His eyes had seized on one of the factory trucks parked in the fenced-in yard, a harmless tanker truck used for the transport of fuels. He approached it now and booted it, experiencing a long-lost thrill as the toy vehicle exploded and burst into flames.
Laborers at their work stations inside the factory heard Utema bellow:
“I quit! I can’t stand it! I quit! This is stupid!”
The explosion had rekindled his rage. He stood with his fists clenched, looking for something else to demolish, ignoring the protests of his giant coworker. The two faced off.
“It’s worse than stupid—it’s degrading!” Utema roared. “I’ve had enough!”
Violently, he side-kicked a stack of dressed logs, a guttural cry punctuating his swift move.
“Shut up and don’t interfere,” he warned his companion. “I’m leaving!”
The second giant made no move to stop Utema as he stepped over the chain-link fence and headed off into the wasteland. Two others had arrived on the scene, but they too let him walk.
“But where are you going?” one of them called out. “Utema—come back! You won’t survive out there!”
“It’s you that won’t survive!” Utema shouted back, pointing his finger. “War! War is the only thing that will save us!”
At a supper club in Monument City, Minmei, wearing a gauzy blue dress that hung off one shoulder, stood in the spotlight, accepting the applause. It was nowhere near a full house, and, disappointed by the turnout, she hadn’t put on her best show. Nevertheless, those few who had been able to afford tickets applauded her wildly, out of respect or politeness, she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps because most of her fans rarely knew when her performance was off—she was her own most demanding critic.
The light was a warm, comfortable curtain she was reluctant to leave.
Kyle was waiting for her backstage in the large and virtually unfurnished dressing room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking sullen and angry. He was dressed in jeans and a narrow-waisted jacket with tails. She could tell he’d been drinking and wondered when he would go into his Jekyll and Hyde number again. No doubt he’d caught all her off notes, tempo changes, and missed words.
“Hi,” she greeted him apologetically.
“That was terrible,” Kyle snapped at her, no beating around the bush tonight. It was going to be a bad evening, perhaps as bad as the night he had kicked a bottle at her.
“Sorry,” she told him mechanically, heading straight for the dressing table, seating herself on one of the velour stools, and wiping off makeup.
Kyle remained at the wall.
“I’m worried about tomorrow’s concert—if it goes like this.”
“I’ll be okay,” she promised him, looking over her shoulder. “There were so few people tonight that I was really taken by surprise. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right tomorrow.”
“This is a high-class club,” Kyle persisted. “We let the patrons down.”
She sighed. He wasn’t going to let go of it. She couldn’t do anything right anymore. He was constantly lecturing her and trying to change her behavior.
“I know,” she said meekly, sincerely depressed—not for disappointing Kyle but for giving anything less than her all to the audience.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now—the damage is done.”
She began applying creme to her face. “You could have reduced the admission price a bit, right?”
“Y’ get what you can,” Kyle said defensively, shaking his fist at her or the world, she didn’t know which. He approached her. “And then, don’t you forget, my pet—we’ll be sharing the dough we earn with all the poor people, right?”
His scolding voice was full of sarcasm and anger, hinting that she was somehow to blame for his actions: He had to charge a lot for the tickets because she was the one who insisted on splitting all the profits with the needy. Little did Kyle know that she would gladly have worked for no profit. It just didn’t seem right anymore to work for money with so much need, so much sadness and misery, in what was left of everyone’s world.
“Then why don’t we give all the money to charity?” she asked, meeting his glare. “We have enough.”
Kyle was down on one knee beside her now, anger still in his eyes but a new tone of conciliation and patience in his voice. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face.
“We have, but not enough to make our dreams come true. You certainly ought to be able to understand that!”
“Yeah, but—”
“We promised ourselves we’d build a great concert hall some day and do all our work there—right?”
She wanted to remind him that they had made that promise years ago, when such things seemed possible. But a great concert hall now—in the middle of this wasteland, with things just beginning to rebuild and isolated groups of people working the land who never strayed five miles from home? Still, she just didn’t have the energy to argue with him. She could imagine the accusatory tone in his voice: You’re the one who ought to understand about dreams—you had so many …
“Now, get cleaned up,” Kyle ordered, getting to his feet. “After you get dressed, I’ll take you out for a good dinner, okay?”
“I’m not very hungry, Kyle,” she told him.
He turned on her and exploded.
“We’re going to eat anyway! I’ll get the car.”
The door slammed. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry and went to work removing the rest of her makeup, hoping he would mellow somewhat by the time she met him at the stage door. But that didn’t happen.
“Come on, get in,” he demanded, throwing open the sports car’s passenger door.
She frowned and slid into the leather seat. Kyle accelerated even before she had the door closed, squealing the tires as they left the club. He knew that she hated that almost as much as she hated the car itself—a sleek, dual front-axled all-terrain sports car, always hungry for fuel and symbolizing all that she detested in the old world as much as the new: the idea of privilege, status, the haves and have-nots.
“Where would you like to eat?” Kyle said unpleasantly, throwing the vehicle through the gears.
“Your dad’s restaurant. We haven’t been there in a long time.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“Then why do you bother asking me where I want to eat, Kyle? Just let me off and I’ll go there myself!”
“Oh?” Kyle started to say, but swallowed the rest when he realized that Minmei had thrown open the door. An oncoming van veered off, narrowly missing them, as Kyle threw the steering wheel hard to the left to fling her back into the vehicle. But he overcorrected coming out of the resultant fishtail and ended up in a swerve that brought him into oncoming traffic. The car went through several more slides before he could safely brake and bring them to a stop on the shoulder. Afterward he leaned onto the steering wheel and exhaled loudly. When he spoke, all of the anger and sarcasm had left him.
“Minmei … we could have been killed …”
Minmei was not nearly as shaken by the incident, having achieved some purpose.
“I am sorry, Kyle. But I’m really going there, even if I have to walk.” She opened the door again and started to exit. “Good-bye.”
“No, wait.” He stopped her. “Get back in the car.”
“Why should I?”
“I’ll … I’ll drive you as far as the city line.”
She reseated herself and said, “Thank you so much, Kyle.”
The doors of the rebuilt White Dragon slid open as Minmei approached just short of closing time. Still the center of the city as it had been on Macross Island and later in the SDF-1, the restaurant was packed even at the late hour.
“Hi! I’m here,” she called, cheerful again, the argument with Kyle behind her now.
Aunt Lena was cleaning up. Tommy Luan, the barrel-chested mayor of Macross, and his fusty wife, Loretta, were having tea.
“Oooh, you’re back!�
� said Lena, a warm smile spreading across her face, the mother Minmei had lost.
“Heyyy!” called the mayor, equally happy to see his long-lost creation.
She greeted Lena with an embrace.
“Welcome back, darling! But shouldn’t you be rehearsing for your concert?” Minmei was the daughter Lena had never had as well as a replacement for the son she seemed to have lost.
“Uh huh,” Minmei told her and let it drop. “Mr. Mayor, how are you?”
“I’m just fine, Minmei.”
“Good seeing you, dear,” said his stiff wife. A head taller than her husband, she had a long, almost emaciated face underscored by a prominent chin. She wore her wavy auburn hair pulled back into an unattractive bun and kept the collar of her blouse tightly fastened at the neck by a large blue brooch.
Loretta and Tommy were almost as unlikely a couple as lithesome Lena and squat Max, who was just stepping from the kitchen now, his cooking whites and chef’s hat still in place.
“Heyyy, Minmei,” he drawled.
“Uncle!… Would it be okay with you if I stayed here tonight?”
“Of course it’d be okay! M’ girl, you can even have your old room back again.”
“Oh, thanks, Uncle Max,” Minmei said, suddenly overcome with a feeling of love for all of them, happy to be back in the fold, away from the lights, crowds, attention … Kyle.
“Isn’t that great?” the mayor crowed. “She hasn’t changed a bit, even after becoming famous!”
Three male customers had left their table to surround her, wondering what she was doing there, taking advantage of the casual nature of her visit to ask for autographs.
“Success hasn’t spoiled our Minmei.”
“She’s still our little girl,” said Max.
Which is just what she wanted to feel like at the moment: to be the one taken care of instead of the one who always had to keep things going. But she said, laughing:
“Oh, no! That makes me sound like a little child who hasn’t grown up at all!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way!” Max recanted, joining the laughter.
After signing autographs and having something to eat—Lena refused to take no for an answer—Minmei excused herself and went upstairs to her room. There were no questions about Kyle; it was as if he were no longer part of the family.
Lena and Max hadn’t changed a thing even after the relocation of the restaurant from the hold of the dimensional fortress; they must have put everything back where it had been—even the whimsical pink rabbit’s head bearing her name that she had tacked to the door.
Once inside, a flood of memories began to overwhelm her:
Her first night in this very room when she’d arrived on Macross Island from Yokohama—the balcony view from these very windows of the reconstructed SDF-1; the Launching Day celebration and the madness that had ensued; the years in space, and the strange twists of fate that had brought her fame … And through it all she saw Rick journeying along with her, accompanying her, though not always by her side.
She looked up at the corner of the room damaged by Rick’s Battloid on the day fate had thrown him a curve. The cornice of the room had been repaired, but the place never seemed to hold paint for very long, as though the spot had decided to memorialize itself.
Minmei crossed over to her bureau, opened one of the drawers, and retrieved the gift Rick had given her more than three years ago on her sixteenth birthday. The titanium Medal of Honor he had received after the battle of Mars. She recalled how he had appeared beneath her balcony only minutes before midnight and tossed the gift to her. “It says what I can’t say to you,” Rick had told her then.
The memory warmed her heart, thawing some of the sadness lodged there. But suddenly she felt far away from the joy and love of those earlier times; something inside her was in danger of dying. She sobbed, holding the medal close to her breast:
“Oh, Rick, what have I done?”
CHAPTER
THREE
What do I remember about those days in New Macross?… Anger, strident conversations, despair—it almost seemed as if Protoculture’s shape-shifting capabilities had taken hold of fate itself, changing and reworking individual destiny, transforming and reconfiguring lives …
Lisa Hayes, Recollections
The sun rose into cirrus skies above New Macross City, autumn’s first crisp and clear day. The stratospheric dust and debris that for two years now had led to blue moons, sullen sunsets, and perpetual winters was at last dissipating, and there was every indication that Earth was truly on the mend.
Minmei, dressed in a white summer-weight skirt and red sweater, stepped out of the White Dragon and took a deep breath of the cool morning air. She felt more rested than she had in months; the comfort of her own room and the company of her family were warm in her memory. A newsboy, brown baseball cap askew on his head, rushed by and dropped off the morning edition; she greeted him cheerfully and started off down the street, unaware that he had turned startled in his tracks, recognizing the singing star instantly and somewhat disappointed when she hadn’t stopped to talk with him for a moment.
She had a lot on her mind, but for a change she felt that there was all the time in the world to see to everything. The band would be expecting her for rehearsal, but that was still hours off, and she wanted nothing more than to walk the streets and say hello to the city in her own way. That’s no EVE projection up there, she had to remind herself, unaccustomed to sunny skies. She had been a creature of the night for too long, victimized by her own needs as much as she was by Kyle’s grandiose plans for the future.
Last night’s argument seemed far removed from the optimism coursing through her. If Kyle could only be made to understand, if he would only stop drinking and return himself to the disciplines that made him unique in her eyes … Sometimes he appeared to be as displaced as the Zentraedi themselves, yearning for new battles to wage, new fronts to open. He detested the presence of the military and continued to blame them for the nearly total destruction of the planet. Minmei pitied him for that. The military had at least managed to salvage a place for new growth. And as for their presence, the threat of a follow-up attack was a real one—not manufactured, as Kyle claimed, to keep the civilians in line. The Earth had been ravaged once, and it could happen again.
But these were dark thoughts to have on such a glorious day, and she decided to put them from her mind. There was beauty and renewed life everywhere she looked. Skyscrapers rose like silver towers above the rooftops, and Lake Gloval looked as though it had been sprinkled with gems.…
In the outskirts of New Macross Rick had already commenced his morning run, in full sweats today, a beige outfit Lisa had given him for his birthday. The city was still asleep, taking advantage of the chill to spend a few extra moments cuddled under blankets, and there was no traffic to fight; so he jogged without any set course in mind, along the lakefront, then into the grid of city streets. Flat-bottomed cargo crafts ferried supplies to and from the supercarriers still attached to the SDF-1, while launches carried night-shift work crews away from the SDF-2, back to back with its mother ship and rapidly nearing completion.
Breathe in the good, breathe out the bad, he chanted to himself as he ran—and there was a great deal of the latter he needed to get rid of. If asked what he was so angry about, he probably wouldn’t have been able to offer a clear explanation. Only this: He was tense. Whether it had something to do with his situation with Lisa, or Minmei’s situation with Kyle, or Earth’s with the Zentraedi, he couldn’t be sure. Probably it was a combination of everything, coupled with an underlying sense of purposelessness.
“Both races seem to enjoy fighting,” Exedore had said. Rick regretted now that he had turned the briefing into a debate—be would have felt differently had he been able to make his point—but was still certain of his feelings: that the Zentraedi, for all their genetic similarities to humans, were no better than programmed androids. All one needed to do was look around
to see that he was right: The Zentraedi were hungry for war—biologically hungry. They were deserting their positions, sometimes violently—the recent incident in New Portland was a case in point—to take up with their fellow malcontents in makeshift compounds in the wasteland, off limits to humans, who would not be able to withstand the lingering radiation. Perhaps a mistake had been made in attempting to band together despite the gains to New Macross. But Rick was certain it was only a matter of time before all the Zentraedi followed suit and returned to war.
He exhaled harshly and increased his pace.
Just down the street from the White Dragon, only a few blocks from Rick’s present course, a delivery van pulled to a stop in front of a two-storied building with a red and white striped awning and a rainbow-shaped sign that read CLEANING. At the wheel was Konda, one of the three former Zentraedi spies.
“Rico! Gimme a hand with this!” Bron called from the sidewalk, a full basket of laundry in his brawny arms.
The door to the shop opened, and the founder of the Minmei cult stepped out, affecting oversized and unnecessary eyeglasses, convinced that they enhanced his appearance. Rico had also let his hair grow and was dressed in a short-waisted blue and white uniform that fit him like a leisure suit.
The three former secret agents had secured jobs with the cleaning service several months before, their fascination for clothing as strong now as it had been when they first experienced Micronian life in the holds of the SDF-1.
“Hey, guess what happened?” Konda said, leaning out of the van.
Rico was quick to respond, leaving Bron (a good fifteen pounds lighter than he’d been two years ago) to fend for himself. “What happened?” he asked excitedly.
“Guess.”
“What?” Rico repeated, enjoying the game but still vague about the rules.
Doomsday: The Macross Saga Page 37