“Kujira’s been piloting his whole life. We’re neophytes compared to him. We did good under the circumstances,” she says. “And we kind of kept our word to Nori.”
“You see her?”
“Only during the fight. We’ll catch her later.” She lifts up her medal to me. “This is for all the RAMs.”
“Do you think their spirits are looking down on us?”
Chieko shakes her head. “I don’t believe in spirits anymore. There’s only now. Relish it. It’ll be over before you know it.”
I take her advice and absorb my surroundings. A few meters from us is an assemblage of Shinto priests. The lower part of their robes are muddy, and a few of the conscientious are trying to lift them while appearing indifferent to how dirty the earthy influence has made them. In the front row, a group of students are taking our pictures on their porticals, and three of them are angling for a closer view. A murder of crows scouts the stadium for leftover scraps, relieved that the rain is over and hoping the celebratory mood will make the strange human beasts cooperative. There are so many faces staring at me, the thousands of eyes, mouths, and noses becoming a centipede of sensory motion. Academy reporters are recording our footage, talking with officials, congratulating Chieko and me. Seven of the cheerleaders check their rocket packs and confirm the weather hasn’t damaged the boosters. I gaze up at the training mechas. They look less like samurai and more like robot soldiers, dented, wounded, but stiffly standing at attention for their automated duty. The headless mecha that was mine is nowhere to be seen. Will they retire it or fix it up?
I finally spot Nori. She’s in uniform, unfazed by the bad weather. She’s talking with Professor Gensuke Okamoto, hero of the Marjah Encounter, where he single-handedly defeated Nazi shock troops supported by the local army. He’s one of BEMA’s most famous graduates and lethal with the magnetic yo-yo, a surprising choice for weapon. He’s wearing dozens of medals, and I marvel that each of them represents a different battle he was involved in. The professor teaches Beginning Mecha Training, which freshmen take starting their second semester.
Nori brings him over. We shake his hand, and he says to me, “I like your spirit, kid. Feel free to stop by my class anytime.”
I bow and thank him. He speaks with Chieko.
“You let him kick your ass!” is the first thing Nori says to me.
Considering this is the third rebuke I’ve gotten, I feel bad. “I’m sorry.”
She laughs. “Nah. Don’t feel bad. He’s excellent. I took my match with him too lightly. I’ll get him next time.” She raises her brows. “How are you feeling?”
“Healing up from the fight,” I answer. “How are you?”
She tries to find the right words. “Enduring,” she finally states. “It’s good to be back in Berkeley and in a mecha. You all have a big day tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Initiation for the freshman class into the Tadakatsu Circle. I heard you both accepted?”
We both nod. The invitation was a bare-bones text message on my portical asking us to join them.
“It’s a special experience,” Nori states, and gives both Chieko and me a fist bump.
“We’re going to kick some Nazi ass,” Chieko says.
“Hell yes, we are.”
As Nori walks back with Gensuke to speak with the other officials, I hope I can live up to all their expectations.
11
After spending a few hours back in the vat, every part of my body feels refreshed. I wish I could stay another day. I’m about to head home, but I get a portical call. I’m surprised it’s an adjutant for the Imperial Guard, Judge Hirono. “Your presence is requested.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m just about to get on the train. Can I get directions?”
The adjutant sends me a North Berkeley address.
On the subway, I’m surprised to see the highlights of our match on the California Nippon News. It’s not fun watching my mecha’s head get dismantled. But I’m still amazed to see myself on the display as the runner-up in the matches. The channel’s focus turns back to the situation on the Quiet Border. They’ve invited two journalists to opine on the situation, and the elderly male who represents the war hawks asks, “Why haven’t we obliterated the Nazis yet? They’re just asking for a beating. The Fuehrer mocked the Empire during his life, and we shouldn’t expect anything different from his successors. Send a dozen battalions of our mecha corps in, and they’ll take Manhattan by the end of the year.”
The lower part of the screen has scrolling quotes of the negative things Hitler said and wrote about the Empire, considering us the “yellow peril” and ridiculing “Oriental power” as an oxymoron. “The Aryan people have more power in the tip of their pinky than the entirety of the Orient!” he’d infamously declared.
That’s followed by a roundup of German media depictions of our citizens. They usually portray weak Asians with terrible accents who are unable to save themselves and rely on “Aryans” for salvation. The Asians are usually polite buffoons too weak to do anything of merit, or “exotic Orientals” who have a “fascinatingly strange culture” and convey us in the worst light.
It’d be funny if so many Nazis didn’t see it as truth.
The news cuts back to the debaters. The younger man advocating peace gets to the crux of why conflict hasn’t broken out yet. “The threat of an all-out nuclear war precludes any real conflict unless we’re willing to risk the end of the world.”
I arrive at my subway stop and get off. There are rotating advertisements on the walls for the kite battles in Hamamatsu, bargain resort vacations in Cancún, and an underwater shopping mall they’re building off the coast of Cartagena.
The Imperial Guard’s mansion is four blocks away from the exit. I knock at the door, and one of the servants lets me in. He bows, asks in a formal tone if I’d like anything to eat. I decline, and he asks me to wait in the lobby. Encased in glass are four special uniforms awarded by the Emperor to the Imperial Guard for her service as part of the elite mecha corps that watches over the palace in Tokyo. There are numerous medals on each jacket. I’m marveling at them when there’s another knock. The servant answers and lets Kujira in.
“Would you like something to eat?”
“Sure,” Kujira replies. “What’s on the menu?”
“What would you like?”
“Whatever you’re serving, man. I could eat a horse right now.”
The servant nods and leaves.
“They were looking for you earlier,” I tell Kujira.
“I’m not into pomp and circumstance. Waste of time.”
“Why’d you even bother to participate in the tournament?”
“Wanted to see how good y’all were. Y’all have a long way to go if you want to compete with me,” he states.
“Sorry I didn’t have the best mecha pilot in the world as my mother to teach me how to fight. Besides, I heard Nori fought you to a draw.”
“Damn trainer mechas stink. How you supposed to fight in them? It’s like putting you in casts and telling you to do your best in a marathon. If this were real combat, I would have easily won.”
It’s one thing to put me down. But Nori. No way will I accept that. “We all fought under the same conditions, so don’t make excuses. She is ten times the pilot you will ever be.”
“Hardly.”
“We’ve been in actual combat. I saw her beat real-life enemies in a mecha.”
“You think I haven’t?”
“No, I don’t.”
Kujira shakes his head. “What’s your problem, man?”
“Everyone who’s here struggled hard to get in. I don’t like the way you’re so flippant about being here, like you’re doing all of us a favor.”
“Whatever.” He raises his index finger. “You’re still sore about earlier, ain’t ya’? You weren’t bad, but
you got to work on your weaponless combat. You stink without a sword,” he says with a snide smirk that seems to be begging for a fight.
I’m tempted to, upset by his arrogance. Why were we invited here together? I want to leave right away. That’s when the servant reenters with a tray of food that smells delicious.
“What is that?” Kujira asks.
“Horse filet mignon,” the servant replies. “I took the liberty of asking for it well done.”
Just as Kujira is about to eat, the servant receives a call. “Yes, ma’am, they’re ready.” He hangs up his portical, and says, “She is ready to receive you.”
“What about the food?”
“You can eat in her presence.”
The servant guides us through the mansion. Every room has a different theme, with unique art from around the world. I like the collection of woodblock prints of recent mechas and their pilots done as wondrous ukiyo-e as well as traditional paintings by the maestro of all things mechanical, Shinkawa. The next hall catches my attention with its uniforms and memorabilia from many of the nations we’ve defeated. I recognize the American ones and wonder what it was like living under their rule.
Judge Hirono is in her study, a two-story library, where all the shelves are filled with physical books. There is a holographic globe in the center, with news updates flashing continuously. She is seated in front of the globe, reading Japanese poetry, eating salted pistachios, and discarding the shells into a small bin. She signals us to sit across from her. The servant gives Kujira his food.
Kujira tries to pick up the horse meat with his hands, but it’s too hot, so he uses the fork to take a bite. “This is weird, but tasty,” he says. “What ya’ want?” Kujira asks straightaway.
Judge Misato Hirono smiles. “It’s uncanny how much you remind me of your mother.”
Kujira’s eyes widen, and he stops chewing. “You knew Ma?”
“Of course.”
“But you were stationed in Tokyo with the Emperor, weren’t you?”
“I was in the Imperial Guard for seven years. They cycle us out after seven years, so my duty ended then. They gave me the chance to go anywhere in the Empire. I chose the United States of Japan because I loved San Diego. It used to be one of the most beautiful places in the world until the George Washingtons destroyed it. I served with your mother,” she says to Kujira. Turning to me. “I knew your mother as well. She served with my nephew aboard the Kamoshika.”
I’m so surprised that she knew my mother, I blink rapidly and repeat Kujira’s question, “You knew my mother?”
“She had very sharp eyes and could adapt to any situation on the spot,” the judge says. “Easily one of the best navigators in the corps. But the part all of us loved was that she used to write very long reports after her missions and recount her thoughts, her dreams, even philosophical expositions on war in general. Most official reports are a page or two. Hers were thirty to forty pages. Her superiors complained about her ‘purple prose,’ and there were many word snobs who picked on her phrasing, insisting she stick to the basics. But her reports became the thing of legend among the ranks.” I imagine it to myself and smile, wondering if there’s any way I can get hold of those old documents. “She would have been proud that you’re on your way to becoming a full-fledged pilot.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Thank yourself.” The judge looks to Kujira. “Your mothers were close friends.”
I’m doubly stunned, but this is the first time I see Kujira taken aback. “What are you talking about?” he snaps.
Judge Hirono replies, “We all served together in San Diego. Your mom”—to me—“was Kujira-san’s navigator.”
“My mom never had a navigator.”
“Later, when she insisted on doing everything herself, that was true. But in the early days of the conflict with the George Washingtons, she needed someone to help her navigate San Diego. It was a short tour, but I know that both of them would be proud if they knew you had taken the number-one and number-two spots in the championship.” She looks at us with a nostalgia that is both comforting and alien. I never would have suspected Kujira and my mother knew each other, much less this judge. “But I didn’t call you two here to wax about the past. There’s something I think is important for you two to know about each other.”
Kujira stares quietly, as do I, not sure what she’s talking about.
“Did you know they had pistachio trees in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?” she asks. I shake my head, and though I don’t actually know what the Hanging Gardens are, don’t want to confess as much.
“Never heard of ’em,” Kujira sputters.
“The Gardens were an ancient architectural and engineering marvel, a complex structure with lush foliage that lasted throughout the year. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but it’s also the only one whose location contemporary archaeologists haven’t been able to determine. Many German historians believe it’s a myth. Now it could be they actually found the site and discovered something out of line with their Nazi creeds, meaning they erased its existence from the history books.”
“That’s what you want us to know about each other?” Kujira asks.
“The Gardens could have been the greatest structure of that time. But now people debate its authenticity. That’s the way history works. People forget so easily. You start telling yourself a new version of the past, and after a while, it becomes reality. Even now, our role in San Diego is being rewritten by the scholars and politicians to be more hospitable and friendly. But I want you to know something about a certain day in 1984,” she says. “The GWs were getting more brazen in their attacks. Some of us were looking for compromise. But it didn’t seem possible, and I received orders to execute one of their leaders, Abigail Adams.” I know the scenario all too well. Mom’s mecha got sent in to destroy Adams, but she was ambushed in the process. “I ordered your mother’s mecha, Harinezumi, to deal with the GWs,” she says to Kujira, which is news to me. “But your mother was as stubborn as you and refused to follow orders. I had no choice but to send the Kamoshika, where your mother was navigator,” she explains to me. “It was a trap. We all understood that, and that’s why Kujira refused. But my superiors insisted that it didn’t matter since a mecha could deal with any threat. There also was a remote possibility that the source wasn’t just setting us up, and we couldn’t risk giving up a chance to capture, or terminate, Abigail Adams. I understood the orders, and I also believed the Kamoshika could deal with any trap, so I sent it in.”
“How did it end?” Kujira demands.
“The Kamoshika was destroyed by bombardment. They had the chance to deflect but chose to absorb the brunt of the attack so that their compatriots could survive and the civilian death toll would be minimized. The Kamoshika destroyed much of the opposition, but the GWs put everything into taking it down. They believed the symbolic value of destroying one mecha justified whatever the cost.”
“What happened to your mom?” Kujira asks me.
“She was killed,” I reply.
“When your father found—” the judge continues.
“You knew my dad too?” I jump in.
“He was a very good mechanic,” she explains. “But he couldn’t bear her loss. He asked to be transferred to a combat unit. He was much better at fixing mechas than he was at soldiering, so he was denied. But he went out anyway and was killed in a furious charge.”
I try to imagine my bereaved father, devastated by the loss, blinded by rage. I’ve felt that sort of anger before, but for it to be for his wife, my mom . . .
“Kujira was furious as well,” the judge continues, “but she was also filled with guilt. She was convinced that if she’d gone instead, she would have found a way to overcome the trap. I assured her that her fate would have been the same. But she couldn’t accept it. Things had already been tense between he
r and command. But it only got worse from there, and she was eventually removed from her position at the front. To this day, I regret my decision to dispatch the Kamoshika instead of opposing my superior’s poor strategic decision.” She bows to me, and says, “Forgive me.”
I don’t know how to handle this sudden apology or the fact that there are tears forming in her eyes. A part of me is furious with the judge for her part in this. Another is equally angry with Kujira and his mom for not having followed orders. In the corner of my brain, the logical side of me tells me it’s the GWs at fault here.
“It’s not my place to forgive,” I reply, feeling too conflicted to give her an answer with conviction.
“I understand,” she says, and her gesture hardens. “I apologize for putting you in an awkward position.” To Kujira, she says, “Your mom probably told you about many of the terrible things her commanding officers did in San Diego to both the civilians and the soldiers under their authority. They’re all true. There were many who were dishonorable. I’ve made it my life’s duty to make sure all of those officers were removed, and I’ve worked actively at BEMA to make sure we don’t have officers like that ever again. It is imperative that the corps take care of their own.”
“Too little, too late. My mom’s dead,” Kujira states.
“I understand.”
“I’m out of here,” he says, is about to leave but grabs the horse meat and exits.
I turn to the judge. I appreciate her telling us the truth and feel the enormity of her guilt. But I had to grow up without my parents because of her orders. “Good night,” I tell her.
I don’t wait to see her reaction. I leave quickly, hoping she doesn’t call me back.
She doesn’t.
Outside the mansion, I’m surprised to see Kujira waiting for me.
“We should, uh, talk sometime,” he says. His hands are covered with sauce and meat.
“Yeah.”
Kujira shifts uncomfortably. “I need mango juice.” He skips away.
I walk through campus. My mom was just like I was to the RAMs, bait so they could attain an objective they felt more important than our lives. Would she really be proud of my being here, or would she think I was a fool?
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