by J D Astra
The distance to Yamato Corp far surpassed Thespra’s capabilities. Even if we caught the wind well, and conserved as much energy as possible, the return trip would be impossible without the red munje. We couldn’t lose Thespra, lest we lose the evidence for the lie we would tell Ena come morning.
Jigu save me, what was I going to tell Ena in the morning?
One thing at a time. I needed to find out more about Dokun first—which may even inform what we would tell Ena in the morning. But the more I knew, the harder it would be to lie. I’d have to get very good at spinning the truth.
Thespra still needed her final piece, the one customs hadn’t taken from me. I rolled over quietly and reached up for my backpack. Inside the front flap was a handkerchief, or so everyone thought. The thin, lightweight fabric unfolded to reveal tiny metal loops Thespra’s claws fitted into nicely.
I passed my hand over the material, coating it with the same ry reflection as Thespra’s slender metal body, then handed the cloth to the machina and laid back in bed. I closed my eyes and navigated Thespra to the window. I wiggled two metal legs into the frame and pulled.
The downside of being tiny, slender, and lightweight was having no strength, but the upside was we were so small we could slip through almost anywhere. With Thespra’s modular body, we could slide, slip, and sneak our way through even the smallest gaps.
The window opened just enough, and I folded Thespra in on herself, then slid through. It was dark and gusty out on the ledge. I could feel the pull of the wind on the fabric clutched in my claws. I pulled the material closer and climbed the outer wall—which was fortunately wood, allowing my claws to stab into the grain and keep us steady.
We reached the top of the pagoda, and I set to work locking my claws in the metal loops of the parachute. My four flexible legs rotated upwards, holding the sheet above me as the other three legs marched toward the vortex of air at the center of the pagoda. It was a happy coincidence that Moon Shadow used such technology.
Before I could even get into the current, the wind picked me up and ruffled the chute above my head. I shot into the sky like one of the ancients’ rockets, leaving the Earth behind—or so it felt. My gut tightened with the fear of heights, and I exhaled my held breath.
I kept my black and white gaze pointed at the city. The sparkling buildings put my mind at ease, and I relaxed, regaining control of my fear. I set my sights on Yamato Corp. Mae popped up a colorful display that monitored my munje use. Then she generated a new view that showed the cardinal directions, the horizon, and our estimated altitude.
Everything fit nicely along the top and bottom of my vision, not distracting in the least. When I glanced at any one part of the display, Mae would bring it into focus. I’d have to learn how to do this on my own before it came time for Mae and me to permanently part.
A sense of unease came at that thought, and I knew it wasn’t my own. I felt my lips turn up in a smile back at my fleshy body. ‘That’s not for some time. We don’t even know if separation will be possible.’
“I didn’t say anything,” she said with a guilty tone.
‘Yes, but I could sense your discomfort.’
Mae was quiet for a long time. We soared through the air, catching updrafts and angling our way toward Dokun’s headquarters. Finally, her voice filled my head. “There’s something we need to talk about, and I know now isn’t the right time, but I feel I can’t control myself from telling you—which is troubling in itself.”
‘What is it?’
She sighed. “My feelings are growing with every passing day. While it’s unexpected, and sometimes very frustrating, it’s also very joyous. I’d never truly felt before, not like humans do. Living in you has made me grow far beyond what I used to be...”
I knew where she was headed, and filled in the silence. ‘You’re still going to be you when we’re separated.’
“How can you be sure?” Her words hung in my mind like smoke, clouding my confidence with doubt.
How could I be sure? I knew next to nothing about her or the technology that created her. There was no guarantee we could even be separated successfully, and if we failed, it was more than likely Mae who would pay the price. Was my privacy worth her life?
‘When all this madness is over, and we have some time to work on ourselves, we’ll do our research. We won’t try to separate unless we’re truly certain you’ll be happy that way.’
“And your happiness?” she asked.
‘Is not worth a life. Not a single one, machina or flesh.’
She was quiet again, and the ma counter in my vision dipped below seventy percent.
‘Plus, you’re one of my closest friends,’ I thought, exaggerating the word.
“I’m literally inside you right now,” she said, her voice deadpan.
‘Don’t blame me. I didn’t like sarcastic jokes before you took up residence here.’
“Ha! For one, that is a complete lie—but I may have exacerbated the issue... and that’s another thing we need to talk about, but later.”
The edge of Dokun’s facility pulled clearly into view. I checked my munje reserves. Down to sixty five percent ma, and still sitting well at one hundred percent en. Because of the huge initial lift, and the well-timed updrafts, we hadn’t needed any of the en stored in the tiny reservoir. Because of Thespra’s weight restrictions, the reservoirs had to be so small. How I wished for a Tuko-sized reservoir right now.
I checked the uw munje reserve as well, just to be certain it wouldn’t leak out of Thespra’s body somehow or not respond to my control. The munje moved and thrummed at my command, making the little bulbous sack on Thespra’s underside vibrate. Good, we were going to need it.
A single Enjiho patrolled the outer edge of the perimeter, and I thought it the perfect target for my first try. No one was around, and I was coming in at a good angle from above that would keep me out of range for their cameras—not that they could see Thespra through the reflective ry shield.
I pointed one of our little legs up, giving a burst of chilling en munje into the parachute. The air cooled, and we dropped a bit more. A few more bursts like that and we were right on target. Sweat gathered in my palms, and I trembled at the thought of overshooting or falling into it or a hundred other factors.
“Breathe. We’ve got this.” Mae lit up the Enjiho with a distance counter. A red box came into view that showed the Enjiho just off-center. I corrected a little, squaring the Enjiho between my sights, and the box turned green.
The distance meter counted down, and I tensed my muscles, preparing to touch down. My two little bottom legs touched down with a tink tink, and the Enjiho stopped. I wrapped a claw under the seam of its shoulder joint to hold on, then gave a single burst of warmth to the chute above.
After a tense second, the Enjiho continued on its patrol. I let out my held breath and focused on the red munje in Thespra’s hold. I scratched my tiny, diamond tipped claw into the metal of the Enjiho to get past any surface level repellant spells. To my relief, the scratching noise was overpowered by the vibrations of the sentry’s heavy footsteps, and they didn’t stop again. I let the uw munje flow down my arm into the Enjiho.
Little by little, I sensed ma, en, and ry munje coming under my control. I used two free limbs to release the stolen ry around my body to reinforce the reflective spell. Then I pulled the en and ma into my reservoir until they were full. That had cost me a little over twenty percent of the uw in the reservoir, but was well worth it. It cost more to create, but was inarguably worth the return in how much munje it could convert.
When I had taken everything I needed, the Enjiho driver none the wiser, I released my claw and pumped hot air into the chute. From the few moments we’d spent in Dokun’s office, Mae had been able to approximate its location from the outside. She marked it in my vision, and I turned that way. I lifted through the air, expending little bursts of en munje, until his office was in my sights.
We drifted closer to the glass, a
nd I saw the outline of Dokun sitting at his desk. I reached out all three free feet to grab the wall as we came in for a landing. My foreleg touched down, and I grabbed onto the metal support beam between glass panes, then dug in the diamond claw. I pulled myself in and dug in the other two limbs, anchoring myself.
I let the chute drop to my back, then rolled it up into a ball and tucked it between my spine and the uw reservoir. I leaned my mantis-shaped body around so my camera could look inside.
Due to the angle, and the glass, I could only see one diagonal slice of the room. I couldn’t see the door or the shelves of books and machina along the north wall. Fortunately, I could see Dokun. He was sitting at his terminal with several ry screens projected in front of him. One screen scrolled slowly with row after row of words, none of which I recognized, but I knew they were words all the same.
“It’s English, and I’m trying to read it. This place is just so loud it’s hard to concentrate. I have to drop your HUD for a moment,” Mae said sounding flustered. The gauges in my vision faded away.
‘HUD?’
“Heads up display. Now quiet.”
I kept one camera pointed at the screen while I let the other drift around the room. It was sickening to have the two visions in my mind at once, but after a moment, I got used to it. The hanging face that had been in the ry display was gone—likely parlor tricks from Dokun to impress the students.
The room looked colder than before, but perhaps that was due to my limited color spectrum. In the other view, Dokun waved a glowing hand through the air. I focused my attention back on him.
The screens in front of him changed to a re-creation of the scene outside the port customs building. The view walked toward one of the buildings and went up through the elevator to the train pickup location. The Enjiho turned, then my face came into view, as did Woong-ji’s and Hana’s.
‘Is that from the Enjiho that escorted us?’ I asked Mae, but already knew the answer.
“Seems like.”
‘Why would he be watching those playbacks?’
The playback sped up, going through our whole trip past the King’s Tower and to the custom’s station. Then it slowed, and the image shifted so that were watching from an Enjiho that had stood on the platform at the station. The little girl went skipping past the image of me, and I clenched my teeth at the thought of her. Would she ever be the same?
The playback slowed further, and a highlight appeared on the man in the colorful visor, standing behind the girl.
Dokun stood and pointed to that image, then paced away. Someone else stepped in front of the image on the desk, gesturing to it. The man threw his hands up in an exasperated fashion.
Dokun turned back and charged the man, grabbing the collar of his robes. He pulled the man close, and my limited vision narrowed on his face. His eyes were wide with fear and his mouth clamped shut. Dokun pointed to the screen again, then shoved the man backward.
He bowed, and at Dokun’s dismissive hand wave, stepped out of view once more. Unease spread through my chest as I processed what we’d seen.
‘Mae, Dokun said he’d captured the terrorist... What are the chances that man he scolded was the terrorist we’d seen?’
“Given their body language, the other man’s dimensions, and that the English on screen for that display—E493-28.10.4351-Train Incident Unsuccessful—I’d say it’s eighty-five percent.”
This was exactly what we’d come for, but she was only eighty-five percent sure? We needed more than that if we were going to put know how to move forward.
‘What do you need to be one hundred percent sure?’
She laughed. “One hundred! That’s like asking for a miracle.”
‘Ninety-eight then, whatever.’
“Get us in there.”
I let another fifteen percent uw flow down my legs into the metal. It spread into the glass, then slipped down the wall and into the floor. My sense of connection with the red munje waned, and I knew I had to find ma munje to convert quickly, but was too afraid to target Dokun himself.
The giant face display came to life, and its mouth moved. Dokun whirled on the spot, his gaze raking over the windows. My heart dropped into my stomach when his face turned up to where I perched. I ducked behind the metal beam, making myself small. He couldn’t have seen me... I was still shielded in ry.
A siren blared, and my real body flinched on the bedroll. I retracted Thespra’s claws and whipped the chute from its storage spot. I caught the wind and sailed toward the tree line three hundred meters away.
The icy chill of dread spread through my chest as I shakily rode the currents of air toward freedom. Below, Enjiho bounded across the grassy clearing to the trees, trying to cut me off. I knew we couldn’t afford to lose Thespra, so why had I been so stupid?
Two of my legs tingled with resistance, and a bright mist surrounded my vision. I didn’t need to know what color it was to know what was happening. It was a cloud of Dokun’s ma munje. This was the end of our adventure.
Chapter 29
“NO,” I WHISPERED, FEELING control of Thespra fading away, like quickly losing gravity. Dokun’s ma munje closed in, trying to push mine out. The cold fear in my stomach pulled on my consciousness, trying to anchor me back in my body, but I resisted.
Desperation took over and I released all the uw munje from my stores like a squidling inking to escape. My munje clashed with Dokun’s, and little zaps of lightning burst around Thespra like a ship in a storm.
“We need more lift,” Mae said, her voice calm in an attempt to keep me level.
I took a deep breath and aimed my working grip-claw up to the chute, then released a quarter of the stored en to warm the air. We lifted out of the cloud, and feeling returned to my other dangling limbs. With that feeling came a flood of ma munje—Dokun’s. So, it had lost out to my uw. What was this powerful magic?
Movement below caught my attention, and I turned the camera to point at a row of Enjiho lined up at the perimeter. Their arms raised in unison, pointing at me. Flashes went off all at once on the firing line, and bright energy zipped through the air.
I pulled my bottom legs up under me and made my profile as small as possible, then gave another flourish of en to heat the chute. The energy—whatever it was—sailed under me with a horrible vibration that made my teeth clench.
The parachute was nearing its max temperature before it combusted, and we weren’t rising fast enough. The trail of munje was a clear giveaway of our location even if we hadn’t lost our reflection spell, so hiding wouldn’t be easy. We were out of ry, low on en, and short on options.
Except maybe one.
Dokun’s ma flowed in through my legs and followed me through the air. There wasn’t enough space inside the little body to harbor it all, but I could use it. The Enjiho were lining up for another shot, but I wasn’t going to give them a target.
I rotated the locks in my lower legs until they could spin freely, like a propeller, then shifted my body until my tiny abdomen was upside down. This position was uncomfortable for the chute holding arms since they were pinned at an awkward, outstretched angle, but it was my only option.
With the chute expanded more like a sail, I spun the lower legs, creating lift at just the right moment. Energy blasts roared under me, sending lances of shooting pain through my skull. My connection to Thespra blinked out of existence for a fraction of a second, then reconnected. What was that power they had used?
My heart pounded in my chest, but I kept my focus on spinning my little machina legs as fast as they could go. The ma munje drained out of me as we shot up through the sky and into some low hanging clouds that seemed to be sent by Jigu herself.
The mist obscured us, and the energy blasts from the Enjiho went wide and scattered until they finally stopped. I twisted my body and let the gripping legs hang down once more, then pumped en into the cooling chute.
“That was unbelievable,” Mae remarked when we’d glided several meters without inter
ruption.
I smiled, feeling proud of how I’d handled the escape.
“I don’t believe in Jigu, but your luck has become statistically improbable.”
The wind carried us, and I enjoyed a moment of peace. It was warm in my bedroll, but cold out in the open air of the last autumn night. The stark contrast sent a shiver down my spine.
The en counter in the corner of my vision read twenty percent, and I grimaced. We were still fifteen kilometers away from Moon Shadow, and truly out of options this time.
“We could always go get her,” Mae offered.
I scowled. ‘What time is it?’
She hummed. “Too early for anyone else to be awake. Two in the morning... and you still haven’t slept.”
‘I’ve gone without sleep before. We’ll be fine without it, but we won’t be if we can’t get Thespra back.’
Wind gusted from the north, pulling the chute along sideways. I flexed out my legs and rode the current, doing my best to angle us back toward the school. It was a lot more difficult than when I’d practiced back home with the first two prototypes.
“We’re close enough now that I can take over if you want to head outside. Ko-nah mentioned traps in the surrounding hills, so I’m sure we’ll both want your full attention on navigating those.”
I refrained from groaning at her reminder. Traps set by someone as powerful as Ena were sure to do wonderfully creative things. Slowly, I released control of Thespra to Mae, but retained her vision for just a moment. Without feeling her limbs or slender body, I flew weightlessly through misty darkness. This must be what it was like when the body’s essence departed in death.
I watched for just a moment longer, then pulled myself back into my body on the floor of the dorm. I was heavy and bulky, with aches and pains in all the places I’d overworked the day before. I flipped back my top sheet and rolled up to sit.
With my mind free from immediate peril, a more distant fear took its place. I would have to talk to Ena when she woke up—likely before breakfast—and I would need a story so simple it wouldn’t set off her angry, spell-infused floors.