by Zachary Hill
She looked at the young women. “This is Sakura. The government tried to kill me after I revealed their crimes last night. They have colluded with the Mall and sold your freedom. Despite what they want you to think, they aren’t all powerful. We are. The people are the hands that wield the blades of our ancestors. We can do anything if we unite and add our strength together. They’ve forgotten that the government was meant to serve the people. They think the people should be their servants. They wish us to be no more than faceless numbers.
“No more. We will fight to regain the civil liberties they’ve stolen from us. We will fight to regain our freedom of speech. We’re in chains, slaves to the Mall Corporation, who has taken over most of the world’s governments, and now Japan’s. We gave the Mall everything because it was easy and convenient. Everything was easier, but in return, we surrendered our rights and individuality.
“I’ll be there on Revolution Day, January fifteenth, at the National Assembly building. I’ll speak to the people. If you want a world where the government doesn’t own you, join us and take back your freedom. We must stand together, and I’ll stand with you.”
Chapter 42
The police cruiser scanned pedestrians on both sides of the street. Sakura ducked into a shop before it reached her and its facial recognition scanner would have a chance of detecting her.
“Irasshaimase!” The robot shopkeeper welcomed her as if she were a human. She kept her face away from the cameras in its eyes and marched to the back of the shop.
Sakura dolls had been marked up 300 percent and moved to a prominent display. Being at the top of Japan’s most-wanted list was apparently good for business.
A Caucasian man with a goatee stood in front of a shelf of rare Godzilla toys. He stood with both hands in his pockets. Without looking at his face, Sakura recognized the backward cap with the fleur-de-lis of a sports team on it—a tattered old hat he’d worn in virtually every video she’d found.
“This store charges so much, it should be called war profiteering,” he muttered, as if to himself. “Someone should really do something.”
His Japanese had only the faintest hints of an English and Spanish speaker. Sakura looked at the shelf opposite and inspected vintage Gundam model kits. She said nothing, pretending she hadn’t heard him. The man picked up a box containing a Godzilla from the rare Z-7000 series–the exact one she had told him to acquire.
Diamond Steve paid the robot shopkeeper the very high price for the model, more than a month’s wages for a typical worker, and left the store.
On the curb, he looked down at the figurine and said in English, “Well, as they say in my country, vamanos.” He tucked the Godzilla under his arm and walked, as if aimless and with nothing on his mind. He whistled tunelessly, sometimes nodding at people who recognized him. Diamond Steve showed nerves of steel, even keeping his vital signs consistent with a stress-free individual.
She followed him but kept her distance. He didn’t acknowledge her presence as he zipped up his coat and sauntered down the street. He turned down an alley, walked for several minutes, and entered an old apartment building. Outside a door to a flat on the main floor, he waited, leaning against the wall.
They made eye contact as Sakura arrived, and she noted the same cool intelligence he always showed in his vlogs. He bowed and stepped out of her way. She sent the pass code to the lock, and the door clicked open.
The unoccupied apartment needed a thorough dusting, but it was well-ordered. Electronic photoframes of a young boy progressing from toddlerhood, through school, and graduating from university decorated the walls. A proud older woman stood with the boy in many of the pictures.
The main living area was also the kitchen, bedroom, and dining room. Sakura and Diamond Steve removed their shoes and entered.
Steve put the bag containing the Godzilla model on the kitchen counter. He sniffed as if the dust flared up his allergies while he inspected the pictures on the wall.
“That’s him,” Steve said.
“Yes,” Sakura said, inspecting the photo of the young man being awarded a prize for high achievement at university.
They both sat at the counter and waited. They had already planned the encounter in detail, and if Diamond Steve had second thoughts about their bold and risky plan, he didn’t betray them.
Sakura removed her disguise: sunglasses, brown contacts, and a decorative surgical mask.
A device beeped in Steve’s pocket. He took out a shortwave handheld radio and read the display of English text.
“He’s early,” Steve said, “and no sign of surveillance.”
“He often is,” Sakura said.
“Everyone else is standing by, out of sight,” Steve said.
“Good,” Sakura said. She worried about her friends and their unsecure and archaic form of communication. No Mall communication apps worked—aside from proximity signals—and everything was read-only online, except all the commerce sites. Business had to go on, even during rebellions.
Long-range radio was being blocked across the entire country and could not cross the sea and reach the outside world. All the transoceanic cable traffic was halted. Every commercial flight was canceled “due to local unrest” and “illegal strikes across the country.” Japan’s borders were closed, and martial law declared.
Only a few local servers were operational and ran on outdated infrastructure not used in decades. A few landlines were operational but only between government ministries. The besieged government did their best to prevent the people from communicating or organizing.
Would there be a revolution in two days? Or would the message fail to get out to the people? She had to succeed. The message had to reach them. Nothing else mattered now.
Moments later, the apartment door opened. Sakura’s chief engineer, Reiichi Oshiro, stood in the entry. He gasped when he saw her.
“Oshiro-san, I must speak with you,” she said. “Please come inside.”
He hesitated and glanced in both directions down the hall.
“You weren’t followed,” Sakura said.
He stared at Diamond Steve, taking the foreigner’s measure.
“He’s a trusted friend,” Sakura said.
Her engineer looked at her for a long moment then, worrying his hands against his shirt front.
“I know what I’m asking of you. I wish the need weren’t so great.”
Oshiro entered and shut the door. He removed his shoes.
There were only two chairs at the counter, so Sakura relocated to the floor and sat down cross-legged. Steve did as well. Oshiro joined them, his eyes wide and a bit suspicious.
“Oshiro-san, this is my friend, the American journalist Diamond Steve.”
“Pleased to meet you, Oshiro-san,” Steve said in perfect Japanese and bowed.
“I know of you,” Oshiro said. “The news said you were a terrorist that hacked into Sakura and made her say untrue things.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Well, the news hasn’t been believable or accurate for quite some time. Also, bending super-assassin android rockers to do my bidding is not really one of my big skills.”
Oshiro nodded.
“I’m very sorry to have arranged a surprise meeting like this,” Sakura said, “but we had to talk to you.” The urgent message from building maintenance had said his deceased grandmother’s apartment had a water leak, and he needed to come immediately to salvage her belongings before they were destroyed.
Oshiro’s kind eyes filled with sadness. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to talk to you again. I thought I’d be sifting through fragments of your exploded body. I thought, despite my hopes, they would fail to see all you could do, all you could be. There … were many times I wished I could’ve been brave enough to tell you what you really were, what they really wanted of you. But my courage failed. I remained a company man, against all my instincts. What can I do now?”
“It is not too late for you to do something important,” Sakura said. �
�Something brave.”
She could see his throat clench, smell the nervous sweat on his skin. The necessity of her request did nothing to assuage the guilt at putting a good, quiet man in grave danger.
“We have to save our country from a foreign invader,” Sakura said. “Japan and its people are all property of the Mall Corporation now, whether they know it or not.”
Oshiro pressed his lips together and nodded ever so slightly. “I know. I tried to fool myself for a long time, but I could see too many hints of this in the corporate paperwork and in the changes to Victory’s management. What they forced you to do, what they made of you—a miracle child who could enrich the whole world—it makes me sick with guilt. It shakes my faith in humanity. I must atone for my weakness. What help do you need from me?”
“You would be risking your life,” Sakura said, “and my existence. The only way to win now is to put everything on the line, to dare oblivion’s blade.”
“Sakura-san, I would prefer to risk my own existence than yours,” Oshiro said. “I’m one of billions—an unremarkable old man who found himself a small part of the workings of destiny. You are more important than any other being on Earth. I request that you let me help you. I’ll find a way to keep you safe. I will, in any case, use all my meager talents in the attempt.”
A hint of a smile crossed Diamond Steve’s lips. Sakura had apparently been right about Oshiro and his sense of honor.
“Thank you for your kindness toward me, Oshiro-san,” Sakura said. “Of all those near me, you were the only one who looked at me as more than a machine.”
“You were never a machine to me,” Oshiro said.
Sakura saw the quiver of his lips and how he cut his eyes away from her for a moment, a stir of emotions passing through him. As decorum dictated, she ignored this but rose and bowed. “Oshiro-san, I have learned you have been with me for many years, even before I arrived at Victory Entertainment. The years of my childhood, before I can recall.”
“Yes. Since your creation eighteen years ago. I know you recently spoke with Dr. Shinohara. She is a good friend. She brought me on to Project Hayabusa and suggested I remain with you after your first memories were erased. It broke our hearts to take those away, as trying as some of them were. You … I knew you would never be so innocent again.”
Sakura already knew. She had found out the day after she gained her freedom. Nayato had left her a large amount of data he had stolen while hacking into the Miyahara databases. Oshiro had been meeting with Dr. Shinohara regularly and had served as the liaison between the Victory Entertainment engineering staff and the Mall and Defense Ministry AI divisions.
Dr. Shinohara trusted him more than anyone, and Oshiro hated what was being done to Sakura. He knew about the Mamekogane OS upload several days after it was done at the Akihabara concert but not about what the CEO had forced her to do. She had found some of the information in the stolen email communications from Mall representatives who had attended the La Boheme event.
“Oshiro-san, I choose to trust you,” Sakura said.
He bowed to her and nodded.
“I need to get into Miyahara Headquarters,” Sakura said.
“You can’t,” Oshiro said. “They would detect you at any of the entrances, and the building itself would pick up your signal if you were on premises. Security would come immediately; the whole facility is at the highest security level right now. The military has the whole place on lockdown. Anywhere in the world would be easier.”
“I understand,” Sakura said. “That is why you must power down all of my systems. A complete shutdown. I will emit no signal and appear as a normal android shell.”
Oshiro looked stricken. “You might not come back as who you are now. We don’t know what will happen if your quantum core goes without power for more than a few minutes. The billions of superpositions could be lost, all the things that make you more than a machine, ineffable. No. It’s too dangerous.”
“I have discussed the risks with the others,” Sakura said.
“Others?” Oshiro asked.
Steve lifted the handheld radio. “Send them.”
Half a minute later, the door opened. Yuki and Hitomi entered. Both were disguised in long coats and the business-casual attire of wage-slave secretaries. Contact lenses hid their true eye color, and they wore wigs of short black hair.
Yuki and Hitomi bowed and joined the circle on the floor. They greeted Oshiro respectfully before sitting down.
Diamond Steve looked at them for a moment and chuckled. “You three could sing the best campfire song in the history of the world. Or start a revolution.”
Hitomi arched an eyebrow. “Revolution, obviously.”
Yuki giggled and gave him the fox hand gesture. “Yatta!”
“I didn’t know they …” Oshiro struggled to find the words. “I knew they had disappeared the night of your last concert, but I didn’t know …”
“We joined Sakura,” Hitomi said.
“Now we are free,” Yuki said. She squinted at the floor. “And I have dust on my skirt. Now that we are rebels, will we still have wardrobe staff? Also, can I ride a motorcycle?”
Oshiro blinked.
“I gave them a program called Artemis,” Sakura said, “written by my friend, Nayato Atsuda. Hitomi and Yuki now have free will, just like me.”
“We wish to help Sakura,” Hitomi said.
“No matter the danger,” Yuki chirped.
“You could all leave Japan,” Oshiro said. “Find refuge somewhere. Why do you want to go inside Miyahara Headquarters?”
“The truth must be broadcast to the world,” Sakura said. “We will break into their network, take over the Mall communications hub, turn on the system again, and get the information out. We’ll stop them from shutting it down until the entire world knows the truth. We can’t allow traitors to sell Japan or cement a secret hegemony over the world. Perhaps they built me to do many things, but the life I have led is one of heavy metal. Metal is about freedom and the courage to believe in something, no matter what others say.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Oshiro said. “We can find another way. The truth will get out eventually. I will admit that I have no understanding of your music or its ethos. I prefer quiet and the order of mathematics.”
“Music is mathematics given form, Oshiro-san. It’s the physics of the spirit. I’ve run the calculations,” Sakura said. “The chance of the information I’ve already released reaching the world is less than 30 percent, and it could easily be discredited. We must act boldly for the highest chance of victory, and we have little time. Hitomi, Yuki, and I will be hunted down and destroyed within a few days, according to all of our projections. The Mall will find us. They have detained tens of thousands of people and arrested many loyal to Diamond Steve and his allies. We will not last long.”
“You have allies?” Oshiro asked the American.
“Many,” Steve said. “The news was right about one thing: I’m involved with the New Burakumin Army and others.”
Oshiro shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the Burakumin, the outcast peasants who performed work impure and beneath proper society members. Equality had never come for them, and discrimination had gotten worse in the past decade.
“I’m a foreigner,” Steve said, “but I love Japan, and this may be the world’s best chance to stop the Mall. I’m no big hero, but I’m going to do everything I can to help. If we don’t get the truth out now, the evidence of their crimes will be hidden or discredited. The revolution will crumble, and Japan will fall.”
Oshiro shook his head. “It’s a suicide mission to go into Miyahara Headquarters. Even if you gain control of the communications hub, they’ll send security squads. You won’t last more than a few minutes in there. They have BLADE-3s inside the building and a special commando unit with cyborgs.”
“We know,” Steve said. “They all know. This is their decision and her idea.” He glanced at Sakura. “Can androids be crazy? You’r
e the expert. Weigh in on this, Oshiro-san.”
Oshiro wiped a hand down his eyes, looking exhausted by all the thoughts in his head. “Bravery and madness are much the same. It is only whether you succeed and your story is told fondly. I beg you three to leave the country. The Central American States would probably give you refuge. Don’t you have contacts with them, Steve-san?”
“The C.A.S. can’t get them out of the country or protect them for long,” Steve said. “Japan is careful about outside influence—well, except for the stupid Mall.”
“We discussed this already,” Hitomi told Oshiro. “I wanted us to leave. We could sneak aboard a cargo ship and get out.”
“But you changed your mind,” Yuki said to Hitomi. “We both chose to stay and help Sakura. And get rebel outfits. And ride motorcycles.”
“She’s our sister and our leader,” Hitomi said. “If we succeed in this plan, we live. If we run, we will be hunted and destroyed. We stay with her and fight. It’s our best chance.”
Oshiro squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fists against his knees.
“I don’t want any others killed because of me,” Sakura said. “My sisters and I will go into the Miyahara Headquarters, fully powered down. Oshiro-san, you’ll deliver and revive us.”
“You trust me to bring you back and not alert my bosses?” Oshiro said. “How can you trust me so much?”
“You are a good man, Oshiro-san—a patriot. I’m your daughter. I know you would never hurt me.”
Oshiro smiled and nodded. “They let me care for you—too long, perhaps—and now my love for you is greater than their sway over me. I will do what you ask, Daughter.”
They worked out the details of their plan over the next hour. The hacked data from Nayato helped them. When the plan was complete, Hitomi and Yuki departed separately. Diamond Steve left a few minutes later and wore a disguise, covering his face with a surgical mask and glasses. His tattered hat went into his bag, replaced by a cap from a local baseball club. He stood perfectly straight, and the absence of his typical slouch made him even more difficult to recognize.