The Matsumoto Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  It was just like last time I went to sleep. I floated in the back of Roman’s head, unable to change things or speak to him, but watching life through his eyes like the most immersive video ever made.

  He was on another mission. He and his fellow marines were clad in black field uniforms and full assault gear. The blonde was giving them hand signals. They arranged themselves over a ventilation hatch and rolled out equipment in a synchronized dance born of training and unit cohesion. I was impressed by the professionalism they showed, especially compared to the ragtag group I was leading on Baldric.

  Roman was point man. I found myself stifling irritation. Why did they risk him first? He rappelled silently down a rope through the hatch and into a passageway that could be in a starship or a large building. Marines did practically all the Empire’s dirty work, and were constantly being used in all kinds of missions, so either one was a possibility, although the lack of skinsuits suggested they were dirtside.

  He cleared the passage and waited for the next marine to join him. It was Blondie. She gave him some sort of hand signal, but her eyes blazed with emotion. Affection? Loyalty?

  A possessive pang shot through my emotions. He was mine. My Roman. My guardian. Not anymore, I reminded myself, and the life he had now was a better one. If he could live it and find a future without me, I should be happy. I thought I might be in love with Roman, and if that were true, shouldn’t I wish him the very best, no matter what that meant for me?

  Roman proceeded down the passage to a doorway. The rest of his fireteam filled the space behind him. He pulled a flash-bang out of his vest, opened the door and tossed it inside. I felt myself shy away from the bang, but Roman was cool. He followed it promptly into the room and trained his gun on the people on the floor. They were not damaged but covering ears and eyes from the explosive.

  The fireteam filled the room, fanning out.

  “Everyone stay down, and you will be spared,” Blondie ordered.

  I needed to learn her name.

  One of the marines strode to a console and started typing furiously. From where Roman was looking I assumed this was a lab of some kind. Scientific hardware was distributed on shelves and counters, and a few of the people on the floor wore lab coats. What could our marines be looking for here? Anything, really, now that I considered it. After all, we Matsumotos had been using the very best in biotech for the last few generations. Who knew how we got it. Maybe our own R&D people were supplemented by stolen information.

  “I have it,” the marine at the console said in a deep baritone.

  My eyes tried to focus on the prisoners. Roman wasn’t really looking at them, so it was hard, but something about them was bothering me. One had a synthetic arm. Another one had an upgraded biotech eye. Typical People’s Freehold body mods. Why did they bother me? One of the men without a lab coat or tech upgrades had a tattoo poking out of his sleeve. I realized instantly what it was. He was a Free Radical, the extremist arm of the People’s Freehold (if anything could be considered more extreme than carving up your own body to “improve” it).

  Roman! Watch out!, I tried to call through our link, but with light-years between us I couldn’t send any sort of transmission.

  The man reached for his hand with the other. Both hands looked like normal human hands until he twisted one 360°.

  I panicked, screaming into the implant.

  Roman! Roman! Watch out! His hand. It’s a weapon!

  I remembered the top secret briefing about the People’s Freehold Suicide Tech. Somehow I had thought – or maybe just hoped – I would never see it in person.

  Roman’s eyes shot like lightning to the man, focused on the hand, fired his nettlegun into the man’s head as his “hand” popped off and the other reached for a tiny touch screen in the wrist. His hand dropped, lifeless.

  He’d heard me! Had he heard me? How could that be?

  “What do you think you’re doing, Aldrin?” Blondie yelled.

  Roman pointed wordlessly to the dead man.

  Someone whistled. “Woooeeee, Aldrin! Saved our butts. Nice eye!”

  I felt proud that for once I’d contributed something to him. After all the tight spots he’d gotten me out of it was good to do something in return.

  “How did you know?” Blondie asked, her sculpted face puzzled.

  “Who cares how he knew, Sarge, he’ll be promoted for this!” the whistler said.

  Blondie nodded, but she still looked confused.

  I faded back to my own world and opened my eyes. I felt a knot in my stomach that didn’t have anything to do with my situation on Baldric, and I found myself blinking back tears. I missed having a partner. Going solo wasn’t all that fun.

  I frowned at my own stupid girly emotions and accessed the video logs. I wasn’t going back to sleep. All that had for me was heartache. Instead, I might as well make myself useful. Most of the others were asleep, but I curled up gingerly, wrapping my arms around my knees and stared intently at the video readout, allowing it to overlay my full vision.

  The science went on and on. I was beginning to understand it since I’d been watching for so long. It started to get interesting when they talked about meeting ‘residents’ of the planet. They didn’t describe them and I got the impression that another group of scientists had been assigned the role of liaising with the local inhabitants. It was irritating to have holes in the data – especially when this was the data I was the most interested in. What they did say was that the natives were difficult to communicate with.

  “We’ve developed a technology to help us communicate with them,” Dr. Sanderson was saying. She was a greying woman with a severe face, and she was so stereotypically a “scientist” that I almost yawned. “We’ve adapted it into nano-bots, which, when ingested, will write pathways in the brain. We’ve laced the food supplies with the bots, and will recommend that all future colonists have their e-rats laced with Compound VX-7. This should enable us to break the communications barrier so we can determine why they have been so opposed to subterranean exploration.”

  Interesting. So, somehow the aliens had shown that they didn’t like humans going beneath their soil. And they were communicating in some way, but it was a way we couldn’t understand, so the scientists had resorted to neural pathway routing via nano-bots. It was old tech, and dangerous. The pathways, once made, could have untold effects on the human brain.

  We’d thought that this “pill learning technology” as it had been dubbed, was the future. It was only after people began popping pills to learn everything from university courses to how to manage their personal finances that we realized the dangers. A program that could instantly have you speaking another language might seem like magic at first, but when you suddenly couldn’t speak Standard, or even speak at all, it was a curse.

  Pills were recalled almost as fast as they had been produced as our mental wards began to stack up with patients, but it was too late for many, many victims. The awful side effects didn’t tend to show up for months or even years and they were totally unpredictable – one person might be only mildly affected while others could be howling at one of the moons.

  Looking back, it was one of the most devastating failures of modern technology. My parent’s generation still had huge holes in it where our best and brightest had been cut down by the promise of the pill. I was grateful that implant technology wasn’t the same way. It didn’t rewrite your brain, merely supplemented it with a computer. I didn’t run the risk of shorting out my own mind when I used that technology. I was also grateful that the pill had been removed from use before I was even born.

  Idly, I pulled out a ration pack, thinking I might be able to eat after all. I glanced at the ingredients listed on the side, almost laughing at myself for my own paranoia. At the bottom of the list it was there in bold letters: Compound VX-7.

  I felt my stomach drop, and my grip loosened at the same time. I dropped the e-rat pack on the floor. My hand flew up to cover my mouth, and the bloo
d drained from my face. They were still lacing the rations of the colonists. What were they thinking? Or did they care? After all, we were nothing but prisoners and marines. All of us were expendable: walking ghosts before our time. I wanted to be sick.

  The video was still playing on my vision and Sanderson was talking.

  “The pills are having unexpected effects on our personnel…”

  No kidding.

  “We have made some gains in trying to communicate, but the aliens relentlessly continue to pursue any colonist that leaves the compounds. As crazy as it might sound, we wonder if it is…her… effecting them this way.”

  Who could “her” be? A scientist? A colonist? Another alien? You’d think a scientist would be more precise. Unless, there was some reason that she couldn’t say the person’s name out loud. Maybe she didn’t know it? Or was it a political prisoner so sensitive that they couldn’t record the person’s name for fear that these records would someday confirm her presence here?

  These videos left me with as many questions as I had answers. I ran a hand over my forehead, trying to wipe the nervous sweat forming. It didn’t help that Patrick Driscoll was quietly slipping over to where I was, careful not to wake the others sleeping all around him. He sat down beside me.

  “So now we talk, Ms. Matsumoto.”

  THE SPLITTING: 12

  “You’ve been killing my family,” I said. Sometimes the best diplomacy is truthfulness.

  “That’s quite the accusation.”

  “My cousin, Denise Matsumoto, was a young woman who just went through a terrible trauma.”

  “Denise Matsumoto was one of the leaders of a system that systematically penalizes its citizens in order to keep them within its iron fist. Denise Matsumoto was breaking the laws her own family put into place. Denise Matsumoto was a representative of a family more interested in power than the needs of its people.”

  Well, that was all true. We were definitely more interested in keeping power than protecting people. I learned that the hard way through my own experience with Roman. And the computer implant in my head was evidence that every one of us was breaking the law we made banning body modifications, so yes, we all broke the rules.

  I still hated him for killing my friend.

  “She was a young girl. She wasn’t culpable for the crimes you’ve listed.”

  He cocked his head to the side.

  “You are the same age she was. Are you culpable for your crimes?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Because I notice that the Emperor has imprisoned you. And I watched the news report that showed your banishment to Capricornia before that. Both were punishments for crimes you committed, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth, and with my cheeks flaming.

  “So, are you culpable?”

  “Yes.” I have never denied that I deserved the punishments I’d been given.

  “And therefore, Denise was also culpable, and I was right to hold her accountable.”

  “No,” I said, fire in my eyes. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “So your Emperor can dish out any punishments he pleases, but the people cannot?”

  “I broke the law willingly and with knowledge of what I was doing. The crimes you accuse Denise of breaking are things she was born into.”

  “So you are the result of the choices you make?” His eyes held a glint, like he was maneuvering me into something. The corner of his upper lip twitched.

  “Yes.”

  “What if those choices were never yours to begin with?”

  I glared at him. He was suggesting I was a pawn being manipulated by my family and government.

  “I am Vera Matsumoto. I am here because I chose to defy my family and our creed. I do not accept that I am a victim. I’m the one who made those choices.”

  “Author of your fate? Pilot of your soul?” he asked, an ironic twist in his lips. “Don’t be so naïve.”

  We sank into silence. I seethed with hatred for him. He looked at me with eyes of judgment and disgust. I wanted to hit him with my fists, for all the good that would do.

  Download fighting program.

  Sorry, there are no Matsumoto files for violence.

  It was an extra-long shot. After all, we are prohibited from physical violence of any kind. It would never make sense to give us programs that would teach us those things when using them would mean immediate execution. Or, in my case, a long drawn out death of torture by a million tiny deaths.

  “I hate you all. Even you, a tiny teenager. I hate you, too,” Patrick said, in a cold, distant voice.

  “I am aware that you are a terrorist,” I said.

  “I prefer the term patriot.” He stuck his chin out.

  “So, to be clear, you’ll be happy when I die?”

  “One more down. Only a few more to go.”

  Only a few? How many of us had he killed already? I felt an icicle stab my spine. Things just kept getting brighter and cheerier around here.

  “I thought you were already dead,” he said casually, but he darted a glance at me out the side of his eyes, and I realized that this was why he wanted to talk to me.

  “I’m lucky, I guess.”

  He laughed, and it sounded harsh.

  “I meant that I thought you were dead because I saw it in the news. Complete with pictures. Your Emperor acted splendidly when he executed you in front of the cameras, walking the perfect line between a firm Emperor and a saddened cousin. It’s so hard to be the ultimate ruler and have to maintain the law even with your own blood. His fake concern made me want to throw up.” He flicked a hand, disparagingly. “Their special effects department must be superior to fool interplanetary news agencies. They check for that kind of doctoring.”

  The blood drained from my face. Had Roman seen that? Did he believe it? What did he make of our body-mind-splitting? Did he think it was just a dream? A memory of a friend now dead?

  I felt like I’d been kicked in the belly. A gasp escaped me. It was the little smile, dancing around the corners of Patrick’s mouth that made me pull myself together. He was enjoying my pain. I wanted to dish it back to him, but there were no Matsumoto files on violence. No Matsumoto files. Were there other files?

  Are there other files in my implant not under the Matsumoto file headings?

  There are the files downloaded from the Baldric facility.

  I knew about those, obviously.

  And the guardian files.

  I couldn’t fully suppress the widening of my eyes. It had never occurred to me that the guardian files would be stored on my implant as well.

  Access guardian files.

  Access denied. Please input code.

  I clenched my fist until my nails dug into my palm. They were password protected. But who would have set the password? It would be impossible to guess it without knowing that.

  “You understand, then, what your family does?” Patrick asked, and I wondered if this was a first step in trying to turn me to his ‘side,’ whatever that was. It felt like turning an asset. That had been discussed in my training. Did he think that eight years of diplomacy training wouldn’t have included asset management?

  I looked him directly in the eyes and spoke with deliberation.

  “I understand my family, and what they do, better than you ever will.”

  Nigel had used me as a pawn. Perhaps all my relatives had. But I was not that child anymore, and if Patrick Driscoll thought I would dance to his tune, he could think again.

  He grunted, and stood up, weighing me with his eyes, but he said nothing. Round one went to me. About time I won at something, even if it was just possession of my own choices. Right now those choices were limited to how I would die, but it was better than letting him choose that.

  He sauntered back to the other wall and pretended to go to sleep. I did the same. I needed time to process everything. This time I slept soundly and awoke to my implant pinging. It was planetary dawn and time to move o
ut.

  “Everyone up. Gear on. Masks on. We head out,” I said, to a chorus of grumbles.

  Well, they’d wanted a leader. I could ‘leader’ with the best of them.

  THE SPLITTING: 13

  THE SHUTTLE DOOR OPENED UP to another gorgeous Baldric morning. Light filtered through the purple leaves as the first rim of the sun peeked over the edge of the horizon, leaving a golden glow behind the plum-toned leaves and milky white tree trunks. The striped grass swayed in a delicate wind and the dew brought out scents of flowers and plants unlike any I had ever experienced before. They were alluring and inspiring all at once, in stark contrast to the inhabitants of this dreadful place. My heart began to swell with a tiny spark of hope at the beauty, and then I took a step out, turning to the left and I saw the first casualty of last night.

  A grim spire rose into the air, glowing a sickly chartreuse in the golden dawn. At its base a man with dark skin and hair, like mine, and an identical skinsuit froze in the calcified rictus of his death. My hope turned to acid in my belly. I swallowed hard, glad I was avoiding the supplement-laced food.

  “This way,” I murmured, leading the colonists around the totem of death. I clutched my flechette gun in both hands. It wasn’t the most inspiring thing a leader could say, but I wasn’t feeling very inspirational.

  “Not so fast,” Driscoll said from behind me.

  I raised my eyebrows in a question.

  “Sammy goes up front, too,” he said, not even looking at the horror beside me.

  I didn’t care where Sammy went. Guards posted in the front and rear had done nothing to help so far, so they could walk wherever they wanted for all I cared. Sammy hurried up to where I was, brandishing the other flechette, and I noted that Mutambi had his gun back, and Ch’ng had Fergus’. However that had been sorted out had been quiet enough that I’d missed it. At least no one had died over it.