The Matsumoto Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Again, I wished I had access to that databank. I tried Edward’s name. He was my guardian when these systems were installed. If anyone had a code it was him. Roman hadn’t even known he had an implant before they set him loose to guard me, so he wouldn’t have access codes.

  Code failure. Two more tries until complete system lock out.

  Great. So I couldn’t guess randomly, I’d have to think it through carefully. Nothing was coming to me. Other than being a guardian, Edward cared about very little in this life.

  Sammy and I led the way along a steep ridge, heading northwest. Ian and Ch’ng followed close on our heels. Driscoll and Mutambi were next and then the rest scattered themselves in a winding snake behind us. The space between my shoulder blades itched furiously with tension. I was worried with every step that someone was going to fire a few flechettes there.

  What in the world could Edward’s code be?

  We had hardly gone a kilometer before I heard the echo. By now, I was beginning to suspect that it was not my implant acting up – or at least, if it was, then it was acting up in direct response to shadows appearing. It echoed in my skull so loudly that it was all I could do to hold on to my flechette gun, rather than put my hands to my ears.

  “Everyone keep an eye out for shadows,” I ordered.

  “Shadows,” Sammy snorted, but I had noticed he wouldn’t look at that ghastly pillar back at the shuttle.

  To try to distract from the echo I turned on the video play-back on my implant.

  “They keep luring her to them, somehow, trying to trap her. It’s as if they know who she is, as if they are targeting her specifically, but why would they do that? We all have theories, but none of us will speak them out loud. Dr. Naro even asked her, but she refused to say what she thought. It is hard to complete our studies without all the information.”

  No kidding. If only I had more information. Why hadn’t the aliens slaughtered us already? Why did they let us sleep in safety? What was the code to the implant databank?

  We walked for two hours in silence, our eyes scanning the edges of the trees for shadows, as our feet found a path in the rocky terrain. Red inverted carets popped up and then disappeared from my sight. A part of me wished they would just get it over with although the rest of me was trying to strangle that part.

  “They’re everywhere,” Sammy said eventually.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Where?” Ch’ng asked from behind us, looking nervous.

  “Don’t get jumpy, Ch’ng,” I warned. “No one wants to get shot in the back with that flesh-ripper.”

  He ignored me.

  “I still don’t see anything.”

  “I think they’re trying to talk to me,” Sammy said in a strange way.

  I looked at him piercingly. He seemed like the stereotypical marine, right down to the haircut, which was odd on a criminal. He held the gun like he planned to marry it later. Not a criminal, I reminded myself, a terrorist – and an effective one. Also a suspicious one.

  “What are they saying?” I asked, humoring him.

  “That they want me to fight them.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about that. All we’ve been doing is fighting them.”

  “Not everyone,” he said, his eyes looking a bit wild, “Just me. It’s an honor thing.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said. “I mean, die if you want, but there are thousands of them.”

  We trudged along, now in silence. I think everyone was as worried as I was that Sammy would go off the deep end at any moment. Only Driscoll seemed unconcerned.

  It was four hours into our day that I ordered us to stop for a break. We drank, took care of business, they ate – I was still wary, and I took a break from my endless science recordings. I turned my thoughts to the password again,

  Please input code, my implant said.

  I was so distracted with racking my brain that I didn’t notice that Sammy had wandered off about sixty meters. He had left his pack behind, bringing only the flechette gun. I opened my mouth to call to him, but then I saw them. All around him was a ring of shadows. He stretched his muscles, rolling his shoulders, and they darkened, intensifying by the second.

  “Sammy, you fool, get back here!” Driscoll cried from beside me.

  Sammy ignored him, laying the flechette gun down. The rest of us were silent, fear of the shadows warring with fascination at a man committing suicide before our eyes.

  “I need to prove myself, Mr. Driscoll,” Sammy said.

  “Don’t be an idiot!” Driscoll yelled, but Sammy ignored him.

  All at once the shadows closed in, and Sammy began to dance an intricate series of fighting stances, kicking, punching and whirling his way in and out of the shadows. They spurted their ink-like puffs of smoke at every hit, and widened as he fought hard, tightened when his intensity momentarily slipped. Together they were locked in a deadly dance.

  I wished I could fight like that. Edward’s words spoke clearly in my memory, ‘Don’t ever worry about fighting, Little Robin, I will always protect you.’

  The memory was bittersweet. As much as I would love Edward’s protection right now, he would have been horrified at what I’d sunk to.

  In a moment of inspiration I entered the code.

  Little Robin.

  His pet name for me. My heart lurched a little.

  Access Granted.

  I didn’t have time to celebrate. Sammy still danced his martial arts forms at impossible speeds, battling a large shadow in a ring of at least a dozen other shadows. Behind the ring hundreds more pressed in, waiting for their chance to duel him.

  “Holy-” Ch’ng said. “He’s amazing. What did he do before he was sent here?”

  “Revolutionary,” Driscoll grunted, his eyes never leaving his comrade. His voice broke at the end of the word and he cleared his throat and then spoke more gruffly. “And before that he was a high ranking Blackwatch marine.”

  Mutambi whistled under his breath and I felt myself wanting to join him. Sammy was impressive. Why had he thrown so much talent away on a fool’s mission? As talented as he was, he was vastly outnumbered, and there was no way he could take them all. And then what? Would they turn on us? They had been shadowing us all this way, singing to Sammy, but leaving the rest of us alone. What would they do once he was a pillar of fungi? The thought made my palms sweat.

  I surveyed the area. The ground before us climbed slowly to a shallow rise. If we had to stand our ground somewhere that would be the only place. It was open and rocky with only one large tree. The ground was covered in a swirling plant that looked like the inside of a purple cabbage, but it clung to the rocks and wouldn’t impede us.

  What were our options? Should we assist Sammy? There were too many. Should we flee? Maybe. Turn to the rise and set up a defensive position? That was probably our best bet – for now at least.

  “We’ll set up a defensive position on that rise,” I said, pointing.

  “Are you kidding me?” Shumner said, his eyes popping with emotion. “Sammy is down there and he needs our help!”

  “Nothing we can do for him, lad,” Driscoll said quietly.

  “We could set up a counter attack. Look how well he’s doing. We could distract them for him and he’ll win.”

  I looked at the ranks of shadows. No one was going to win against them. The only hope was that they would be too distracted with Sammy to turn on us. Had they really called him to fight them? Why did they want that so badly? Could anyone guess the intentions of an alien mind?

  One of the shadows shifted slightly, and I had a terrible feeling it was looking right at me.

  “Run,” I whispered.

  As if I’d shot off a flare gun, we ran. We hit the incline at our various top speeds. I noticed Driscoll had Sammy’s pack. We made it up the rise and gathered in a circle, backs to each other, facing out around the hill.

  From where I stood, I could see Sammy clearly. He was still fighting, but his energy was fading.


  Download fighting program.

  Please choose program.

  Martial arts and marksmanship fighting programs.

  Downloading martial arts and marksmanship fighting programs. All other functions will be put on hold. Prepare mind for slaved function.

  Oh shoot. I should have waited.

  Wait!

  Downloading…

  Damn! Damn! Damn! I was too impatient and too desperate. This was really bad.

  I was now down to just half my usual brain power and no implant back up. All that brain space and implant function would be concentrated into downloading the programs. Yeah, we can do that. The public doesn’t know that Matsumotos can bypass years of training by using our illegal mental implants and just know things that should require hours of practice, but we can. It’s frowned on, but it’s possible.

  Is that fair? Not at all. We’re Matsumotos. Matsumotos are not fair.

  Sammy stumbled. The shadow closed in. I waited for a yellow fungus to erupt into the sky. Instead, he – faded. That was the only word for it. He faded into a shadow. Somehow, rather than leaving him as permanent compost, they had absorbed him into their ranks.

  I shuddered. Somehow this was worse.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Did they just eat him?”

  “I think he’s one of them, now,” said Ian with a sideways glance at me. Yeah. That’s right, Ian. I absorbed him, didn’t I? I made him swear fealty.

  I needed to think, but I couldn’t think.

  Downloading…

  Sammy’s death had been like some sort of honor battle. It was like they were recruiting him, rather than killing him. Is that what this is about? To test us? To recruit us?

  The echo in my implant was getting worse. Louder. Almost, I could hear words shaping.

  I focused inward, meditating, trying to clear my brain. Maybe if I gave my implant more room to work with it could download quicker. I was a leaf floating on the current. I focused inward. It worked for a moment, and I felt the implant taking over more of my conscious brain, but then a voice crept in.

  “Vera?”

  My eyes snapped open, and the calm was gone. I felt like I was trying to think through a thick cloud. The strangest thoughts floated out of the blackness, but the things I was trying to focus on kept skittering away.

  The shadows were still below us. I couldn’t think. Delegate. I needed to delegate.

  “Ian,” I said, “Take the lead. Get us out of here as fast as possible.”

  Now why did I choose him? A memory echoed in my mind:

  “Enter into our Empire with the blessing of the Matsumotos. We will defend you and yours in so far as law and justice allows. We will keep you and yours in the manner of all our citizens. Our laws shall bind you. Our military protect you. You shall be our vassal, but also our son. By the true honour and the seal of our word we bind you to us today. Welcome.”

  I remembered Ian swearing fealty to the Throne of Blackwatch, but it was me who had received that vow. I had taken him on as a responsibility that day. I should have remembered that. It didn’t matter that he wanted to kill me. That happened when you were royalty. I still needed to defend him and protect him. He was my responsibility.

  He issued orders with a glimmer of satisfaction in his eye. Somehow he thought he’d won some sort of competition here. Little did he know that I had just remembered my obligation – and his. I fell in behind him, and we once again ran from shadows. Down below us, they were still occupied with whatever they were doing around what remained of Sammy.

  Driscoll fell in beside me. We were tucked in tight behind Ian and I saw his ears prick when Driscoll began to speak.

  “Why him? We made you leader for a reason,” he said.

  “Ian McIsaac is my vassal, though he may have forgotten,” I said, “As such he owes me his loyalty, and I owe him my trust.”

  Ian spat, not bothering to turn around.

  “I’d forgotten that, but I remember it now,” I said.

  “Still playing Matsumoto, then?” Driscoll asked.

  “Not playing. It’s only playing if it isn’t real. I’ve tried to reject my blood and my duty, but I think I got it wrong.”

  “Wrong?” He lifted an eyebrow.

  “I think I didn’t take it far enough.”

  “How far is enough?”

  “For now, far enough is remembering my duty to McIsaac here. From now on, he’s under my protection.”

  “Fat lot of good that will do,” Shumner muttered from behind Driscoll.

  I shot him a look, daring him to remember our first meeting, and he shut up.

  Download complete.

  I felt a thrill of delight as my mental processes came back. My Tactical Interface snapped back in place, showing us running along the map.

  “Veer a little easterly,” I told Ian.

  His face went hard, but he did it.

  The warmth of anticipation filled me. I couldn’t wait to try out my new skills. I noted that a tiny crosshair icon had been added to my Tactical Interface. It must be for the marksmanship download.

  “Why aren’t the shadows here yet?” Ian wondered aloud.

  “They’re still assimilating Sammy,” Driscoll said, “I guess they want the best and the brightest, so watch out because they’ll be after me next.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Ian replied.

  Oxygen supplement at 17%, my implant reminded me.

  I blinked. I had forgotten all about our air supply.

  “Everyone check your air read outs,” I said. “Call them out.”

  Numbers were called out. The highest was 21% The lowest was 14%. That was bad. I checked the map. It was six hours by my estimation before we reached the colony. Did we have six hours of air? Maybe, but probably not. We’d be spending the last leg of the trip in local atmosphere. I wished I’d paid more attention when the scientists listed the signs of oxygen toxicity.

  “Are we going to find somewhere to fill up on air before the colony?” Ch’ng asked.

  I shrugged.

  “You know the planet as well as I do.”

  “What happens if we run out?”

  “We breathe local atmosphere, which is too oxygen-rich.”

  “Isn’t oxygen good?” he asked.

  “Sometimes you can get way too much of a good thing,” Ian muttered from in front of me.

  I was pretty sure there was a double meaning there, and I felt a blush creeping up on my cheeks. I wouldn’t call myself a “good thing” but too much of me had spoiled both Ian and Roman’s futures. Driscoll was watching me closely, trying to pick out my reaction to Ian’s words. I betrayed nothing.

  My mind raced. Where were the shadows? When would they attack next? Was the conquest of Sammy enough to satisfy them for now? And what would our depleting air quality mean when they finally attacked again? Too many questions, but the throbbing in my temples told me that I’d know those answers soon enough.

  THE SPLITTING: 14

  WE WALKED FOR TWO MORE hours in silence, and I used that time to listen to the scientific recordings. I was making progress, with only a few more to go when they grabbed my interest again.

  “Subterranean Exploration resumed,” a man with slick black hair, a lab coat and a nameplate reading ‘Dr. Baker’ said. “We picked up where our predecessors ended.”

  Uh oh. That hadn’t gone well last time.

  “We began drilling but hit large gas pockets. Once they are burned off we will commence drilling…”

  “Hiro Matsumoto killed the woman I loved,” Patrick Driscoll said, suddenly.

  I looked at him, surprised and struggling to focus with the excited voice of the scientist in the background. Whether I listened to him or Driscoll I’d be missing something important. Oh well, I could always listen to the scientist again later.

  “Matsumotos don’t kill,” I said with no expression.

  “Oh no,” Driscoll agreed, “nothing to sully those lily w
hite hands of yours. No, you send agents and marines to do your killing. And you are ruthless. Who really kills? The one with the gun, or the one who orders it?”

  What was the point of this questioning? I was in no place to change the Matsumotos now. They had removed me from the family and were all hoping I’d die.

  “When I killed it was with a gun,” I said, still expressionless.

  “Yes,” said Driscoll. And for some reason it seemed like this was his point. “Have you ever thought of being Emperor, Vera?”

  The question was identical to the one Roman had asked me months ago. I paled, remembering my answer. Of course I hadn’t. I was a cousin, not in the line to become Emperor. Roman said that was because I was brainwashed.

  “It’s the farthest thing from my mind,” I said, distracted again by the recording.

  “We can’t explain it. Animals are disappearing. Birds. All life. They faded in front of our very eyes. What can make a five hundred kilo animal fade into a shadow while you are looking at him?”

  The scientist’s voice rose to a terrible pitch, and I shuddered. They’d seen animals made into shadows. I scanned the surrounding trees. No birds. Had there been birds here? Animals? Why hadn’t I noticed that there were no animals? That was really stupid, Vera.

  “Are my questions making you angry? You feel you aren’t a Matsumoto anymore? It’s not something you can abandon like an old pair of socks.”

  Driscoll had misread the situation entirely. I was still scanning the landscape, racking my memory for if I’d seen anything else in these woods except shadows.

  “In fact, by the end of the month you and Nigel Matsumoto will be the only living Matsumotos in all the universe.”

  I spun to face him, my eyes narrowing to slits. “You can’t know that.”

  “Now I have your attention,” he seemed pleased.

  “Is that why you allowed yourself to be captured, Driscoll? To make sure I die here? I don’t think you have much to worry about.”

  He laughed, “You have a pretty high regard for me if you think I allowed myself to be captured. No, I didn’t, but this is an opportune time.”

  I stepped back, aiming the nettlegun at him, my heart pounding.