Blood Siren

by Michael Formichelli

  Ichiro pressed his lips together, hard. Obligation demanded he remain silent while this former ally spoke, but it did not demand that he listen. He let the blue-skinned Cleebian buzz on, occasionally glancing at his companion to note the triple-stare placed on his person and wondering if that paler Cleebian was studying his reactions. It was nearly impossible for non-Solans to read human reactions, especially if they were subtle, and Taiumikai was a society based around hiding emotions in public. Despite this, Ichiro got the creepy sensation that this other alien somehow knew that he wasn’t listening. It was absurd, the assumption seemed to imply the impossible, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling.

  He was young, only three years a legal adult, and fancied himself a master of the skills his culture dictated he have—and yet in the face of that yellow stare he found himself wondering if it were true. Could an alien be so well trained that he could read human reactions? Could he see through his façade of calm down to the pain and turmoil and the raw, primal need within to find those responsible for his loss and tear them apart with his bare hands? Was the Cleebian that insightful?

  Ichiro decided not to entertain the possibility, nor to give him more time for study, either. He had enough of this turncoat’s words, and was suddenly eager to take his feet off of this world. “Prime Xitar, I appreciate your words but it is time.”

  The baron relaxed his throat-cords into a curtain of bent noodle-like tubes. After a moment he re-stretched them. “Yes, of course. Forgive my lack of brevity. Safe journeys, Mitsugawa-Prime.”

  Ichiro gave him a brief, shallow bow and moved off towards the waiting shuttle. He caught the last of the robotic boots marching up the ramp from his father’s procession before moving to its lip. He directed one more bow to his guests and took a step up the incline before pausing to look back over to Xitar and his companion. He waited until they noticed, then waited for all six of their eyes to be on him. Then he grabbed Hoshinagi’s scabbard, just below the tsuba, and held it for a count of ten before turning to ascend the ramp.

  It took him a long time to calm down after departing the Mitsugawa compound. Mamiya admonished him for challenging the Cleebians as he did, but he refused to be sorry for it. They had deserved it and worse. He was a Mitsugawa and would not suffer their false sympathy.

  The six jinzoubushi were left in the cargo hold to guard his father’s body for the duration of the one-hundred-twenty-four day trip to Taiumikai. They required neither air nor food, and their superconducting power cells were built to go years between charges. They were the perfect guard for his father, and a symbol of the indomitable power of his House. Nestled in the padded grip of the acceleration-tolerant seat in the center of the fuselage, he only wished he felt the same about himself.

  He wasn’t used to being in this position. His seat had always been one of the chairs beside this one against the curving shuttle wall. This central chair was reserved for the master of the zaibatsu, his father. When he boarded the vessel Mamiya had insisted he take it even though the reign had not officially passed to him yet. He was in no mood to argue, not when the recess from the public eye had brought a resurgence of powerful emotions. It was all he could do not to sob as the shuttle lifted off and headed out of Kosfanter’s atmosphere.

  “Lord—” Mamiya said once the roar of the first acceleration burn had died out.

  “Don’t call me that,” he snapped at Mamiya in his father’s tongue.

  “Mitsugawa-sama, you are Lord of Taiumikai now. You must accept it for the harmony of our nation.” Mamiya’s maddening, unvarying tone enunciated each syllable of Taiumigo—a modern offshoot of what was once called Japanese.

  He sighed. “I will, as soon as we reach home and bury my father as tradition demands.”

  “That is a formality.”

  “We are a people of formalities,” he countered.

  “You are lord in all but fact. As a warrior prepares for war, so must you prepare for your new seat.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Not yet.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “You won’t give up, will you?”

  “No. I have a machine’s persistence, remember?”

  Ichiro gave him a wry smile. It was not worth the argument. If Mamiya insisted on calling him “lord” then he would have to accept it. He was tired, and wanted nothing more than to sleep and, he hoped, to dream a very specific dream. It had been longer than usual since he last had it, and he dared to believe that she would be waiting for him when he closed his eyes.

  “What is it?” Ichiro asked.

  “The Musashi-maru is indicating you have a message waiting for you.”

  He frowned, if that were true he should have received a notification via his cerebral implant. “Why didn’t it come across the local Cyberweb?”

  “It was sent over the Musashi’s quantum communicator.”

  That would explain it. Q-comms were point to point communicators. The messages could not be intercepted because they were conveyed using quantum-scale wormholes, but the moment that information hit the Cyberweb it would be open to interception. If whoever sent it wanted to keep the message out of unknown hands it would have to be relayed via laser communications to wherever its recipient, in this case Ichiro, happened to be.

  He inhaled. “Okay, give it to me.”

  Mamiya nodded, and a moment later his implant chimed that a link request had been received from the ship’s network. The playback started the moment he accepted the link, and a short, thin woman about twice his age dressed in a black kimono appeared standing in front of him. Her silky, black hair was waxed and bound into the traditional fan-like pattern, and a single stripe of red colored the center of her lips. He recognized the stern expression etched into her pale face immediately.

  “Mitsugawa Ichiro-uesama.” Her use of the high honorific startled him worse than hearing Mamiya do it did. “It is with deep regret that I have learned of my brother’s death. I did not want to wait for your return to express such, least you think I was remiss.”

  He would not think that. Aunt Aki would never miss an obligation. She was even more beholden to the notion than his father had been.

  “I also wished to express my sincere hope for your speedy return home. I find myself ill-suited to hold the title of regent, and am eager to get back to my other responsibilities. May the Musashi carry you and my brother with all due urgency. I will be happy to see you upon its arrival.” She bowed deeper than she ever had to him before and vanished.

  “Does she expect me to be able to speed up the Musashi’s drive system through force of will?” He gave his companion a knowing look.

  “She is just eager to have things set back in their place.”

  Ichiro rubbed his hands together. “And is that where you think I belong? On Taiumikai? Is that my place?”

  “Your place is at the head of your House, Mitsugawa-sama. You are already there.” Mamiya inclined his head.

  “Not until my father is buried.”

  “Succession is genetic and automatic. The burial and ceremony are formalities, a kind of pageantry for those who live outside your walls. Those who are within already know and accept.”

  “I see,” he said, but wasn’t entirely sure that Mamiya had it right. Ceremony was part of obligation, and it was necessary for the maintenance of harmony.

  “Lord, I see my words have troubled you. I apologize with all due—”

  “No, it’s fine. In fact I suspect there is a lot I do not understand just yet. You need not apologize for trying to teach this difficult student.” He tapped his nose.

  Mamiya nodded. “Then allow me to point out that now is a secure moment, if you wish me to read the athenaeum. It might do you well to hear it now, after you have heard the words of your aunt.”

  Ichiro rubbed his temples. “What about the pilots?”

  “There are none. I am flying this shuttle.”

  He opened his eyes and stared at the CEL. “You? But you’re—”

&nbs
p; “People cannot be trusted, especially in groups, and neither can artificial intelligence. This is why your father initially hired a CEL to be his personal attendant. Multitasking is one of my kind’s specialties, and the ability of a trusted retainer to act on both electronic and physical planes is one of the services your father availed himself of. I thought you would as well.”

  “Of course.” His whole life he had flown with Mamiya and his father, never questioning why he didn’t see pilots or hear his father address a ship’s A.I. He thought at least there would be artificials flying the ships he rode in. The revelation was eye-opening.

  Ichiro reached into his obi and drew forth the crystal square from his obi. He held it up to one of the dim lights above them, watching its structure split the amber rays into dancing-rainbow colors. He wanted to get to sleep, even though he wasn’t that tired. He was eager, but he had the whole of the trip to the Musashi—twenty-nine days—and he would probably have to wait for her to appear in any case.

  “My father trusted you completely, that is clear.” He took a deep breath, rubbing his solar plexus with the heel of one hand. The tingling heat he felt when she was waiting for him was absent. He still had some time, so he passed Mamiya the crystal square. ¨What does it say?”

  The crystal floated through the space between them straight into Mamiya’s waiting hand. He grasped it between thumb and forefinger, and held it up to the light.

  “Link to my internal network if you please, Mitsugawa-sama.”

  “You have a personal network?”

  “CELs like me have a decentralized processor network. In layman’s terms, our brain is composed of a network of cyberganglia throughout our bodies. The connections between them and the outside world form an internal local area network.”

  “Oh,” Ichiro said, blinking. “What is in your head, then?”

  “Part of the network, and some of the space has been repurposed.”

  He nodded, having a hard time conceptualizing what Mamiya was telling him. “People choose to do this to themselves?”

  “Those not born to it.”

  He cocked an eyebrow upward, but prompted his implant to link to Mamiya-san none the less. A window opened in his vision and informed him of the feed coming across the link. A moment later, the window closed and a figure appeared standing a meter from him.

  Ichiro gasped despite knowing that the being before him was a hallucination generated by the data streaming across the implant into his brain.

  His father, dressed in the same style of kamishimo Ichiro wore, met his eyes and nodded. “Son.”

  “Father,” he couldn’t help respond. He felt ashamed of his outburst immediately after. This was a message, not a full simulation. It would not be able to interact with him.

  “If you are seeing this message, then I have died. Though the manner of my death may be in question, there are certain things you need to know before you take any action. I hope you will have received this message before anything irrevocable has happened.” He paused, stroking his chin with two fingers.

  Ichiro trembled against the chair’s restraints.

  “First, Mamiya Ryouichi-san can be trusted implicitly. I have spent most of my life doing so, and I expect you can do the same. He was a Mitsugawa loyalist before his conversion, and he has remained so since returning to us. His services, his abilities, are going to be invaluable to you in the years to come.

  “Second, it will be for you to continue the work I have started. I regret to burden you with this, but there is no one else with both the will and the means to stop Baron Revenant from destroying our Confederation. To this end, I have left instructions with all of our allies to mind your words as they would my own. You will need to make contact with them, assure them that the work will continue, and make the necessary assurances to convince them to stay with us.”

  Ichiro sighed through his nose, pressing his lips back against his teeth. The conspirators were already leaving the cause and he didn’t think he had the skill to bring them back.

  “Attached to this file is a list of means to get in touch with the Gaian spy network. They have proved invaluable sources of information, and though they are not loyal to us, they are dedicated to bringing Zalor down and so you can trust them as far as that. Finally, the second attachment to this message contains the information we have been able to acquire so far from our various sources as to the threat known as Siren. We don’t yet know its exact nature as of the time of this recording, but we do know that Zalor intends to use it to destabilize the government somehow. We were able to find one of the locations where this thing was manufactured. Mamiya-san knows the coordinates. I suggest sending a trusted retainer there to scout it out as soon as possible. Time is of the essence here, for the more time Zalor has the closer he gets to destroying that which we love.

  “Son, I am sorry I have not had more time with you. Please accept my regrets, and know that I will remain with you in spirit if not in body. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.” Yoji bowed deeply and vanished.

  Ichiro’s insides trembled so he dared not speak for several minutes. It was hard to look upon his father’s living face again. It was harder to know that the same man who had made that recording was now lying dead in the hold of this shuttle. The thought that he would never speak to him again hollowed out a place within him with a cold hand.

  When he was sure that he would not shame himself, he wiped his eyes and turned to Mamiya

  “How long ago was this made?”

  “Your father updated it regularly. The last update was a standard week ago but much of it is older than that.”

  Ichiro nodded. “I know who was sent to those coordinates after my father recorded this.”

  “Do you?” Mamiya’s expression did not change.

  He regarded his new retainer, wondering if the comment had been an honest question or sarcastic. Given Mamiya’s position with his father, the odds were he already knew who the agent was, but would have no idea how Ichiro himself knew. No one would, given the means by which he acquired the information. The fact of the matter was that he knew the agent personally, and had a sudden urge to take the Musashi out to join her—but he had to get his father’s body back to Taiumikai. Tradition demanded it. Obligation required it. His aunt was waiting, everything in her message told him not to delay.

  He knew the agent involved; knew the status of her mission. The unexpected urgency which he felt about heading away from Taiumikai, away from what was expected and obliged blossomed in his chest. It was an excuse, part of him knew, to see her. The urge was as powerful and inescapable as gravity. He could do with her what he could not with any Taiumijin. She would understand, she would allow him to express his true emotions without shame or social concern; especially out there away from civilized space.

  “Mamiya-san, my father said time was of the essence a standard week ago. My source says our agent is in a degree of difficulty in regards to her mission.”

  “Your source? It is not one in the Mitsugawa network or I would know about it. How do you know the status of the mission?” His expression did not change.

  “I decline to answer that. My father would want this mission accomplished as soon as possible. We’re closer to those coordinates than we are to the home world, aren’t we?”

  A frown tugged at the corners of Mamiya-san’s mouth. “Mitsugawa-uesama, you have obligations to attend to. That is your place. She has her own, and I remind you that she is not of your House. She is an outside agent brought in for a particularly dangerous mission. Your concern for her mission is laudable but—”

  That is precisely the point. She is not one of us, she is different and beautiful. He had to find a way to her. It had been too long since they dreamed together, and an eternity since he last saw her. The urge to go to her was almost unbearable, and it shamed him to feel so, but on this single point he felt powerless to rein himself in.

  “But? You just heard it yourself. This mission is of maximum importance.”

/>   “If you are thinking about running out there—”

  Ichiro shook his head. “It would not be such a long delay in the grand scheme of things.”

  “Are you suggesting this to escape your obligations? You are already head of the Mitsugawa, that is a fact regardless of whether or not there has been a ceremony.”

  “I am not trying to escape that,” he said. His earlier concerns about it paled in comparison to his need now. He would not be swayed. His heart knew this to be the correct course. “I have decided we will go to the Siren system and assist our agent.”

  “You must return your father’s body.”

  He felt a starburst of emotion straining to explode from his chest but stifled it with effort he did not let show on his face. How could he go to help her? Was there a way or did obligation demand he return to Taiumikai with no exceptions? For a seeming eternity he pondered with lips pressed together. Then it came to him.

  “Proving Baron Revenant’s link to Siren is the path to avenging my father. What good is the return of his body if his honor remains slighted?”

  “You are correct in that, and it is a clever argument. I am pledged to you and your House. I will obey any directive, however, it is also my duty to remind you of your own obligations. Following them maintains harmony, denying them leads to chaos. Tradition demands we return your father’s body.”

  Ichiro sighed. “Mamiya-san, I am—” He turned his head away, feeling the cold within him grow.

  There was a long silence between them where all he could hear was the soft whisper of the shuttle’s electronics and cooling systems. Mamiya scratched his chin with four fingers.

  “Why is it so important to you to go to see our agent? She is already at work, and your father already had enough faith in her to send her. He gave her money to hire backup once she got there, if needed. Our presence is simply not required nor helpful there.” He paused, then leaned forward in his chair. “You know her personally. Intimately? No, do not tell me. That is not for me to know, though I wonder how that may have come to be. If that is your reason for going, though, it is not sufficient to supersede your duty to the House.”