He nodded and handed me a ring phone.
“Here. It’s secure. We’ll use it to communicate.”
I reached for it, but before my hand made contact I split into Roman’s mind.
I was riding around as a passenger, fortunately, instead of controlling his body. As with every time before I could see what he did, but overlaid over the face of a puzzled Ayumi.
Roman burst through a back door of a church, into a tiny room with spare kneelers stacked against a wall and hooks with matching vestments lined up against another. He squeezed between stacks of ancient wooden chairs and antique hymn books, the smell of print books and dust filled the air. A flickering half-light coming from the cracks around the door only magnified the shadows. The sound of hushed voices carried from the other side of the door.
Vera? I feel like you are close.
I’m riding in your mind again.
Well keep your eyes open then, will you sweetheart? I’m sure he’s here.
Roman eased the handle on the door and opened it a crack, but he couldn’t see well enough, so he slid his head out, a nettlegun tucked firmly in his hands.
Out of nowhere a burly arm seized his collar and dragged him out of the door. He cursed internally, and I did, too. They had been waiting for him, and as soon as the one had a grasp on him, three more came flowing from the blind spot the doorway made, and easily disarmed him.
Roman scanned the room, looking for Ryu and relief flooded over him before I even noticed the boy sitting happily on one of the pews playing a game with an older gentleman. The child’s eyes lit up at Roman’s appearance and he left his companion and ran to Roman. Roman scooped him up, and relieved devotion filled his mind.
“Ryu! I’ve been worried about you,” he said, his eyes darting to the armed men circling the room. He must have run in without proper caution. It wasn’t like Roman not to calculate the odds, but it was like him to put the people he loved over his own safety.
“Roman, you must come see the game!” Ryu said, “Mr. Fukushima showed me how.”
“In a moment, Ryu,” Roman said, ruffling his hair and glancing up at grey haired Mr. Fukushima whose grave expression did not indicate someone who played a lot of games.
I knew this was an important strategic moment, but I struggled to concentrate on it. Roman’s heart was so full that it bubbled into the channel and in that moment I finally understood his devotion to little Ryu and why he didn’t hesitate to run to his aid. He loved me and was my protector, but in an even more real way he was Ryu’s protector because Ryu was helpless in a world that had abandoned him. Roman would never let him be abandoned again. He was Roman’s family, and he was my family now, too.
I shook myself out of that revelation and remembered with a start why I recognized Mr. Fukushima. He was the second minister of Rymarch, the second largest planet in the Blackwatch Empire. Exactly what was he doing, kidnapping children?
I snapped back to my body, and shook myself.
“Are you well?” Ayumi asked, with a frown.
“Yes,” I replied, but my brow was furrowed.
Are you ok? I asked Roman.
For now. I’ll keep you up to date.
Mr. Fukushima is important. He’s the second minister of Rymarch.
“We need to leave for Osatalik immediately,” I said to Ayumi.
“Very well. And the arrangements you wanted me to make?”
“Can you make them on the way?” I asked, smiling ruefully.
“Of course,” he agreed.
We scooped up Kitsano on our way through the entrance and rushed to the skyskimmer. Admiral Tagawa’s hovercar was leaving as we arrived at the lot.
“You look out of sorts, Kitsano. Is everything ok?” I asked, as we strapped into the back of the skyskimmer.
She smiled slightly and nodded, looking away quickly. Maybe she was more in love with Driscoll than I had imagined. She seemed more translucent now than ever before. My head hurt thinking about it.
We may have a small problem here, Vera, Roman said.
You don’t say? I’m on my way.
Bring that army of shadows with you.
If only I could.
THE MATSUMOTO: 35
“THEY WANT ME,” KITSANO SAID, when we were in the air. She turned her haunted eyes to mine and her hands shook uncontrollably.
“Who?”
“Zeta’s army does. But so do the others here on New Greenland. They all want me. I hear them calling to me and singing to me. It’s worse when you are near. I can hardly hear my own thoughts anymore.”
My eyes widened and I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t been paying enough attention. Her eyes looked like Sammy’s had just before he turned and fought them.
“But you were fine on the freighter!” I said, feeling my lips grow cold. “What do they want from you?”
“It was different before, but now there are so many. They’re crushing me. It’s me they want, Vera. They want me to join them- both sides do.”
“You can hear them?” I asked, feeling my own shiver of fear.
“You cannot?” she asked, and as I watched her left hand became completely shadow.
“No. I can only hear Zeta and the Javierians.”
“The others want nothing to do with you. They say they belong to the Emperor. They call themselves his Ever-Living Army.”
The blood rushed from my face. My army had abandoned me, and even my gamble for back up from the Fleet was tenuous since Admiral Tagawa wanted nothing to do with this or with me. Meanwhile, Nigel had built his own army of shadows from our citizenry in a draft that could not be dodged. The harder I hustled the further he got.
Any time now would be fantastic, Roman said.
I didn’t even know what I would do when I got there. Ayumi, Kitsano and I could hardly take on the toughs I’d seen at the church.
Care to tell me where?
First Church of Osatalik.
Why were churches always first this or second that?
Not much imagination. Or maybe they want to make it easy for kidnappers to arrange a ransom.
Are you ok? You sound like you are joking with me.
Just trying to make light of a bad situation.
I can’t figure out what Zeta wants. I don’t want to negotiate with her blind.
Ask Kitsano. She gets the shadows in a way that we don’t.
“What does my shadow army call itself?” I asked Kistano.
“They call themselves ‘Zeta’s Army.’ She’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“She wants to renegotiate with me, but I don’t want to go into negotiations without knowing what she wants,” I looked at Kitsano sideways from beneath my lashes. “I don’t suppose you know?”
She looked out the window and a single tear slipped down her face.
“Don’t I just.”
Kitsano crying made me feel like there were bugs under my skin. It wasn’t right.
“Do they want me to give you to them?” I asked gently. Better her than Roman.
She shook her head.
“You know I’ll find out eventually,” I said as the skyskimmer slipped down into an alley behind an old stone church.
She was silent as the engine turned off and Ayumi peeked back at us.
“Driscoll says he has the package,” he said.
“Already?” I couldn’t mask my shock.
“Where should he bring it?”
“Anywhere but here,” I said, making my voice as firm as I could.
He nodded and I met Kitsano’s tear-filled eyes one more time.
“They want Patrick,” she whispered.
I felt the blood drain from my face and I cleared my throat.
“Well then. Let’s get to the church. We have things to discuss there that hopefully involve more ‘love thy neighbor’ than ‘an eye for an eye.’”
No one laughed. We got out into the alley. Zeta wanted Driscoll. I wouldn’t have expected that. It meant that if I were to get my army
back I’d need to sacrifice the man I had expected to lead them.
“Stay with the skyskimmer, Kitsano,” I said. “Someone needs to guard it.”
Ayumi raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and the two of us walked up to the solid wood door under the tympanum. How was I expected to sacrifice the life of my own father, absentee father though he was? It was exactly the kind of vindictive cruelty I should have expected from Zeta.
“Think we should knock?” I asked as Ayumi adjusted his sleeves.
“Why not?” he asked.
I knocked and then turned around at the sound of panting. Kitsano was directly behind me.
“The pilot is with the skyskimmer and you can use my help,” she said. Her eyes were red rimmed.
I sighed internally but didn’t repeat my command. I had too much else on my mind. I had a husband and child to save from kidnappers, and I had to mull over a major decision. If I refused Zeta I could say goodbye to the Empire. If I agreed with her demands I would betray a parent. Who was I at the core? Vera the self-preservationist or Vera who lived up to codes of honor? I wanted to be honorable, or at least, I thought I did. I had been a pacifist once, and I’d thrown that away. Now I’d built a new life on responsibility. Would I abandon that just as quickly when it no longer served my purpose?
The door opened and one of the toughs eased it inward. We walked the gauntlet between him and his buddy. Mr. Fukushima bowed slightly to us from the end of the line and said, “Weapons are to be left at the door.”
Ayumi pulled three two-shots from various places in his garments and set them down, but Kitsano and I were unarmed. She was fading worse than ever before, but I noticed that Mr. Fukushima was also a touch translucent around his feet. That was worrying. Was Nigel singing to him, asking him to leave mortality, even as we spoke?
He led us through the vestibule to the sanctuary, flinging the heavy doors open as he led us within. The noonday sun poured through stain glass windows, painting the inside of the church in shades of purple. Under one violet stain Roman sat on a pew, playing a game with Ryu. His eyes met mine immediately.
I’m glad you’re safe, I said.
I don’t like that I brought you here, but something about it felt right.
I looked around him. Three other men lounged on pews in high fashion suits and coats. I recognized all of them: Mr. O’Reilly, First Minister of the planet Evjen, Mr. Ikeda, First Minister of the planet Saitama and Mr. Finseth, First Minister of the planet Asper. Roman was right, it was a who’s who of Blackwatch government.
“Rymarch only sent the second minister?” I asked Mr. Fukushima, placing my hand on my hip and squaring my shoulders. I would not be intimidated by rulers of planets when I planned to take their Empire as my own.
“Our First minister is previously engaged,” he said, but the tone he used – sadness and guilt washing together as one – sent chills up my spine. I had a bad feeling that he was one more victim of Nigel Matsumoto.
“That is…unfortunate,” I said.
“He’s less opaque than he used to be,” he said.
Of course. Station and power meant nothing when the shadows came for you. My mind flickered over to Driscoll for a moment. The shadows wanted him. Who would I sacrifice on the altar of their greed? Of my ambition?
Not Ryu.
Or you, sweet man.
But what about Driscoll? The thought made me feel hollow. I was beginning to feel affection for him. It didn’t hurt that we so often thought the same way. He was cold and difficult. So was I. He thought always of the bigger picture and what he was trying to achieve. So did I. What decision would he make if it were up to him? I already knew that, didn’t I?
“You must feel manipulated to have been lured here,” Mr. O’Reilly said, running a hand through thinning black hair.
“It’s hardly on par with you kidnapping my…people,” I said, realizing at the last moment that it would only strengthen their position if I admitted to my relationship with Roman.
“We are losing thousands of people by the day,” Mr. Ikeda said, his face pale with passion. “We have begged the Emperor to stop this plague upon us, but he has done nothing.”
“Don’t be a fool, Ikeda. We all know he does nothing because he is the cause,” Mr. Fukushima said, turning his eyes back to me. “The Matsumotos owed us their protection. The pact entitles us to that, but instead he absorbs our people into his will. You have done this to us. You Matsumotos.”
He rolled up his sleeves and I had full view of his shadowy arms.
“Forget the blame,” Mr. Finseth said, pushing himself forward. He was small and wiry, but still solid. “The Refugee crisis grows worse by the hour. There are not enough places to put our brothers and sisters, and New Greenland is experiencing the coldest planetary winter on record! All of our planets are swamped with fleeing civilians and there is no certainty which of us the enemy will strike at next, but the Emperor refuses to negotiate a peace.”
“Because he started this war!” Mr. Fukushima announced. “He killed those computer chip designers in Elaria. It is well known among those of us who investigated, and widely discussed in the People’s Freehold. They are coming here to supress our egotistical Empire. We need an alternative, and we need one, now before we are all gone!”
“Which is why,” Mr. O’Reilly interrupted calmly, “We took your man. We hoped that by taking him hostage we could negotiate with you. Perhaps one Matsumoto can speak with another.”
“So you were the ones who were working with Ch’ng, not the Emperor?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” Fukushima said. “He has been our secret servant for six years – though he did not know who he was working for. He thought our orders were from the Emperor.”
“Where is he?”
“Being debriefed elsewhere. We thought it best to meet you on our own. He’s grown…emotional about the tasks he was assigned.”
“And what,” I asked, barely masking my anger, “did you hope to do here? Renegotiate our pact? Not all the worlds are represented here, and I am not Emperor.”
“We speak for the other worlds,” Mr. Ikeda said.
“And we are certain that we can convince you to negotiate on our behalf,” Mr. O’Reilly said softly. “You were born to be an Ambassador after all. You’ll forgive our actions, I hope. We are running out of Matsumotos who might be willing to speak to the Emperor on our behalf.”
My mouth fell open. It was so Blackwatch to softly ask to negotiate with the Matsumotos. We ruled them with an iron fist and they respected and honored us for it. I felt a baseline of disgust, but under it was awe. I hadn’t been raised to expect civil servants to be so inherently honorable that they would risk themselves for the good of our people.
“How can I be sure that you speak for all the worlds?” I said, hedging for a moment.
A peaceful solution. Isn’t that what we want most? Roman asked me from across the room. He was still crowded in close to Ryu, like he wasn’t sure the threat was gone.
I think that what I want most is to live. I’m not sure that is an option while Nigel is living, too.
“We have a new pact we want signed,” Mr. Fukushima said, handing me a portable computer and keying it on. I looked at the holoscreen. It was a pact just like the one Neal Matsumoto had made originally. I booted up his pact in my implant. Those histories were coming in handy. Line for line it was similar, but where it had originally read “the Emperor will chose the ministers of each world” it read “the ministers of each world will be chosen by the people in a free election.” Where it read “the Emperor has the right to execute anyone who breaks the rules of this pact” it read “the Emperor will refer all rule breakers to a judiciary court for sentencing and administration of punishment.” There were more differences, but they all whittled away the power of the Emperor making him essentially the head of a Constitutional Monarchy rather than a dictatorial Empire.
Most shocking of all was the portion that referred to the three rul
es of the Matsumotos. In the original they were listed in detail along with our other promises to protect the people and ensure their prosperity. In the new draft they were not included. It would change us forever.
Who was ‘us’ these days? Only Nigel and I were left. If I signed this or agreed to ask him to sign it he would try even harder to kill me, so essentially there was only one of us left: him or me, and which one it would be was yet to be determined.
I felt the blood rushing to my head and my stomach swam with acid. I was terrified to sign that document and change the face my Empire had worn for ten generations. Hadn’t I planned to make these very changes myself? Well, maybe not all of them, but most. And right now, with an army on our doorstep and a dynastic battle raging, could I afford to refuse the backing of our government over a few small clauses?
I pressed my thumb to the signature pad.
Third phase complete. Final phase initiating.
Mr. Fukushima cleared his throat.
“We had hoped you could convince the Emperor to sign the pact.”
My face hardened. “You and I both know he will never sign this, but if I live, this Empire will be mine, and you have my signature and my word. It will have to be enough for you.”
A throat cleared from behind me and the toughs spun in place, their guns snapping up to level at the intruder.
“It seems I’ve arrived just on time,” Driscoll said. In his fist he clutched the collar of Everard Oshiro.
THE MATSUMOTO: 36
“I told you not to bring him here,” I said, clenching my jaw.
“If you want to see him now is the time. There’s no time to pick a fancy restaurant and shop for an outfit,” Driscoll said. What was winding him up so tightly?
He marched Oshiro down the aisle to the rest of us. Fukushima and the others were silent, staring at their feet and shifting in their seats. I sighed and wanted to hold my head in my hands. I was so tired of no one else being able to stand up and get things done. They all cowered as soon as they were faced with the least opposition. No one took any initiative except me – and Roman and Driscoll, but that didn’t count since they always took the wrong initiative. I was running out of time, and I had long ago run out of patience. My head ached and felt hot. I couldn’t think. I was just so tired of having to process one emotion after another and of having to hold the hand of one person after another. Why couldn’t they all just go along with what I said and then everything would work out.
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