Kato's War: Book Two of the Kato's War series

by Andrew C Broderick

  “Good Lord!” Zara said.

  “I know, right?” Kato said. “But, you know what? It’s for the best, really. If half the MSF staff had been fired, the truth would have come out. People would have questioned the entire organization’s ability to function. Their funding would have been cut, and the amazing science they’re doing would have been jeopardized. It’s bad enough that the interstellar program’s been halted for now.”

  Zara sighed. “We owe our very existence to them. If it weren’t for the MSF, we’d still have been in cold storage, one point seven trillion kilometers away.”

  “Yeah.” After a long moment, “Isn’t it unbelievable? I mean, this whole thing? Us? Life?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” Zara said. “It’s truly stranger than fiction. Where are you now, anyway?”

  “The Andes Mountains.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I’m doing a spot of high-altitude hiking. I was watching the show on Buzz, in case you’re wondering. Right now, I’m looking at the most amazing vista you can imagine.”

  “I want pictures!”

  “They’re coming. You still in Tokyo?”

  “Let’s put it this way: I’m looking at coffee stains on Akio’s floor.”

  “Ha!”

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to hiking.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Love you too,” Zara said.

  “No. I… really love you,” Kato said. “More than you can possibly imagine. You’re the best daughter a man could ask for.”

  Silence. A tiny teardrop formed in the corner of Zara’s right eye. “Likewise, Dad. We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah…” Pause. “Well, there’s a mountain calling my name, love. Talk later?”

  “Yep. Peace out.”

  “Smell you later.”

  Chapter 39

  I’d better look pretty sharp for this, Kato thought. Many of New York’s finest men’s clothing stores were in a mall, about halfway up the Manhattan Pyramid, called Tailor’s Row. The whole area was modeled on London’s Bond Street, circa 2200. Having procured a fine custom-made business suit, Kato’s next stop was an old-fashioned barber shop, complete with striped pole, tiled floor, and a leather chair. Having been thoroughly groomed, Kato then took a forty-five degree glass elevator ride up the western side of the pyramid. Wow, what a sunset! Bands of orange, gold and pink. September was bringing cooler weather—but that would mean absolutely nothing to the residents of the pyramid, unless they chose to venture outside. The ground dropped away, kilometers below.

  Kato checked his appearance from the reflection in the elevator’s glass side. Pretty slick. He tightened the knot of his tie ever so slightly. In the human game of firsts, he would be on top. He already had been,in two history-making ways. He had also been punched to the ground once. But, I’m alive, and you’re dead, Seung Yi. Game, set and match I’d say!

  The top of Manhattan, at last. The doors opened. Two finely dressed, impeccably mannered doormen were there. “Welcome, Mr. Sasake-Robbins. Philip is expecting you. Right this way, sir.” Kato followed one of the men along a short corridor, up an escalator, and into an ornate lobby. Red and gold. Just like the staterooms on Gansevoort. Philip strode out, in the tuxedo he never seemed to be without, right hand extended. “Kato! Absolutely fantastic to see you!”

  Kato shook his hand. “Likewise.”

  “Follow me,” Philip beckoned. The two men walked into a large sitting room, of the same ornate décor, and elaborate old-fashioned furniture. Philip indicated an armchair. He bade Kato to sit, while he took the couch. They faced each other over a glass and dark wood coffee table.

  Kato took a deep breath. “First, I want to thank you, Philip. Our being able to use Gansevoort was literally a lifesaver.”

  “The honor is mine, Kato. I’m just glad everything worked out.”

  That wasn’t your attitude the first time I asked you, Kato thought. You said it was all about business. Which brings me to… “Philip, I have a business proposal for you. Two actually.”

  Philip’s eyebrows rose. “Okay…”

  “First, iridium mining. It’s a free-for-all, now that Seung Yi isn’t there to shoot down every ship that dares to venture out to the asteroid belt. You can bet others are even now readying more ships to head out there and prospect. Let’s get in on it.” Philip nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing, as he digested Kato’s proposal. Kato didn’t wait for a reply. “The second one, however, could make the first one look like child’s play. Three words: commercial warp travel.” Kato paused for effect, studying Philip. The man maintained a poker face. Undeterred, Kato continued: “They’ll restart the warp program pretty soon, once they prove it’s safe. I can get Martin Swiercynski on board, I’m sure of it. And then: Earth to Mars in two hours! It’d make even Gansevoort look like a horse and cart. Then, tourist trips to any place in the Solar System. Rapid transit of mined commodities from the asteroids back to the inner planets. And then…”—Kato looked like an orchestra conductor at the crescendo—“interstellar passenger travel! We’re surely going to be colonizing the stars. Imagine it, Philip. The technology’s ripe for commercialization. We’ll pay the Clarke Academy to license it. With your trillions as seed capital, we can be the first movers. The universe is our oyster.” The silence was abrupt, as Kato finished his monologue.

  The merest smile cracked Philip’s face. He nodded slowly. Philip’s eyes rested on Kato again. A long moment went by. “You might just be onto something, Kato old boy. Wait, where are my manners? Would you care for a Scotch? Or anything else for that matter?”

  Kato smiled and relaxed. “Sure, why not?”

  Philip got up, and poured them both a drink. Turning back towards Kato, he said: “You’ve got guts and glory. You’ve already been the richest man in the world, so your business chops are beyond reproach. I think this might just work.” Kato grinned broadly. “You didn’t have to wear a business suit, by the way,” Philip said. “Just because I always look like I’m at a wedding, doesn’t mean you have to dress up!” Kato nodded and smiled.

  “Look, we’ve both got spaceflight experience coming out our ears,” Philip said, his tone more serious now. “You’ve got the know-how, and the connections to get more of it. The most successful people listen to their intuition, and they can turn on a dime. Sometimes, you have to move quickly to take advantage of an opportunity. Well, this is one of those moments. Widespread warp spaceflight is going to be one of the defining moments of human existence, and we’re going to be right there on the forefront.” Philip extended his right hand across the coffee table. Kato looked surprised. He reached over and shook with Philip. “What, you weren’t expecting an answer so quickly?” Philip said.

  “Definitely not!”

  Philip smiled. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Well, I’ll get the lawyers working on the business side right away, and we can get on with building mining ships. And after that… ad astra.” Philip raised his glass by way of a toast.

  Kato did likewise. “Ad astra.”

  Chapter 40

  The thirty meter wide sphere had ten levels inside. Each one consisted of a dizzying array of displays, controls, sound equipment, and DJ decks. Most were not of any kind that Zara had seen before. Multicolored LED lighting shone down inside. The little remaining wall space, not occupied by gadgetry, held posters of electronic dance music artists and historic promotional flyers for raves going back hundreds of years. On each level, wildly hip-looking people with otherworldly, shimmering outfits and haircuts to match, were busy working, checking, and rechecking the equipment. The displays showed complex information, akin to a space mission control center. The center of each deck was given to a continuously moving elevator system. One jumped on a small open platform, rode it to the desired level, and jumped off again.

  Zara, Akio, his friend Kichiro, and two others, looked around wide-eyed at their surroundings on the top level. Full immersion virtual reality decks and
thought terminals punctuated the more mundane switches and displays. A window (each level had several) gave a view out over Japanboura. The sun was getting low in the sky. “This deck, and the one below, are for the special effects crew,” their guide, a young guy with a full half-meter of black spiky hair, said. “They jack themselves in, and basically become part of the music. Their mind becomes one with it. They control the effects, all of them, with their thoughts. There’s one guy for lasers, one for sprites, one for the midair displays, and one for the surrounding buildings. They’re called brain jockeys. And there’s a bunch of techs to keep it all running.”

  “Holy crap!” Zara said. “21st century technology it isn’t!” Akio bit his lip and nodded. “What level’s XFire on?” Zara asked.

  “Seven,” Spiky Hair replied, “but don’t disturb him. Truth is, he’s kind of touchy. Especially before something like this.”

  Zara shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  “I can take you around the other levels, though,” Spiky Hair said. “Let’s go!”

  On Level Six, a young, long-haired Japanese girl was working a midair display, dragging and dropping different dance music tracks. Zara and her cohorts jumped off at that level. On seeing Zara, the girl's face brightened. "Wow, I finally get to meet you! DJ Kiyoko at your service!"

  Zara chuckled. "You're a lot more famous than I am!"

  "Ah, but part of your fame is your mystery," Kiyoko said. "I can't believe you've managed to just go by your stage name and a disguise for years in the clubs. You know the rumor is you’re going to reveal your true identity tonight?”

  Zara grinned. “That’s the rumor, yes.” People went up and down the elevator system behind Zara in ever greater numbers. The electric anticipation in the sphere was palpable.

  “I want to see your setup,” Kiyoko said.

  “I’m just one floor down,” Zara said.

  Soon, Kiyoko was examining four Technics DJ decks. Her brow furrowed. She looked at Zara. “How exactly do you use these?”

  “You haven’t seen the best part yet,” Zara said. She reached under the decks and pulled out a large, sturdy black chest. It had metal corners. She opened it and pulled out a square black cardboard sleeve, thirty centimeters across. Out of this she dropped a thin disc made of a black material, the same size as the sleeve. She handed it to Kiyoko. “Just hold it by the sides—don’t touch anything else.”

  Kiyoko held the object somewhat timidly, and examined its surface closely with her young, brown eyes. “It seems to have circular grooves on it.”

  Zara smiled broadly. “Yep. The grooves are literally the sound waves of the music. 20th century technology, and still used right through the 21st.”

  Kiyoko’s eyes widened, and she looked at Zara. “Wow!”

  Zara nodded. “None of this thought-controlled mixing baloney for me. I had to get all this stuff specially made. I’m sticking to ancient, pure techniques, and some old music too. I’m gonna give them a sound they haven’t heard before.”

  “Can’t wait! You’re the first act?”

  “Yeah. I’m just the opener for you and all the rest, though.” Zara shrugged.

  “But, you’re still playing Movement! The biggest EDM festival in the world! Do you know how many DJs would kill for that?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Both girls looked out of the nearby window. One hundred and fifty meters below, the crowd was growing by the minute, and stretching into the distance like a large colony of ants. The Sun headed towards its resting place for the night, as it burnt the clouds to a golden orange.

  “Got your set together?” Kiyoko asked.

  “Sure do.”

  “Alright! Good luck! Can’t wait to hear it! I’ll see you after.” With that, Kiyoko took the next elevator platform up.

  Zara turned around and looked at Akio’s friends. “I saw you checking her out. Horn dogs!” Embarrassed grins. “And no posing behind me when I’m on. I’ll be on the big screens, visible to the whole world.” The boys nodded.

  “Five minutes,” a voice announced to all the occupants of the sphere. Zara pulled another record from her box, deftly flipped it horizontal, and placed it on the second deck from the left. She hit the start button to test it one last time. The decks were directly behind the window. Lifting her eyes slightly, she could see an enormous crowd. Glowsticks and laser pointers were already punctuating the dusk, like a sea of stars. Zara was much too high up to be seen directly from below. Is this really happening? she thought. This was scarier than hijacking a spaceship. She blew air out through puckered lips. Zara took her trademark disguise from a cluttered workspace to the right of her decks, and put it on. It molded itself instantly to her face. Princess Leia was reborn, complete with her signature hairstyle, sporting circular side buns. She smiled nervously at Akio and the others, who had retreated to her left, well out of the way.

  “Why don’t you want them to know who you are?” Akio asked.

  “Simple. I want to be known for my talent, not for my other exploits.”

  A deafening cheer rose. The MC was clearly on the suspended stage, below the sphere, kicking things off. “Welcome to Movement 2355!” The roar grew louder. “We have the finest DJ talent in the entire world, here in the greatest city on Earth.” He paused. “Heading up the bill tonight, having come up through the Tokyo club scene and proven her amazing talent, is StarPrincess53!”

  The vinyl was cued. Zara, whose image was now displayed on football field-sized screens, hit the start button. The fast, galloping beat of Jon O’Bir’s Out of Touch pumped out across the arena. The crowd began to move. Pulsating light followed. Zara’s head bobbed to the music. The second, much harder trance beats followed thirty seconds later. Zara whipped out the next track and cued it up, completely absorbed in her art. The boys watched admiringly from the side. She started the next turntable and deftly began to mix in the beats of Arty’s remix of Ferry Tayle’s track Trapeze. The beat softened, while a melodic piano rhythm repeated in the background. Cheers rose and fell like waves on the sea. Lasers pierced the night, while a colorful disc of pure light radiated undulating colors and shapes radiated out from below the sphere.

  Next came a seamless blend into the soft beat and electrifying melody of Mat Zo’s Synapse Dynamics (Arty remix). The piercing keyboard tones enraptured the dancers. Zara looked at the sea of people below. It was impossible to make out individuals any more. She could no longer read the crowd. Then, as if Zara’s mind had been read, a display appeared to her half-left. It showed a close up as a camera panned across the partiers. They were swaying slowly, heads back, hands in the air, eyes closed, caught in the trance. Zara smiled, her head still bobbing. She let Synapse Dynamics play for two more minutes. After that came a seamless cut into Adam Szabo’s Two to One. “Absolute classic,” Zara muttered to herself. The beat of this track was stronger. Two layers of trance piano melody, were overlaid with beats, and began to make the crowd move faster and really begin to dance again. Then the lyrics began:

  The second time around,

  I’ve got this burning feeling,

  Something’s come over me,

  Everything you say it burns my skin…

  After the first verse, hard-edged keyboard tones cut through the track like lasers. Now… Zara thought. Through a keyboard next to the decks, she could type messages to the crowd, which would appear on the giant screens. The sentence she entered appeared in huge, blocky, eight bit-style letters over her still-moving face. It read: “DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO I AM?”

  A cheer rose. The boys looked at each other. Zara held up three fingers to the cameras. Then two. Then one. She removed her disguise. The face seen by millions became her own. The crowd went wild. Two to One continued, with it’s simple, addictive two-layer melody. “Za-ra! Za-ra! Za-ra!” the chant came from the ground. The second verse began:

  I see it all so clear now,

  I’m falling away from yesterday,

  It’s all behind us now,


  Tomorrow will be a better day.

  The beat then took a hold again, and the one million gathered revelers moved with it. Zara smiled. “Never heard anything quite like it,” Akio whispered.

  For the next twenty minutes, Zara mixed track after track of classics that few of those gathered had ever heard. They lapped it up. Then, the pumped, sweaty girl just let her last tune play, so that the torch could be handed to Kiyoko. She blended her set seamlessly into the end of Zara’s. Kiyoko’s style was very different, as she tore up a selection of 24th century tracks.

  Akio jumped up and bear hugged Zara. She exhaled deeply, returning the hug. “You did it!” he said. Zara nodded, her eyes closed, and her arms still around Akio. Outside, lasers, 3D sprites, and the displays neighboring skyscrapers combined with the moving mass of people to create an almost transcendental experience. Zara sat down next to Akio on the couch that the boys had occupied. The other two high-fived them, and then got up to make room for them.

  Zara nodded. “Yeah, I did it.”

  “Call from Dad,” her earpiece said.

  “Accept.”

  “I’m proud of you, love. Yes, I was watching it on TV.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  After Zara had rested, the four youths snuck in and hung out in the back of other DJs’ areas while they played, including that of the mighty XFire. It was only after the exhausted performer was done that he noticed them. He jabbed a finger playfully in Zara’s direction, in a gesture of admonishment. She smiled back.

  Chapter 41

  I am Zara Sasake-Robbins, she wrote in a small journal. Zara looked up at the California surf, as it crashed onto the beach nearby. Then she resumed writing. I have led a life beyond imagination. Why me? I really don’t know. Why was Genghis Khan Genghis Khan? Destiny, or fate, I guess. I now believe, however, that there are forces at work in human affairs that we don’t understand. Some things just seem pre-ordained somehow. In some people, either good or evil seem to be perfectly formed. The rest of the time, these forces are in the diffuse and nebulous forms that most of us encounter and act out all the time. And good seems to grind away at evil over time. Little by little. I believe it wins in the end. And I believe I was meant to be on its side.