by S A Asthana
Alice shook her head. “No. You need to listen to me. Marie needs to be neutralized.” She took a deep breath as if to reconfigure the data in her mind. Then, she started, “We live in tumultuous times. New Paris’ destruction — it has led us to this moment. Marie lives but… the High Council does not know. In fact, they believe she is dead. Just like they believe you are dead. But the problem is this — Marie will make her presence known one way or another.”
Alice was headed towards familiar territory. He’d contemplated the ramifications of New Paris’ destruction from the very moment he had escaped. Would it lead to a larger conflict? Would Nippon One and Port Sydney go to war? Those doubts and concerns had been in his head until now. Alice was vocalizing them, twisting his anxiety further.
“If the High Council finds out Marie is alive, they will demand Nippon One hand her over. General Crone is confident Emperor Akiyama will not do so, if asked,” she said. “There are already trade wars brewing, and a full-on disagreement about Marie would only –”
“Lead to a full-on conflict,” Bastien finished the sentence for her.
“Yes.” Alice nodded. “Therefore, it is imperative she is neutralized as soon as possible.”
“So why come to me?” Bastien asked. “Why don’t you kill her?”
“I think you will agree that Martian forces going after the Nipponese Emperor’s personal guest would only cause problems. Our intervention would be deemed an overstep of our boundaries by Akiyama. The point is to avert World War Four.”
“Certainly didn’t stop you while you destroyed my home town,” Bastien shot back.
Alice exhaled. Her right eye twitched. “Rules are rules, Bastien. The Trilateral Treaty is clear. Breaches of its articles can cause issues. You are aware — you taught us that during our training.”
“I also remember saying we are not machines, Alice. Yes, rules are rules, some black and white, but—”
“There’s always grey in the middle,” Alice cut in. “Yes, I remember. But neither you or I, nor General Crone are the ones running Port Sydney. It’s the High Council. And they do not believe in grey. It’s black or white for them. There is a cost associated with breaking that treaty, per their assessment.” She stood and paced the apartment. “I need to make sure Marie is killed. And you, given your recent ties and proximity to her, are the right man for the job. You can get close to her without raising suspicion.”
Bait. Bastien was being pulled right back into something he wanted no part of. Just as the moment when Marie sent him to kill Belle. Then Belle sent him back to kill Marie. And now the same, only this time it was Alice. I really need to re-examine my relationships with women.
“Yeah, you do, big boy,” Belle agreed, now sitting on the windowsill and staring out into the city.
“Aren’t those three Council creatures going to find out you and Crone are running behind their backs?” Bastien tilted his head. “Then what? You’ll be hunted just like I was.”
“No.” Alice wagged a finger. “I know how to keep certain conversations and information compartmentalized from them. I have, after all, administrator rights up at Port Sydney.”
“Rights given to you by the High Council,” Bastien taunted. “Rights they could very easily snatch away or simply… overlook.”
“No.” Alice shook her head. “You do not understand our technology, it seems. I keep my rights secured by way of ever changing quantum entangled passwords. They could never break them unless I allowed them to.”
“Sure,” Bastien scoffed. “The inner working of a sentient, super intelligent program that controls every aspect of its environment thwarted by… your passwords. Why not just press their off button or unplug them from the wall outlet.” Despite the derisions, Bastien figured Alice was correct in her calculation. He suspected she had spent thousands of hours, more than any other Sydneysider, drowned in the technical bowels of the colony, testing and poking the High Council’s guts. If anyone understood the program’s structure and weaknesses, it would be her. What she claimed wasn’t necessarily a delusion. Or so Bastien hoped. Perhaps, the all-seeing High Council wasn’t as powerful as previously understood. The doubts about if it could be true shook him to the core.
“Will you help me?” Alice said, her voice higher than before.
“No. I just want to move on with my life.”
“If you decline, I will… I will have to arrest you.” Despite the naiveté exuded by Alice’s adorable hazel eyes and blank expression, she wasn’t above threats. It had become the Martian way, after all. Even fawns flexed their muscles now.
Bastien stood, his arms tense, and countered in his French accent, “Not bloody likely.” He’d rip her to shreds if needed. No remorse. Nothing. Monsters didn’t have remorse, after all.
Alice took a cautious step back and swallowed hard. “Okay, look,” she pivoted, “you are going to kill on Nippon One as it is. You weren’t visiting the Yakuza for a picnic. I spied you with the duffle bag earlier. You weren’t delivering cookies. I know that. So, if you are going to kill anyway, why not kill someone who truly needs to die. For the greater good. You could save the solar system from World War Four.”
Bastien brushed aside her plea with a wave of his hand. Alice’s brows crunched, and she pressed. “Here is a chance for redemption, Mr. Righteous. I know you feel guilt. This act could undo it. Why not take the chance?”
Ah, redemption. The magic word — what all humans want at one point or another. Here was his chance indeed. Sacrifice one life to save many. It was still murder, but murder for the greater good. The end would justify the means. Alice was pressing the right buttons.
“You were a savior once,” Alice continued. “A decent man, remember? You pushed your cadets to their best and saved us from our follies.”
“I am a fallen man now, Alice — can’t you see?” Bastien held out his hands. “Nothing decent about a murderous monster. My saving days are long gone.” Emotion rushed his face and nearly melted his cold stare into tears. C’mon, get it together.
“No, those days are not long gone. You can still do good, Bastien.”
The sound of feet shuffling in the apartment cut in like a katana blade tearing silk. Bastien’s neck hairs stood. He trained his ear to the closet on his left. Silence stretched for several seconds. Alice cautiously reached for her gun when another sound, this one of something like a shoebox falling, escaped the closet. Someone was hiding in there.
Before Alice could react, Bastien rushed the closet and yanked open its door. A man of small stature stood inside staring back wide-eyed. He was unarmed and given his trembling limbs, not much of a threat. Bastien grabbed him by his unruly blonde hair, pulled him out and pinned him to the wall. He barked, “Who are you?”
“P-please, I mean no harm,” the man stammered.
“Name! Now!” Bastien raised a fist and prepared to strike. His accent was all French muscle.
“Nox! Please, don’t hurt me, Bastien.”
“How do you know my name? How did you get in? What do you want?” There were so many questions.
The man tried to control his wild breathing.
“I asked you some questions, little man.” Bastien pressed his forearm into the man’s flabby chest squeezing him into the wall like a ball of clay.
“I belong to the Rogu Collective,” he blurted.
Rogu Collective. A memory stabbed at him — Belle’s story of learning martial arts and hacking from a group called the Rogu Collective. Perhaps he was imagining the connection. Perhaps not.
“We trained Belle.” Nox said. “She’s… she’s with us.”
“What?” Bastien let go of the man and backed away. The blood in his face drained.
“She wants to see you. She told me to tell you she misses you, Bas.”
“This isn’t possible.” Bastien stammered, his eyes wet. “She’s a ghost — I watched her die.”
“She lives. Come with me. I can take you to her.”
A strange h
eat warmed Bastien’s insides like hot tea on a cold Martian morning. He almost cracked a dumb, goofy smile. The thought of Belle being alive made him giddy.
“I’m not your assassin,” he spoke to Alice over his shoulder, wiping away a tear from his left eye. “I don’t want any part of it.”
Turning back to Nox, he demanded, “Take me to Belle.”
CHAPTER 4: MARIE
The ever-present lunar night was still. A stagnant cloud of recycled oxygen stuffed Nippon One’s massive dome, and the manufactured, temperate seventy degrees pressed against Marie’s white skin. She stood atop a balcony on the 140th floor royal penthouse, soaking in the metropolis’s sights and sounds. They calmed her some. Police sirens, distant laughter, twinkling neon signs — all better than the deafening screams and blinding explosions of war. Skyscrapers and spires made for a more soothing experience. The buildings spread away in the distance towards the Tycho crater’s terraced eastern wall, their concrete and steel blanketed in permanent shadow. The crater’s three-mile high rim overlooked the city, its height mirrored by only a handful of buildings. Atop that great elevation, the glass dome shot out of lunar bedrock and reached for the stars, only to eventually curve gently downwards and cup the crater and the city within its entirety. It was all a brilliant display of human ingenuity. A confluence of disparate technological and scientific achievements comprising one of humanity’s last enclaves.
Marie filled her chest with the synthetic air. The smell of machine — cold steel and burnt plastic matter — tugged at her nostrils. There were a few more breaths, each one sharper than the last. Nausea twisted her insides. At first, it seeped into her stomach and then ballooned upwards. It permeated into her chest and throat, filling her mouth with bile. Narcotic withdrawal was tightening its grip around her like a python. Dreadful as it was, Marie was prepared this time.
She crouched into fetal position, letting her simple white gown drape the balcony’s grey concrete floor. Her arms curled around her stomach. Nausea was always the first withdrawal symptom. The second and third were worse — sweats and a limb-trembling fever. She shook as if she were a wet dog. Slumped to her side, her knees were now pressed into her breasts. Her teeth chattered. Her black split-ends dripped with perspiration.
No one was coming to her aid. It had been the same the last round, and the one before it. She was surrounded by a couple million humans but she was the loneliest she’d ever been. No Hafiz to tend to her every request, nor Dr. Kawasaki. No slaves to fulfill her every whim. No Bastien. And no euphoria to end the withdrawal and resume her addiction.
Marie’s reflection suffered across the balcony’s glass double doors. It writhed like a fish out of water. Spittle clung to the corner of her mouth. “Somebody h-help me,” she mumbled. Her father stood a few feet from her — a convincing hallucination. He watched with cold, black eyes. “Help me,” she whispered. The apparition didn’t respond. It stood stoic. Marie blinked and with each flap of her eyelid, the specter of him lost an article of clothing. First the ruffled shirt, then the soiled boots, finally the black pants — they all disappeared until a middle-aged, pale body stood with penis erect.
She vomited.
The figure took a step forward and said, “I love you, Marie.” It was a voice brimmed with evil. Another step. She blinked in terror and he disappeared, his heavy breathing overtaken by laughter. Probably some reveler on the streets below. Or was it someone closer?
There were giggles like schoolgirls taunting a pariah in a schoolyard. The balcony’s glass doors slid open to reveal a group of young women, geishas barely out of their teens. They threw daggers of stares with apathetic amusement. Bright red lips parted to reveal perfect, contoured teeth painted black. Snickers followed and stabbed Marie with their judgment.
“The mighty goddess.” A girl pointed, her cake-white powdered face twisting with joy. She took small steps forward, the folds of her ornate kimono shifting. Kneeling next to Marie, she spoke in Japanese, “Yariman.” The other geishas cackled in the background. Marie didn’t know what was being said of her, but as the only gaijin in Akiyama’s harem she had an idea. She wasn’t being lauded.
The girl continued to hurl words that rang out like insults. At one point, she held up a sweat-drenched strand of Marie’s hair and sniggered. The others echoed the sound. Leaning within inches of Marie’s face, the geisha mocked in a heavy accent, “You are no goddess. You are just a shriveled-up flower.”
Her laughter escalated and her eyes widened like that of a cake-faced demon. Marie wanted to shoot steely tentacles out her back and stab the girl’s skull. But she could not. Her cyborg features had been disabled the day of her arrival, along with her access to euphoria. The family deemed it all necessary for their safety as her new host. Marie grunted with frustration. No tentacles meant she was less capable of not just attacking, but also defending. Although she wasn’t completely useless.
Despite crippling shakes, she mustered the strength to scratch the geisha’s face with jagged fingernails. Crimson lines cut down a ghost-pale cheek, and the girl shrieked in pain. She fell back clutching her face. The other geishas rushed to aid, some hurling insults at Marie.
The former queen of New Paris cursed, “Va te faire foutre!” The hostility kicked away the withdrawal’s symptoms, at least partly. The shaking stopped. Marie kept her wild stare pinned on the girls.
They carried away the injured member of the harem back into the royal penthouse. No more giggling, nor tormenting. The play-yard bullies had been thwarted, at least for now. Marie sat upright and wiped bile from her chin. She licked the sweat off her lips, tasting its saltiness. Then she stood upon wobbling legs. The manufactured fresh air had managed to dull the withdrawal’s aggressiveness. The open balcony of Akiyama’s penthouse was a better place to deal with the symptoms than the confines of her claustrophobic private bedroom.
Tycho crater’s central mountains loomed to her right. Even at this distance, they were giants, more than 6,500 feet and the only landmass in Nippon One not blanketed in artificially generated gravity. One could experience lunar G on those peaks right in the middle of this bustling metropolis. Freed from the confines of human created systems and processes. Nippon One’s beacon, a massive red light shooting a lone beam into space, sat atop the highest peak’s summit. It was the city’s symbol of prosperity.
“Fuck these people,” Marie said with a sneer toward no one but herself.
Leaving the balcony, she toddled back into the penthouse. The harem wing, her home since her arrival, roared with opulence. Modern grey walls enclosed golden statues of samurai. The striking replicas of Japan’s past stood around the room in unique poses, their bright uniforms contrasting the black silken curtains hanging across windows and doors. She meandered around drawn swords on display and jutting armors. After her dull march that lasted longer than it should have, Marie made it to her bedroom’s door. Her body wanted nothing more than to drown in her bed’s satin sheets. But her mind, her spirit — they wanted something else.
A narrow hall stretched away behind her, its walls adorned with traditional Japanese paintings. Marie traversed it with careful steps. She was leaving the harem wing and didn’t want to attract attention. Fortunately, the other geishas weren’t around. They were probably gossiping about her in some corner room — what did the Emperor see in the Parisian bitch anyway?
He sees love, that’s what. They’re just fucking jealous of me. Marie caught her reflection in a decorative mirror. Frizzy hair flanked a gaunt, pallid face. When was the last time I wore makeup? Or took a bath? I’m an animal in human skin.
The hallway ended in a large, dimly-lit room, its sides lined with tall bookshelves. There were a thousand books in the royal library lined in neat rows from floor to ceiling. Words outlining political policy and historical analysis converged in this space. Akiyama loved to lucubrate here and then finish off any carnal urges in the adjoining harem. Convenience was a daily luxury for the lustful introvert who happened to b
e one of the most powerful humans in the solar system. And Marie’s benefactor.
She crossed the library and snuck into another hallway, this one fairly dark. Two guards stood lost in conversation at its end. Geishas, local or foreign, were not allowed out of their wing, irrespective of the time of day. But Marie was never one to let rules get in the way. She’d stolen into the shadows many a night on all fours like a wild tiger, slipping into the penthouse’s off-limits realms. Past jaunts had been successful, and tonight was no exception. She slinked past the distracted guards with ease.
Upon reaching the royal dining hall, a square space lined with glorious stone statues of ancient Japanese statesmen, she disappeared into the folds of a tall, hanging curtain like an assassin. She spied the emperor and his family who’d just taken their designated seats around a posh ivory table for dinner. Akiyama sat at the head, his eldest to his right, his youngest to his left, and his middle son, Yukito, at the far end facing his father. A heated debate played.
“Father, we must respond strongly to the Sydneysiders’ warmongering ways,” Yukito said in an accent mixed with a Sydneysider twang and the Japanese predilection for soft r’s. He pushed a pair of thick black spectacles up his thin nose. “We cannot show weakness now.”
Akiyama raised a pair of chopsticks to his lips and ate the tuna roll held within them. He didn’t respond. Marie hadn’t seen him for days. He appeared regal with his back straight and his beard lustrous, as always.
“They must see we are dragons and not some fox waiting to be hunted. And—”
Etsuji, the heir to the throne, cut in. “Father has considered that view already, Yukito.” The largest of the three brothers, he looked the part of the eldest — broad-shouldered, tall and well built. He might have been a movie star in another life. “It is not a straightforward path. If you know history, you will understand the old-world destroyed itself exactly because of what you preach. An eye for an eye, whether in the name of nationalism or in the name of religion, nearly ended humanity.”