by David Bowles
Tears brimming in her eyes, she reached out and touched his cheek. “How you felt after, papà? Sad?”
He had to bite his lip not to start sobbing.
“Yeah, Tana-yi. Real sad. But I looked at the sky, you know, all big and blue, and I figured out that my problems were kind of small.”
They sat there for a while, staring at the sky themselves, till Tana turned to him again.
“Papà?”
“Yes, Tana?”
“The sky is just a bunch of gas.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Promise me, papà.” She stood up on the bench and held his face in both her little hands. “Promise you’re never gonna do that to us.”
This time Brando couldn’t keep from crying. All the ominous undercurrents of the last five years threatened to shatter him righ then and there. But he tensed his hands into fists and pressed them against the stone of the bench, letting the pain serve as a tenuous dyke. With every ounce of strength he could muster, he twisted his face into a smile for his daughter.
“No, sweetie. I would never do that to yall. My world would end if yall weren’t here with me.”
He hugged her tight. She was correct. The sky was just gas. His real shield against the darkness was the love they three shared. He wouldn’t ever let anything tear them apart. Anything.
That night, Tana asked for a bedtime story, her favorite: the marionette Pinocchio. Brando usually avoided the part about the beautiful girl’s death, as it had disturbed Tana the first time he’d told her. She hadn’t been able to understand why the girl had to die, but Pinocchio got to be converted into a boy. Brando had tried to explain that it wasn’t exactly death, only a trial for Pinocchio, a way for him to prove his humanity, but Tana still had insisted he skip the entire scene the next time he told the story.
Tonight, however, she wanted to hear it all. She didn’t cry at all, and at the end she muttered ‘bella Fatina’ and closed her eyes.
After Tana had fallen into the deep sleep that only little children can enter between her parents on their enormous family bed, Tenshi and Brando slipped down the hall to the guest bedroom, as was their custom in recent years, and made love.
Their passion quenched, the couple cleaned up and returned to the family bed. Together they snuggled up against Tana’s restful form. The tension Brando had been feeling since Tenshi’s drunken revelation dissipated bit by bit as the warmth of his family spread into his heart.
The three of us, together, always.
The darkness was held at bay.
For a time.
The following week, Brando returned from work to find Tana in tears. It seemed her toto had gotten out of the house and had been mauled by a wild dog at the desert’s edge. Tenshi had discovered Fata while out walking, and the two of them had held the dying animal until it finally closed its eyes forever. Then they’d buried it solemnly, Tana holding her tears till after, as she’d been taught to do.
As Tenshi finished explaining this to him, Tana rushed over and clung to his leg. He bent to pick her up and carried her into the garden out back, where the surrounding desert disappeared and it seemed as if the world was young and healthy.
“I want Fata back, papà. I miss her already.”
“I know you do, Tana-yi. Maybe you can write a poem for her, draw a picture, make a little shrine.”
“But I want her!”
Brando ran a finger down the bridge of her nose, wiping away the tears. “She’s gone, kiddo. She can’t come back anymore.”
“Why do things die, Papà? Why? It’s not fair!”
“Caro mio, it’s part of life. Things are born, they live and then they have to die, to make room for the new things.”
“And what happens after?”
Brando rubbed her hair. “If we work really hard and create a soul around our spark, then we get translated. We go to ra-Yindawo and become part of the Ogdoad.”
Tana bit her lip, thinking. “What if we don’t? What happens to people that don’t have enough time to make a soul?”
Brando took a deep breath. This is going to be hard. But I can’t lie to her.
“Their sparks live on.”
Tana balled her little hands in frustation. “But the spark isn’t you, the teachers say. What happens to, uh, your self? Huh? If you die with no soul?”
“Um, first of all, if you aligned it to your spark, the spark gets brighter. Easier for it to help another person make a soul.” Seeing her frown deepen, Brando closed his eyes and added. “But the self fades, sweetie. It disappears.”
He felt her clutch at his arm. He opened his eyes. She didn’t understand, it was clear.
“Why?”
“Tana-yi, people are like Pinnochio.” His daughter sat up at the mention of her favorite fairy tale. “We seem real, but we’re not. Still, some of us find the Path. We see our spark, which is like the Blue Fairy. She helps us do the hard work of becoming real.”
Tears stood out in Tana’s eyes as she whispered, “But most people stay wooden, right?”
Brando reached out and hugged her. “Yes, baby. Most do.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered into his chest. “What if I die before I become real?”
For the first time in several years, Brando’s faith wavered.
What am I doing? Is this how my parents felt when they poured dogma into my head?
“Tana, you won’t. People live a long time now. Up to 150 years, maybe more. Your umma has enough credits. You don’t have to worry”
“But I’ll get old, right?” she asked, pulling away from him a little.
“Yes, but they clone your organs, you know, your heart and lungs and stuff.”
Tana’s brow wrinkled. “What’s clone?”
“Make a younger copy.”
Her face lit up. “They could clone a whole body?”
“Well, yes, but it’s illegal. Not allowed, you see.”
“And why not?”
“Most folks don’t like clones. They don’t think that they’re real people. They weren’t born, but made.”
“Papà, you said all people are like Pinocchio.”
“But not everyone agrees with me. Not all folks walk the Path.”
Tana frowned. “Whatever. I want to clone myself when I get old.”
“Baby, it wouldn’t have your self inside it. Your self is in here.” He tapped her forehead lightly. “The clone would look like you when you were a little kid, but it wouldn’t be you, because it wouldn’t grow up in the same place, or do the same things, or share the same friends. It would be like if you had a twin, but real young, you see.”
“And if I maded a clone and put my brain it in?”
Brando almost laughed. “The brain would get too old. I would get all hard and stop working, and you’d die all the same.”
“I’m not gonna die! Never!”
Tears running down her face again, Tana slid from his lap and hurried inside, calling for her mother.
Brando stood in the garden alone, watching Higante slip from the sky while Kobito winked cruelly, the red eye of some ancient stellar demon suspended above the desert.
CHAPTER 30
The day Brando D’Angelo shattered again was also the 501st of Tenshi’s mayorship. It was a Saturday; Brando was at a conference in Station City, and Tenshi and Tana were tending the garden when a message came across the outdoor terminal.
“Finish digging up the roots,” she told Tana. “Umma’s got to check her mail.”
At the terminal, she almost shouted an expletive.
It was a faux recording from Isabella Spinelli.
Isabella Spinelli D’Angelo.
“Can yall step away?” she told her bodyguards. “It’s a private matter.”
The men nodded and complied. Looking over her shoulder to make sure Tana wasn’t within listening distance, Tenshi played the recording as holographic video.
Isabella was as beautiful as ever, though a little heavier. The additional wei
ght looked good on her, Tenshi noted.
“Tenshi. I’ve been thinking about contacting you for a while now, but just couldn’t find the right moment. And frankly, the way our lives have continued to intertwine has me a little freaked out. But I just read that you’ve become the mayor of Kinguyama, and I decided to do this today, before any more time goes by.”
Isabella took a deep breath. Her breasts rose and fell in a way that made Tenshi ache. There was no shame in the lingering feelings. They simply existed.
“You will have noticed my double last name. It’s not happenstance, Ten. Four years after we broke up and I came to Oceania, I married the older man I had been dating. Giacobbe D’Angelo. Yes. Your husband’s father. I wonder what would’ve happened if I had let you know? When Brando arrived there three years later, would you have gotten involved with him, knowing that your former girlfriend—” her voice hitched, “that I was the mother of his half-brother?”
Tenshi leaned toward the terminal. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I can almost imagine your reaction,” Isabella said. “But let’s choose to think of it like this, Ten: what we had, you and me, it doesn’t happen very often. The universe finds ways to keep that connection alive. I have Giacobbe and my little Antonio. Not so little, I guess. He just turned nine. And you have Brando and your sweet little daughter. Saw a picture of her in the story about your swearing in. Adorable.”
A tear slipped from Isabella’s green eyes. “Anyway. I can never make up for the way I hurt you. And maybe none of this news will be welcome. But for me, at least, the fact that we’re related by marriage makes me very happy. All my best, Ten. Keep fighting.”
The image flickered and faded.
“Well, Brando, my love,” Tenshi muttered quietly. “You have another brother. Wonder if that that’ll cure the hate you feel for your apa. Or make it worse.”
As she debated whether to tell Brando, trying to gauge what his reaction would likely be, the terminal beeped again. All thoughts of her husband’s family were crowded out of her mind as her advisers urgently relayed the news in frightened tones.
“Mayor! Kinguyama’s under attack! Looks to be regiments of syndicate soldiers.”
“Shit! After nearly a year of nothing. Tana!” she shouted, waving the bodyguards over. The men ushered Tana and Tenshi inside the house, where she connected immediately with Dap Chakrapong, chief of the security detail employed by the township.
“What’ve we got?” she asked. Adrenaline made her mind sharp and focused, her body tensed and ready.
“About five or six crews, Mayor, more than ever before, and they’ve got a bunch of shells, you know, them semi-sentient robot thingies…”
“Yes, I know, illegal AI. Tell me, is it too much for yall to handle?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so. We’ve got them stopped in the west and north, but we need help with the south.”
Tenshi swallowed dryly. Their house was at the southernmost edge of Kinguyama.
Commander Chakrapong continued. “I’ve called up the squads. Alpha and Beta are being dispatched to the south and east. I also sent over a couple of my men to back your bodyguards up.”
“Shouldn’t we go into the city?”
“No, ma’am. Yall are safer where yall’re at. The defense missiles will shoot at anything that enters the municipal perimeter, so everything should be okay here. I’ve signaled the squad that’s setting up to the south; they’ll be watching you close. Travel right now is a bad idea: there’s more fighting over the city itself than there will be here, and no need for yall to expose yourselves to it.”
Tenshi nodded. “Keep me informed.”
As she began connecting a conference session with the council members, Tana pressed close to her.
“Are we going to be alright, Umma?” she asked, trembling slightly.
“Of course, sweet. We’re going to be just fine.”
“I wish apa was here.”
“Me too,” Tenshi assured her.
The second incarnation of Alpha Squad was much better prepared that the first, reflected Ben Wu as the three troop transports neared the southern limits of Kinguyama. Along with more veteran squadmen transferred from other units, Wu had gotten more capable recruits, some mercenaries and ex-cops trying to catch a little action and perhaps escape their pasts. He’d trained them extensively: as a squad, in smaller groups and in pairs. Four years after the disaster his first unit had experienced, Ben felt certain that Alpha Squad was the best Jitsu had to offer.
He’d gotten over his shock at the lack of consequences for the decimation of his men. Minister Koroma had chalked the mess up to poor preparation and Frik’s insubordination. Wu’d gotten off with a simple reprimand. But the real punishment was the memory of charred bodies smoking in the rain, a swirl of howling black that mocked his skills as a leader.
In his obsession with readying his men in order to exact revenge on the Brotherhood, everything else had faded, including his responsibilities to his daughter Ya-Ting, whom he’d not heard from in three years. His in-laws had tunneled him recently to inform him that the teen was no longer living with them, but Ben had put off looking her up. He had a score to settle, and all other considerations were secondary.
Soaring high above the demimundo base camp, where AI shells and soldiers were being unloaded from several sleek transports, Alpha Squad kept out of missile range and set down at the edge of the city’s defense grid, a couple of klicks north of the enemy position. Wu was counting on the grid to guard his back, leaving only the south, west and east open to attack. The area was still desert, though, and there were dunes aplenty to deploy behind. He sent a scouting detail (each broadcasting a clearance code to the grid) over the ridge that separated the desert from the town to evacuate any civilians living in the area and to report back on conditions. Wu wanted to have a clear route for falling back, should the need arise.
Gamma Squad, as he understood it, was being recalled from the stations and prepped to back Alpha and Beta in this the largest single assault by syndicate forces in the history of the planet. Nonetheless, he had to plan for the possibility that there would be no support. He didn’t want to be caught with his pants down.
His second, Schlomo Frasser, was overseeing the set-up of heavy artillery as Ben approached him.
“They got shells, you saw?”
“Yeah, Schlo,” Ben nodded. Once only in his military career had he gone up against the artificially intelligent drones, highly illegal throughout the Consortium. AI was a deceptive name for them, as it implied human intelligence, though they only possessed that of mammals like apes or dolphins, capable only of rudimentary proto-language. Without programming, the shells, as they were commonly called, reverted to a primary goal of preserving homeostasis and were harmless unless attacked. Their programmed secondary goal could be altered or erased with sophisticated equipment that Jitsu predictably lacked. Alpha Squad would have to do this the old-fashioned way.
“How could we counter them, do you think?”
“Bandit’s down there with a couple of other guys, burying mines.” He gestured at the expanse of sand that stretched before the chain of four dunes that provided them cover. “We got these mortars here, nades, plasma throwers… hell, we could use the transports on remote, too, use their missiles against those fucking robots.”
“No.” Ben winced. “No. We can’t use the transports. I think their codes may be compromised. In fact, we’ll need to completely shut them down.”
Frasser frowned. “But that means we cut off any air retreat.”
“Too bad. That’s how they did me in last time. No repeats of that shite.”
The squad split into platoons of five pair each, and set up behind the dunes. They’d turned the flat expanse to the south into a booby-trapped minefield. Each dune had a trench dug in front of it and a mortar atop it. Mortar duty would be rotated every fifteen minutes and would be covered by rifle fire from the other squadmen on the dun
es.
A crackle in the cascom made Ben turn north. The scouts were back.
“Clear the area?” he asked as they approached.
“Only house belongs to the mayor. She won’t budge; says it’s safer for her there. Has a couple bodyguards on duty.”
Ben nodded. “Let’s just keep these bastards far enough away that she doesn’t find out how shitty her guards are.”
“Cap, shells coming up out of the south.”
Ben returned to the dune where he’d left Frasser. In the distance, a dozen metallic figures glided noiseless and quick.
“They’ll be here in a couple minutes, mates,” Ben announced to his squad. “So fill your dukes, and barrack your brothers. Remember we’re a family, here, not just a team. Your brother dies, a piece of you dies with him.”
Rifles slapped against gloved palms. Alpha Squad steeled itself for the first exchange.
Brando was conferencing with science instructors when his contacts displayed an emergency message in the air before him: Kinguyama under attack.
Excusing himself, he hurried to the tarmac. Along the way, his percom filled him in on the situation: battles raging to the west and north seemed contained, but in the south, just a couple of kilometers from his house, the yakuza were using robot sentinels in an attempt to beat a path through Alpha Squad and into the city.
Brando made Tenshi’s transport scream as he raced home. Even at top speed, it would take him thirty minutes to travel the distance between Ra-Koreji and Kinguyama. He bit his left hand fiercely, pounding his right against the armrest to distract him from the horrible thoughts that kept leaping into his mind.
Finally, he managed to get through to Tenshi, despite the com drain due to the attacks. Her face seemed pale, but expressionless.
She’s stressed.
“Yall’re okay?” he asked expectantly.
“Yeah. Couple soldiers came by about twenty minutes or so ago. They said they should be able to keep the yaks away. I’ve also got my bodyguards and a security detail the city sent me, so we’ll be fine.”
