know how my getting back to Mars, and my job and everything, will play out. But, there’s nothing more important than this right now.”
Kato smiled. “Thanks. That really means a lot to me.”
Martin took a friendly but authoritative tone. “Now, what do you say we go back to the hotel, get beer and pizzas, and brainstorm this?”
The crushed Kato nodded meekly. “Okay.”
Chapter 26
The hour was late but Kato was not tired. In Martin’s hotel room, the two men sat in dark, leather armchairs, at right angles to each other. Over the refreshments, Martin said: “Let’s go over what we know. Akio called you two-and-a-half days ago. At that point, he’d been in the grid for roughly fifteen hours.” Kato nodded weakly. “So,” Martin continued as he leaned forward, “Zara was taken roughly three
days ago. Now, they’d have had to get her from Earth’s surface to the ETI, and then onto one of their ships. Not sure how long that would take; maybe a day or so. Now,”—Martin gesticulated with his right hand—“the ride to Ceres isn’t quick, especially on one of their ships. We’re talking a couple of weeks…” Kato nodded miserably. “So, she’s not there yet, and won’t be for a while.” Then he looked straight at Kato. “I know someone who works on the ETI!” he said excitedly. “In space traffic control, no less! He might be able to shed some light on things, from MX9's ship movements. A guy called Marc Ferris.”
Kato shrugged. “Worth a try, I suppose.”
Martin spaced out for a second and then said: “Get me Marc Ferris, Earth Transport Interchange. Patch Kato in too.” The progress bar dots marched. And marched. And marched. After a minute or so, they looked at each other in concern.
Then, a tired voice asked: “Martin, what do you want, pal? I was asleep.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“What?”
“I need info on MX9 ship movements.”
“Okay... why?”
“I have a situation.”
“It better be good. I'm in the middle of my damn sleep period and I'm due back on shift in four hours.”
“I'll make it worth your while,” Martin said. “I'll bring you some Scotch next time I'm up there, or something.”
“Nah, don't worry about it. Gimme a few minutes to get dressed and get over to Traffic Control.”
“Take your time.”
Hundreds of kilometers above Earth, Marc made his way out of his quarters and grabbed a moving handrail. He was propelled along the circular tunnel at running speed. A few minutes later, his iris was scanned, and he entered the cavernous Space Traffic Control Center. Marc never failed to be impressed by the space: it was hexagonal, about the size of a ballroom, and completely lined with lights, screens, and people floating near them. There were around thirty controllers. In the center was a mid-air projection of the entire vast ETI, with indicators showing incoming and outgoing ships. The whole place buzzed with energy. Marc floated over to a free terminal, using a handrail for guidance. It signed him in, and straight away showed a list of MX9's recent departures. “MX9's ships depart every couple of days,” Marc said to Martin. “They go in a continuous loop from Earth to Ceres.”
Kato's War: Book Two of the Kato's War series Page 12