by S A Asthana
“Your place is here.” He stared at the wall with his back straight. The tone wasn’t soggy with lust any more. It cut.
Does he not understand my worth? I’m a fucking goddess just like father used to tell me. Maybe father had lusted for me because I’m a goddess. Her mind couldn’t discern truth from false, right from wrong, reality from delusion.
“Your place is in the harem.” Akiyama stood and wiped his flaccid member with a towel. “But… I will allow you to advise us on the euphoria trade. My plan is to manufacture it locally now. You can be an asset there.”
“I can be so much more.” Marie sat upright, her body still reeling from the assault. “I don’t want to just be your euphoria whore.”
“You will be what I want you to be,” Akiyama shouted and pointed down at her. “Do not overstep your boundaries.”
The two-faced bastard. No different than any other man. Brûle en l’enfer.
A geisha interrupted and handed some clothes and a glass of water to Akiyama. As he dressed, Marie kept her eyes on his back. He’d been so good to her before. Maybe he’d fancied her not just for her looks, but for her position as well. A lover of powerful women, perhaps. Now that she was a shell of her former self, his interest had melted, leaking to the floor like a puddle of semen.
Akiyama departed with the geishas unceremoniously, leaving the bedroom door ajar. Only silence remained. Marie splayed on the narrow bed, her eyes shifting to the crack in the wall again. It moved, or so she imagined, like a snake hunting across the whitewashed wall. There were splinters growing and spreading away — tributaries to a flooded river. Soon, they would take over the room, perhaps even the entire penthouse.
∆∆∆
“Your highness.” A voice hissed, disrupting her dreamless slumber. Marie blinked away rheum from her eyes. Yukito leaned against the doorway, his hands in his pant pockets. He cut a tall, sinewy figure. What was he doing slithering around his father’s harem? Isn’t he afraid of being found?
Marie sat upright. There was no shame in her nakedness. The son could see, should see, what the father had been doing. The bite marks, the blotches of red, and a patch of blood staining the sheets. With a sneer crinkling her nose, she spat, “You want some too?” No surprise if he did. He was, after all, nothing more than a man.
Yukito stepped into the room and shut the door. He locked it, his snake-eyes roaming her body all the while. He reached into his pockets. Marie’s breath hastened — perhaps he was here to kill her. The sting of a viper.
He produced a smoking pipe and a bag of red powder. Her eyes widened.
“A gift for the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes upon.” Yukito poured a pinch of powder into the pipe and handed it over. A man charmed? Him coiling around her, perhaps.
“As I mentioned the other night, our place is not with them, your highness.” He lit the pipe’s contents. The familiar smell of burnt iron flirted with her nostrils. She took a pull. Fumes warmed their way down a cold esophagus and soothed empty lungs. A rush stroked her skin, standing the hairs on her forearms at alert. Heaven couldn’t match such high. Her eyes rolled back into her eyelids. Mind orgasm.
“I think tonight confirmed this for you,” Yukito said. He too needed a home, just like her. It was obvious. If she offered her bosom to this lost man, perhaps he’d offer her what she so desperately sought — to be in power again. An opportunity to change her destiny had just walked into the picture. It simply needed some tending to.
Her torso arched, the nipples glistening with sweat and aimed at the ceiling. Her tongue wet her lips. Tiny swirls sparkled all about her vision as if stars deep in space. The surge of energy was like chasing a red comet. “Yes, our place is not with them.” She flashed a wicked grin, and slid a bare foot up and down his body, from neck to crotch and back. As much as she despised men, she knew all too well how to entrance them, subdue them when needed. “It is above them.”
Their eyes locked. She lay naked under his black orbs. The tigress and the serpent, both marginalized, but not for long.
“Fuck me,” she commanded as if she was a queen back within her Parisian palace. She could taste the sweetness of control seeping back in.
CHAPTER 9: BASTIEN
Bastien slurped the last of his ramen. Reo did the same, as did Alice. Given their crinkled noses it was clear the meal hadn’t been a pleasant experience. Bastien asked anyway, “How was it?”
Reo chewed the last of his noodles with effort and glanced at the bowl in his hands. “Not very good.”
“Not good at all,” Alice confirmed, picking food from her teeth with a chopstick. “It tastes like plastic.”
Bastien nodded, giving the feedback some consideration. Setting aside his bowl, he stated, “Guess there goes my culinary career.”
“Alright, enough small talk — why am I here?” Reo eyed the apartment’s drab, grey walls with a sneer. He was obviously not used to such meager surroundings.
“Not fond of my living quarters either?” Bastien asked. “Us gaijins are beggars, not choosers.”
Reo’s expression remained blank. Turning to Alice, he pressed in a thick Japanese accent, “Again, why did you call me? Here of all places?” The place reeked of mold. Not exactly a hangout for royalty.
Spitting back a piece of food into her bowl, Alice responded, “Well… it’s a long story but I think you’re—”
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Bastien cut in. Reo studied him with a blank face. In the two weeks since their meeting aboard the Nipponese water trawler Kitsune, Reo must have met hundreds of new faces. It was fair for him to not remember. But a twitch of the eye, and a slight gaping of the mouth gave away his recognition of the bald, yellow-eyed man facing him now.
“Viktor?”
Bastien nodded.
“Marie’s old bodyguard.” Reo smirked. “Are you looking for a job? Didn’t you find one yet in this neighborhood?” His tone gave away his dislike for gaijins and Kabukicho. Probably thought himself cut from the finest silk. Privilege had a way of stripping away empathy.
“I’m not looking for a job,” Bastien shot back. “I just wanted a confirmation.”
Reo tilted his head with a furrowed brow. “Confirmation?”
“Yes — you don’t want to be associated with Marie, do you? An honorable royal blood helping provide refuge to a vile creature like her. No, that certainly isn’t what you want.”
Reo’s face stretched long as if a dark secret had been spot-lit within his mind. He’d been found out. Bastien continued, “You don’t like protecting her. Hell, I’m willing to bet you might not even do so if it really came down to it.”
“How did you…?” Reo’s words trailed.
“You may be good at a whole lot given your pedigree, but you are bad at masking your emotions. I noticed your discontent when picking up Marie aboard the Kitsune.” Bastien let Reo mull over his words for a few breaths. He continued, “You and I both know she needs to die.”
Reo glared at him. His eyes were darker now somehow.
“Her being alive is a liability for us all,” Bastien stated. “I know your father and the Martians have agreed she’s dead. The lie, which the High Council believes, is only truth as long as Marie stays quiet.”
Reo crossed his arms. “And she’s not one to stay quiet.”
“Exactly.” The kid was young, but not naïve. He hadn’t wanted to protect Marie all along, but probably didn’t have a say against his father. Family hierarchy — something a Parisian orphan wasn’t familiar with. “She’ll out herself sooner rather than later. The High Council will demand her return to ensure compliance with the treaty.”
“Father would not give in to such a demand.” Reo shook his head, his face tense. “I know he won’t.”
“And with trade tensions already ongoing, such a dispute will lead to war,” Bastien said. “The High Council take the Trilateral Treaty very seriously. It’s in their code. Look what happened to New Paris when Marie broke the tre
aty. The emperor is already breaking article Eleven. If this comes to light by Marie announcing herself, I fear the High Council would declare war on Nippon One.”
“I agree.” Reo let out an exasperated sigh. “Marie needs to die. But… I cannot be the one who does it, even despite my proximity.”
“Not asking you to, kid.” Bastien shook his head. “I’m saying I will kill her. But I need your help.”
Reo’s eyes widened. He looked around the apartment as if searching for answers. Bastien and Alice exchanged a glance. What was the royal-born pondering?
“Look,” he said finally, “I know you were her bodyguard and all. But I’m not sure if you have the chops to take her out. If I do help you, what guarantee is there you will not bungle the attempt? I can hire a Yakuza and have a higher confidence level.”
A sound concern. Time to enlighten. “First, Marie will not be suspicious if I show up out of the blue. I have, after all, been intimate with her in the recent past.” He spied Alice — she didn’t seem happy about that revelation. Was it his imagination?
“And, second,” he continued, “I’ve been offered a job by the Yakuza, so you needn’t worry about skillsets.”
Reo eyed the man from head to toe as if assessing a spear.
“Finally, I’m not her bodyguard. I’m an ex-Lieutenant General of the Martian armed forces.”
Reo’s head perked up. It didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. “Wait… you’re —”
“Bastien Lyons.”
“And a murderer.” Reo reached for his holster. “I should have known. Your eyes—”
“I wouldn’t reach for the gun, kid.” Bastien’s fists clenched, veins crisscrossing shredded forearms like cobwebs over a tree trunk.
As Reo took a cautious step back, Alice jumped into the conversation. “Look… murderer or not, he is our best bet.”
Reo pointed at Bastien. “Shouldn’t you be arresting him?”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Alice said with her eyes on Reo’s hand that wavered over the Howa.
“Quoting ancient Sanskrit proverbs isn’t going to fix the situation,” Reo snapped through gritted teeth. His voice was thicker now, as if he’d grown by ten years in the past few moments.
“And neither is killing or arresting this man,” Alice countered.
“He’s an outlaw on our soil.” Reo’s gaze worked back to Bastien. “He must be arrested. Simple. Black and white.”
“There’s always grey,” Bastien spoke. “I may be an outlaw still, but I’m not going to end up causing a diplomatic disaster like Marie.”
His words froze Reo. Shoulders drooped and heightened tensions waned. Reo relaxed his right hand. “Fine. No better assassin than a high-ranking Martian military officer.”
The words echoed Marie’s from their very first meeting. Bastien’s scene from a lifetime ago. He was a hammer still being passed around from one hand to the next, only this time by choice. Bastien’s new avatar was an assassin.
Putting his hands in his pocket, Reo said, “Look, in order for us to really pull this off, there will need to be collaboration. Since Marie is effectively under house arrest, the job will need doing inside the royal penthouse.”
This was disturbing news. A large wrinkle had just been highlighted.
“It cannot look like an inside job,” Reo continued. “If you’re caught I cannot protect you. If my father finds out I’m even remotely connected to this, I will be banished.” There was a gravity in Reo’s face. Expectations required adhering to in his culture. No deviations from the path that was chosen for anyone. He scratched his chin. “You will have to be snuck into the penthouse somehow. I will need some time to figure out how to make this happen.”
Alice took a step forward. “I can help, Reo.”
“No, you cannot,” he corrected. “This is on me to figure out. I need a few days to prepare. The penthouse is heavily guarded under my command — only I can create exceptions.” He turned to leave, but then stopped short of the door. Turning back to the Martians, he said, “I will lead this operation.” He pointed to Alice. “Clear?”
Her wrinkled brow gave away her true sentiment. “Sure thing.”
“Do not underestimate me,” Reo said. “I am Chief of Nipponese Police for a reason.”
The distant humming of cars filled the silence after he left. So did the irreverent laughter of a red-light district reveler. If only the average Nipponese knew what was at stake. The concept of civilization’s end hadn’t even been contemplated for a hundred years. At least not in the comforts of Nippon One.
A war over Marie could start it all, if Bastien failed. “He’s got something to prove,” he remarked, his eyes remaining on the door.
Alice’s gaze dropped. “Don’t we all?”
Perhaps she and Reo had more in common than met the eye. One an outcast of sorts, always under pressure to prove her abilities, the other, the youngest in a family of men, clawing against the cliffside to maintain his high post. Both needing to prove their worth constantly.
A mechanical ping interrupted. Alice eyed her watch. An incoming text stretched her expression tight. She rushed to the exit. “Something urgent has come up. Seems like pirates have put Port Sydney in their crosshairs. I need to end them.” Stopping short of the door, she turned and said, “Until next time. Goodbye.”
Strange, how a short while back he had been the hunted one. Now he was the hunter. He had become Cube, only flesh and bone. How would it all play out? Would he be successful? His gaze wandered to the half-full bowls of ramen. Time to clean up the mess.
CHAPTER 10: CRONE
Frank stared out the waiting room’s curved bay window, his hands clasped behind him. The Gusev crater’s flat, red terrain spread away to the dull orange sky. It was various shades of burnt sienna — a painting of little imagination. Interrupted only by a sparse forest of dead trees, the crater’s hellscape offered no respite from dead soil and dust devils. When it had been first discovered by the old-world astronomer Matvei Gusev in 1976, there probably hadn’t been a sense that one day it would be colonized, let alone the starting point for a terraforming project. Frank wrinkled his nose — the landscape was ugly as ever.
Instead of adapting to their environment like the Nipponese, the Sydneysiders had chosen to challenge it, mold it into their vision — to play god. They had done so at the cost of common sense. Given their knowledge at the time, terraforming must have seemed appropriate. The dream of evolving Mars into Earth’s likeness dated back centuries. There had been numerous scientists who’d claimed it was a possibility, after all.
Frank shook his head at the folly. Mankind had the uncanny ability to discard common sense the more educated it became. No wonder humans were now ruled by machines. Creations resulting from expertise in a specific, logical field, now ruling over their creators due to abandonment of common sense.
The forest before him, its barks and trunks jagged and dead, mocked him in a raspy voice. “Foolish human — you thought this a possibility?” Each tree appeared to have a gaping mouth with corners curved into a smile. “Why chase what can never be?”
Frank had asked it as a child. “Why chase what can never be, father?” His family took him on an afternoon excursion to the Martian forest. Back then, there were leaves — green and healthy, supporting photosynthesis. The forest brimmed with possibilities. But Frank had concerns even then.
His father had looked to his mother from the 1.V5 Personal Martian Rover’s driver seat with a knowing smile and said over his shoulder, “My dear boy, I can see why you think it will never be, at your age.” Frank was ten going on thirty. “But you must remember humans, specifically us humans here in Port Sydney, have a way with science.”
Frank pressed, all the while fiddling with his custom-fit surface suit’s helmet, “Of course, father, but this place… it is so hostile to us. How can we ever mold it to our liking?”
The rover hit a few bumps, but continued undeterred. “You se
e that one African Sumac?” Father pointed to a tree in the distance. “The tallest one. You see it?”
“Yes, father.”
“That one is about eight meters high with a five-meter spread. A once impossible sight on the Martian soil, now a blooming reality. It is tough and reliable, as long as it has the right conditions — conditions we engineered. Phase one continues to be a success, son.”
The arching branches and weeping foliage were beautiful, sure, but would they survive? The tree, along with its brethren in that forest, was expected to live for 50 years at minimum. A fine specimen of human ingenuity. Still, he had his doubts.
“This forest is important to us, Frankie,” mother said. “It’s the first one outside of a biodome.”
“Correct.” Father flashed a proud grin. “The environment is changing to our liking.”
“We have control of it,” mother added, her smile mirroring her husband’s giddiness. The two were senior scientists in the Terraforming Division. They held bias for the ambitious experiment, to be certain. Phase One, their main priority, was expected to conclude sometime in the next five years. Projections showed several leafy swaths spreading across Mars, slowly turning the planet into bands of green and red. There was even talk of engineering a lake organically within a nearby crater.
The rover pulled up at the edge of the forest, and its canopy door opened on its hinges with a mechanical din. Frank confirmed his suit’s oxygen levels were higher than 90 percent via the diagnostics on the corner of his helmet’s visor. His mother turned to look at him. “Don’t worry so much. It will be fine. Now enjoy yourself. Tomorrow you have to go back down to the education floor and we won’t see you for three months again.” Frank nodded.
The family exited the rover and was greeted by another group, colleagues from the Terraforming Division. A six-foot plus man walked over with hand extended, his body enveloped in a fitted white surface suit. It was standard issue but there were several additions to its back side, main one being a larger than normal oxygen tank. It was a requirement for extended stays out on the surface.