Rei was actually a talented swimmer, but it had been a long time since he’d come to the pool just for the sake of swimming. Forgetting this was being done as a duty, Rei let the sensation of the water carry him away as he swam without a wasted motion. He soon came to relish the feeling of just moving his body.
As always doing his best not to waste a single stroke, he switched between a two-beat crawl when he grew tired and a six-beat sprint when he wanted to push himself. Rei was out of breath after only four or five laps, driving home to him just how out of shape he was. Abandoning his original plan to switch up his swimming style to a butterfly stroke, he cruised along with the easiest crawl he could manage. Rei thought he could keep going for hours doing that, but gradually his arms grew heavy. He looked at the big analog clock that hung on the wall by the pool. Not even twenty minutes had passed. He decided to keep going and get at least thirty minutes of swimming in, but the hands on the clock crawled along at a glacial pace. When he realized that he was obsessing about how long it was taking, Rei finally admitted that he was too weak to keep pushing on and climbed out of the pool.
He chose a deck chair away from the crowd and sat down to catch his breath. The chair was a new one, nice and clean. He suddenly realized that the chair and the facility it sat in were both clean because someone was keeping them clean. Of course the center had a full-time maintenance staff. They never saw the JAM. There must have been lots of civilian contractors who had come to Faery. War was big business. He’d never before thought about all the people who were involved in the war with the JAM, but when he stopped to think about it, only a small fraction of the FAF directly faced the JAM threat on the front lines. Even so, that doesn’t mean that the people at the rear, like the ones who keep this pool clean, were necessarily safe, Rei thought.
Assuming they considered the humans worthy of their notice in this war, there were all sorts of ways the JAM could kill everyone here if they wanted to. The JAM might have already begun making preparations. The pool maintenance staff might have been noncombatants, but no place on Faery was safe for them. Rei didn’t know if they were conscious of that, but he was grateful that they were here doing their job. Grateful that they kept things clean.
THE CHEERFUL GROUP, apparently having been waiting for Rei to leave the pool, were lined up on the start line. Teams were instantly chosen and it seemed that a mini swim meet was about to begin. After a few humorous on-the-spot introductions of the swimmers, the race began. Some onlookers cheered the swimmers on. Rei was tired, but hearing their cheers felt good to him. The actual participants were probably good swimmers, but their skill range was all over the place. Still, they were giving it their best and taking it seriously, so it didn’t make for a bad show.
The race was a three-course relay, and when the second set of swimmers dove in, the one in the center lane caught Rei’s attention. She was a woman, remarkably fast, and she didn’t waste a single stroke. She was catching up with the man who was in the lead. Rei was intrigued by her excellent performance and wondered if she had ever competed seriously. There was a beauty to the movements of a well-trained human body. He could never tire of watching it.
“Not joining in, Captain Fukai?” said a voice that suddenly came from behind him. Rei didn’t turn to look. He knew it was Captain Foss. He hadn’t even noticed her come in.
“Did I ask to join in? I’m not interested,” Rei said. His eyes stayed on the race.
“I wonder if you don’t want to compete because you’re afraid of losing,” Captain Foss said, as though idly chatting.
“I’m not afraid of losing.” He turned to face Captain Foss. “Losing doesn’t make me feel scared, just irritated.”
“Quite a few people would avoid contests from the start because they don’t like to feel that way. That’s basically what a fear of losing is. They hate the contest itself. Are you sure that isn’t what you’re feeling?”
“What I think,” Rei said, “is that I’d rather avoid losing a contest and feeling irritated about it if it isn’t necessary. That’s how I feel about that race. I didn’t come here to win anything.” He paused for a moment. “So what brings you here?”
Captain Foss was wearing the white doctor’s coat she normally eschewed during her counseling sessions. The coat marked her as a military doctor, which essentially made it her uniform. It meant that she was still on duty and hadn’t come here for fun.
“Major Booker just asked me to do the right thing for you,” she said.
“Oh,” Rei replied. When he followed his one-word answer with silence, Captain Foss asked him if that was all he was going to say.
“What are you getting at?” Rei asked.
“A little while ago, the major contacted me and told me in no uncertain terms that he wanted you released from my care.”
“So what? You’re saying he was lying when he told you to do the right thing for me?”
“No, he was telling me that if I were worried about you, then he wanted me to end the psychological aspect of your rehabilitation, and to please take care to do that.”
“And you want to stay involved, right?”
“It’s my job. Of course I want to stay involved. I have no idea what the major is thinking. Or what you’re thinking, for that matter. If you don’t like my methods, could you please do me the courtesy of telling me so to my face?”
“This is definitely the major’s doing,” Rei said as he rose from the deck chair. “I just follow his orders. He told me that it wasn’t necessary for you to keep treating me. If there’s something going on between you and the major, that’s not my problem.”
“Where are you going?”
“The sauna.”
“Are you running away from me?”
“Running away?” Rei chuckled without even thinking. “You seem like you want to fight with me, but you don’t know how to. Okay, here’s how it works—if you don’t want me to run away, you chase me. If you get in my way, I hit you. Major Booker gave me permission to do that, naturally.”
“Who are you at war with, Captain Fukai?”
“The JAM.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“You trying to be my girlfriend now?”
“What?”
“The sauna. Are you coming in with me?”
“If you’re going in, then yes, of course I will.”
“Dressed like that?”
In response, Captain Foss slowly took off her white coat, then grasped the hem of her sweater and began pulling it off too.
“Forget the sauna,” Rei said. “I don’t think I could deal with you asking me about this and that in a tiny, hot little room.”
Captain Foss paused, her pale belly showing. “Then will you come to my office?” she asked.
“No.”
“You’re not yet psychologically fit to return to combat duty.”
“You’re right,” Rei replied with a nod. “There’s something I need to settle with you first.”
“Settle with me?”
“Why are you so interested in what goes on in my mind? That’s going to gnaw at me until I get an answer.”
It was annoying how she was always following him around. There was no escape from her on the base, and ignoring her required an enormous amount of effort. The only thing left to do was to have it out with her once and for all.
The race in the pool wasn’t over yet. The last swimmers had just dived in, and everybody was paying attention to them. Rei might have lost interest in the swimmers, but the people in the pool area were still aware of him. As Rei looked to be walking away, one of them whistled and called out, “SAF’s bugging out of here.” There was no scorn or anger in his voice. It was simply delivered as a situation report. The cheers died down. It’s the same reaction I get from other units in battle, Rei thought. The Special Air Force really did hold a special position in their forces. Rei left the pool area without looking back.
In the locker room, he changed out of his s
wim trunks, put his wristwatch back on, then logged his exercise on a form he carried on a clipboard. When he’d gathered it all up and walked out of the locker room, Captain Foss was waiting for him.
The basic reason why she had come was that, technically, this was the time when she should have been examining him, and as his attending physician, she wasn’t amused by his arbitrarily deciding to do a bit of independent training instead. He’d just been following Major Booker’s orders, but it was clear that the major hadn’t been able to convince this doctor. That left it to Rei, the concerned party in this matter, to get her to agree. If he managed to make her see that he didn’t need her to treat him anymore, it’d take a load off of his mind as well. The result would be the same whether Major Booker made the move or not. Thinking that, Rei renewed his resolve. He canceled the strength training session he’d scheduled for after his swim and left the center to have a chat with Captain Foss.
Back at his quarters in the SAF residential area, Rei changed again, into his ground duty fatigues. Since he had no intention of going to Captain Foss’s examination room, he headed to the sortie briefing room instead. Captain Foss followed him without a word.
The room was dark and deserted, the ceiling lights automatically turning on as they entered. As they did Rei felt a twinge of preflight nerves, which he hadn’t sensed for a while.
The main monitor along the front wall of the room, which normally would have displayed mission action data, was dark now. As Rei stood in front of the computer terminal to the side, Captain Foss finally spoke.
“How do you feel? What are your impressions, coming here?”
“My impression is that I want to get back into the fight as soon as I can. My physical rehab is going just fine, better than you claim. As far as I see, there’s no problem with me going back into combat. Major Booker’s just being cautious. He’s after perfection. Is that what you’re after too?”
“I am, though my position is different from the major’s.”
“What is your position in the FAF? Why did you come here? It doesn’t seem like you were forced to join up, but I don’t get the sense that you’re just another doctor who’s hot to do their job either. Military doctors don’t disobey their superior officers.”
“I’m not disobeying my superior. Who happens to be General Cooley. Even Major Booker has to admit that.”
“You’re just like the JAM,” Rei said, his voice cracking. “I don’t know what you think of me and I can’t communicate with you very well. I don’t know what you’re doing here on Faery. Meanwhile, you just keep coming after me. You’re an unknown, Foss. Does General Cooley even know who you are?”
“She’s a distant relative of mine.”
“Huh?” Rei leaned against the computer console, not thinking as he made his dumbfounded grunt of surprise. Captain Foss kept her eyes on him as she drew closer and sat down in one of the front-row seats. Almost like a child who’d been ordered to stay after class, thought Rei.
“Although,” Captain Foss said, “I’d never met her until I came here. She didn’t know we were related either. Still, I used the family connection. I was never going to get anywhere with my research into the psychological makeup of FAF pilots without actually coming here. The truth is, I wanted to come here as a civilian.”
“So that’s how it is,” Rei said. “What a pain in the ass.”
“Major Booker said the same thing. But my interest wasn’t going to get any priority unless I worked here as a military doctor. I’m working on a detailed report of the patients I’ve examined, which includes you. But there’s no evidence that Major Booker has read what I’ve submitted so far. I find it insane that he’d just ignore it and then claim that I’m unnecessary. It wasn’t like that back in the Systems Corps. My work was valued there. From what I’ve seen, I’d say that the SAF is a collection of weirdos.”
“That doesn’t sound like the way a doctor would talk.”
“Okay, that’s true. I was a little rash there. But I’m a human being with feelings too, you know,” Foss said.
“You’re the one who needs counseling. You aren’t used to the environment in the SAF. I don’t need you. Anything that has to do with me, I’ll handle by myself. I’m not looking for help from anyone. Conversely, I don’t help anyone. I don’t want to get wrapped up in anyone else’s feelings. Any feelings that aren’t mine are illusions. That’s the sort of people who make up the SAF.”
“Perfectly put,” Captain Foss replied with a nod. “You’re not abnormal individually, but in a group, you literally become ‘special.’ The idea of putting together a team of people with a limited ability to feel empathy is fascinating to me.”
“That’s thanks to Major Booker’s skills. Or, more accurately, to General Cooley’s. The JAM aren’t human. They’re beings whose true nature is still a mystery to us. The general thinks that you need people with inhuman abilities in order to collect data on and analyze entities like the JAM. She probably thinks that human sympathy would lead to projecting human qualities onto the JAM, and we’d end up coming to the wrong conclusions.”
“Assuming the JAM actually exist and are a real threat.”
“That’s true. There’s a definite possibility that they don’t really exist,” Rei said.
“What did you just say? You mean you really believe that? I’m amazed. I just said they might not exist to see how shocked you’d be.”
“You may see the JAM as illusory, but that’s not how I see them. They may not have physical existence, but I can sense them,” Rei said. “Their existence is more real to me than yours is.”
“Perhaps the FAF successfully repelled the original JAM long ago. What if the JAM we face now is an imaginary enemy created by the SAF to maintain this war environment? It’s easy for people like you to live in an environment like this, so maybe you’ve gotten together as a group to deceive everyone else. What do you think of that possibility?”
“I’m sure there are some people in the world who think that. It’s not that strange to me.”
“In other words, you’ve considered the possibility as well,” Foss said.
“I think that if a person were drowning in front of me, even I would hold my hand out to them. I’d have to help them. It’s not a question of feelings. It’s a reflexive action.”
“So…?”
Captain Foss didn’t question his abrupt change of topic. It’s a good method to induce me to talk, Rei thought.
“You seem like you’re drowning in your own thoughts,” he said. “I’m able to sense that. But if I were a JAM, I wouldn’t see you. Probably couldn’t see you. If you were drowning, the JAM wouldn’t directly attack you, but they wouldn’t help you either. They would ignore you completely. As far as the JAM are concerned, human beings don’t exist. I just don’t think the human imagination could come up with beings that can’t even perceive us as the antagonists in a story.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate the power of human imagination, or the clout of others. It may just be my own impression that the SAF has both the imagination and clout to create an illusion like that, but your viewpoint that I seem to be drowning just reinforces it,” Captain Foss replied.
“You can see JAM fighter planes with your naked eye, and they attack. But we can’t see what’s flying them. It may be the same for the JAM as far as humans go. They may not be able to recognize us directly, but when they began to sense the threat we posed, I think they started building a human-perception mechanism. One with the same sensory organs as humans to act as a system to perceive the world as we do. In other words, human duplicates.
“The human side of the war had the means to oppose the JAM from the start—combat machine intelligences, of which Yukikaze is a representative. It doesn’t take much imagination to come up with an idea like this. Neither does the idea that the SAF invented the JAM to justify its own existence to others. All people ever do is think up things that are convenient for them to believe.”
“And i
n that way, you can psychologically draw me in,” said Captain Foss. “Are you conscious of that and able to judge that for yourself?”
“I think you should withdraw your diagnosis that I’m not psychologically fit for combat. The JAM are the enemy, not Yukikaze. I realize that anew even as I say it. That’s thanks to your counseling. You really are a miracle worker,” Rei said. “Here I am, in the middle of a war, having forgotten about the existence of the enemy, and you’ve made me realize who they are: the JAM are the ones I should be out there killing.”
“I think you see me as more of an enemy than you do the JAM. What do you think of that?”
“That’s the heart of why you’re so nervous. You probably think if I fly into battle with Yukikaze, I’ll just spread the idea of the JAM—which you essentially think are imaginary—even more strongly across the world. You think madness is contagious. As far as you’re concerned, the SAF is insane. The thing is, everything in war is insane. You just haven’t been part of that shared delusion up till now. To the SAF fighting a war, you’re the one that’s insane because you think this war is meaningless, that the JAM are phantoms, and that there really is no enemy anywhere.”
“But you sense that as well, don’t you?” Foss asked. “I think you’re just trying to give meaning to what are meaningless battles.”
“I’m not denying the possibility that the JAM are imaginary. But even if they’re phantoms, just virtual monsters produced from my head and the results of the SAF’s data processing, it doesn’t matter. As far as we’re concerned, the JAM are a real threat, an enemy that will kill us if we ignore them. That’s reality for the SAF. So I’m going to fight, no matter what you say. It’s so that I can live. Since I’ll end up being killed by the JAM if I go along with what you say, you have no right to complain.”
Good Luck, Yukikaze Page 14