“Orange juice isn’t the word I’d use,” I say as I wipe a particularly egregious load of crap off the ground.
* * *
• • •
I’d like to think I’m getting tougher and my body is getting inured to the exercise. But I’m always feeling exhausted. I doze off whenever there is even a moment of respite. I eat my meals as fast as I can just so I can “snap” (snooze + nap) for ten minutes before running again. My calves cramp frequently. Sleeping on my side helps alleviate muscle spasms at night.
“You need to drink more water,” Chieko berates me even though our water dole is limited.
“He needs a banana,” Wren offers, even though there aren’t any bananas around. “My dad worked in a silver mine and ate a banana every day to stop his cramps.”
Three in the morning, Sensei wakes us up. “Couldn’t sleep,” she says. “I got indigestion thinking about how weak you all are.”
Both Wren and I can barely open our eyes as we begin jogging. Chieko is energized and runs ahead of us. Her strength inspires me, and I race after her.
Wren, who’s used to lagging behind the other recruits with me, starts counting down until I get tired. Thirty seconds later, he’s caught up with me as I’m out of breath.
He asks, “Feel better?”
“I will when I’m back in our barracks, sleeping.”
Wren laughs and chases after Chieko, leaving me far behind.
* * *
• • •
It’s been a month. Our unit is down to forty-nine recruits. “I didn’t join to prepare for a marathon,” one quitter states, expressing our sentiment perfectly.
I’ve been running thirty kilometers since I woke up, carrying heavy equipment and singing songs praising the Emperor. And honestly, I’m more strained than ever. It’s a cumulative degradation. We’re never given the chance to rest. Sleep is being rationed stingily by Sensei, who grants it to us only when she pleases. But since I’ve been here, I’ve never once seen her pleased. Aside from the sleep, I’d love some quiet as I hate these droning chants about how we will smash our enemies with our lives if need be. It’s not like they’re even good gunkas, as I like some of the more popular military marches.
“I can’t hear you!” Sensei yells.
We reach a hill, where we’re allowed a thirty-minute break to eat lunch. I take out my supply of two biscuits and a dried mackerel. Chieko eats her biscuits like they’re hard apples and stares at the empty wasteland to the east. That’s the Quiet Border I’ve always heard about, called that because it’s a couple of hundred kilometers of dirt with no sign of life or vegetation. Beyond that, German America and Texarkana Fortress. “Cream,” Chieko calls me. “You ever been to Germany?”
I shake my head. “Never,” I reply, and wonder how Griselda is doing.
“Neither have I. Don’t ever want to go either unless we’re kicking Nazi ass. Did you know they sanction mice by color?”
“What do you mean?”
“Only white mice are allowed to live there. Brown, black, and gray mice are shot.”
I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
“You ever have fried mouse before?” she asks.
“No,” I reply.
“It tastes good with the proper seasoning.”
“That’s disgusting,” Wren snaps. “I’d never eat a mouse.”
“Why not?”
“I used to have three pet mice,” Wren says. “I played with them every day and trained them to do small tricks.”
“Did you teach them to fetch and play dead?” Chieko teases him.
They go at it as he defends his choice of pet while Chieko suggests he change his nickname to something mouse related.
* * *
• • •
Most evenings, I’m too tired to do anything. But many of the other recruits take out Hanafuda cards and play for cigarettes or whatever else they can gamble for. They switch rules, going from traditional to Korean style to all seventeen USJ variations. I don’t know how it works other than that the suits represent the twelve months and the flowers separate them. I do know it involves a lot of wrist flicks and cards being flung against other cards with loud snaps.
RAMDET trainee Botan, who’s usually so quiet, is the best and always ends up on top. One evening, she beats everyone so soundly, they become convinced she’s cheating and refuse to play against her anymore. Time, flower cards, and cigarettes have become our miniaturized economy, with reputation the only currency that carries weight.
* * *
• • •
We’re not farmers, so I don’t know why we have to wake up so early every morning. It’s cold, our muscles are sore, and I’d rather be back in bed. I’m shocked when we assemble in the morning and don’t immediately start running. Sensei asks us to approach her one by one to try to tackle her. She takes on a judo stance. The fourteen students in front of me confront her, try to attack, then get thrown to the ground in one sweeping motion. When it’s my turn, I stand at a distance. Every time she gets closer to me, I step back. After a minute or so of this, Sensei shouts, “Cream! I didn’t ask you for a dance. Fight me!”
I use that moment to rush her and try to knock her down. But she’s ready and grabs my shoulder. She places her right foot behind mine, then pushes me. I trip on her foot and hit the ground. She puts her foot on my back. “I hate cheap tricks, Cream, especially when they fail.”
The other students don’t fare any better. The only one who lasts longer than the rest of us is Chieko. She’s lowered her mass, wary in her motions, watching Sensei carefully. Sensei goes in for the strike, but Chieko counters, pushing her back. Chieko goes for a blow to the lower abdomen, but Sensei dodges her, letting Chieko’s momentum make her vulnerable. With a sweep of the feet, Chieko falls like the rest of us.
“There’s nothing more important in a fight than positioning and the placement of your feet. ‘Maximum efficiency, minimum effort’ is judo’s key principle. Just by seeing how an opponent moves their feet, I can tell the result of the fight. There are ten katas I will teach you. Learn them, and you will be able to defeat anyone.”
Over the next three weeks, I fall a lot. If my back were clay, it would be arched from all the hits it’s taking. Sensei asks us, “How many of you know about cats?”
Does Cat Odyssey count? I raise my hand, as do a dozen others.
“Then you know cats can make huge drops without any pain. Do you know why? Because they’re so limber.”
On mats, we practice falling a hundred times a day. We roll back, slap down with both our arms so that the force of the fall is distributed throughout our body. Rather than stiffen on impact, she teaches us to roll like a cradle. It doesn’t come naturally as my first instinct is to resist falling and fight against gravity. But Sensei keeps on telling us, “Flow. Don’t resist. Just flow.”
No matter how many times I practice, my back still hurts when I fall.
We learn throwing, grappling, defense in the kime-no-kata, and the twenty-one self-defense techniques of the Kōdōkan goshinjutsu that teach us how to ward off unarmed and armed opponents. Not sure what help the Kōdōkan will be against someone with a death ray, but anytime anyone asks a question doubting judo’s efficacy, Sensei throws them to the ground again and again until their back becomes one with the floor. She has us do five hundred squats a day. For ten-minute stretches, we’re required to stand on one leg with the knee bent, then switch. Strengthening our leg muscles, we’re told. I never thought I’d miss running.
When it’s not Sensei tackling us, it’s the other students. Chieko is especially adept because of her wrestling background, which isn’t something she’s fond of recollecting.
“Why not? You have an advantage over all of us,” Wren says. “You should be proud of it.”
But Chieko shakes her head, and says, “During a
match, I body- slammed this girl and cracked her spine. I nearly killed her. If it’d just been a centimeter off, she’d be dead. They took her to the hospital. Had her in surgery for two days. Longest two days of my life. I couldn’t bear the thought of having killed someone.”
“She survived?”
“She survived. And they performed a special surgery, so she could walk again. But I stopped wrestling after that because I realized how weak and fragile humans are. That’s why I want to fight in a mecha. They make us superhuman.”
* * *
• • •
Most of our matches are minimally efficient with maximum effort. I’m trying to throw Wren, and Wren is trying to toss me to the ground. He’s bigger than me, so I always struggle in my matchups with him, whereas he usually throws me with ease.
Once that’s done, Sensei leads us through thirty-minute stretches to make our muscles limber. We exercise our lats, hamstrings, do a pigeon stretch and side-lying windmill to loosen tightness. “Your muscles can extend up to 1.5 times their usual length with the proper stretching. But your tendons can’t go that far, so the key is balance.” She has us touch our toes with our arms and keep our legs straight, but I can barely reach my ankles. Within three days, I’m able to not just reach my toes, but place my palms on the ground. I admit, it feels good. But my feet still hurt, and my hips feel like they’re disjointed.
Wren is worse off. He’s walking with a limp. We’re paired up for another fight. Usually, it ends with him headlocking me or throwing me to the ground. But today, he’s slower and less aggressive. In one series of attacks, I catch him off guard and have him in position to hurtle him. This should be an easy throw. But instead of going with the “flow,” Wren grabs my right arm. I’m already in motion so I can’t stop myself. I feel something tear in my shoulder as he flies past me. Pain stabs my arm, and I can’t move it. I droop to the side, and there’s no feeling. But as soon as I try to raise my arm, the pain returns in a fury.
“Sensei,” I call. “Sensei!”
She comes over. “What’s wrong?”
“M-my arm.”
She tries to help me raise it, but I flinch.
She takes out a portical from her pockets, and says, “We need the medic.” She disconnects and orders me, “Get out of the way.”
I sit by a wall and watch the other students practice judo. Wren apologizes. “I’m real sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s okay. It was an accident. It should be fine.”
The medic is a woman of Malaysian descent named Minako, who looks a little older than the rest of us. She’s carrying a medical kit, and I explain what happened. She checks my arm with her portical, which has extra sensors built in, conducting a real-time X-ray that displays on her screen. “Good part is no broken bones,” she says, showing me my skeleton.
“Is it normal to have gaps there?” I ask.
“That’s where your tendons and muscles are, which is what we’re checking next.”
She scans them several times. Sensei comes over.
“What’s the prognosis?” she asks.
“Torn tendons on the rotator cuff. These palliative patches should expedite healing, and he should be all good in a week.”
“That’s too long.”
“That’s what he needs. No exercises or training. Just R and R.” Minako puts her portical down, asks me to take off my shirt. I do. She wraps a cloth around my shoulder that hardens when she applies a special liquid. She injects the palliative and gives me six dosages I have to apply myself over the week. She closes up her kit, gives me a thumbs-up, and leaves.
Sensei looks down at me. “Tough luck, Cream.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“A week is too long to miss. You’re out. Go see the administrative office for your termination notice.”
“W-wait. You mean I’m done with the training?” I can’t believe it. After all I’ve suffered, it’s going to end with me getting cut over an accident?
“Without your arm, you’re worthless. And losing a week means you’re behind everyone else.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Wait for the next training cycle and try again.”
Another two months of hell just to get back to this spot? What if I get hurt again? My sense of outrage overwhelms the pain I feel in my arm. “This is unfair.”
“There’s no such thing as fair. We’re not a charity,” Sensei says, and turns around.
In giving me her back, I feel the disdain everyone’s felt for me my entire life. Her disrespect and indifference is unbearable. Custom dictates I should shut up, accept my fate, and try again. But I think about all the failures of my life, and I can’t stand it.
“Sensei!” I call to her.
Sensei turns around. “I told you you’re done!”
“I’m not done!” I shout back. “Not without a match.”
“A match?”
“Three chances. If I throw you once, I stay.”
“And after you fail?” She doesn’t even doubt the outcome, which infuriates me more.
“I’ll leave without protesting, knowing you weren’t a very good teacher.”
There’s a glimmer of irritation. She lifts up her fingers and challenges me forward. The other students gather around, forming a human circle. Vultures coming in to sate their appetite for drama.
I know I have no chance. She’ll probably aim for my arm, which is immobile. As soon as she applies pressure, I’ll be paralyzed. And from the way her eyes are hawkishly focused on my shoulder, I know even if I had ten chances, I’d fail. Just like I failed the exam and pretty much everything else I’ve tried at in my life. If only my arm were good . . . Who am I kidding? Even if my shoulder weren’t damaged, how could I compete with her?
We face off. I keep my distance, watching her for an opening.
“Are we dancing again, Cream?”
“My name is Makoto!” I shout at her.
She grins. “Sincere people are often the dumbest,” she responds, mocking my name for its literal meaning, “sincerity.” “You’re not the exception, Cream. This dance is over.”
She steps toward me, feints left, then goes for my right arm. I duck and leap for her feet, hoping to knock her down. She jumps up, avoiding my charge, her feet coming down on my back. She stomps down on my bad arm. I swear a knife went through it. For all purposes, the fight is done, and I’ve lost. But I suppress the pain and flip in place, grabbing her by the legs and bringing her down with me. She stumbles in surprise, but lands deftly. It was a cheap move on my part, but I had no other choice. She lands a foot in my face and another. I’m in too much pain to retaliate, and I know she’s within her rights to beat me to death. But she starts laughing hard. Not the reaction I was expecting. Is she mocking me again?
“You’ve got spirit, Cream.” She gets back on her feet and points at me. “Three days of R and R, and you’re back on the field.”
The other students are shocked. So am I. Sensei goes back to yelling at everyone like nothing happened. I’m relieved to find out I’m staying.
* * *
• • •
To accelerate my recovery, I’m taken to RAMDET headquarters in Dallas Tokai. It’s a huge facility that resembles a corporation more than a security base. There are eight main buildings, with four devoted to maintenance of their various defensive craft. RAMDET has operations throughout the world wherever the Empire shares a border with the Nazis or Italians. Here, they have a complex of dormitories for staff members, and I’m given a studio about the size of my old apartment. The difference is, I have it all to myself.
I’ve been ordered to spend my recovery studying the history of the mecha and given a textbook to read on my portical. The RAMDET History of Mechanized Combat and Defensive Units is full of footage from history, charting the evo
lution of mechas.
It all began with a small tech company in the mid 1940s called Sono Industries, which was doing subsidiary contracts on tanks. One of their main scientists, Hiroshi Boshiro, had been studying German railway guns, but because they were limited by mobility, knew they were ineffective for actual combat. According to folklore, Boshiro was watching a military parade in Osaka when he saw a troupe of samurais followed by a tank brigade and came up with the idea of combining the defensive armor of a samurai suit with the firepower of a tank.
Boshiro was one of the most brilliant minds at Sono. He was also emotionally devastated after his son was killed by an American suicide attack. Boshiro was driven to get revenge and worked tirelessly to exact it. They have only static 2D images of the mechanical samurai-tank prototypes in black and white, which are surreal to see. The mechanical samurai tanks started off at about five meters tall and used treads for locomotion. I see some film footage of their first attempt at taking a step, which is a disaster. The mecha can’t maintain its balance. It would take multiple rebuilds before they got the mecha walking.
That’s also when Boshiro devised a formula to equalize weight distribution and its relationship to the energy required to take a single step, which he then put into the “gyration stabilizer.” The GS is still considered one of the most important inventions of the Pacific War, allowing our forces to build mechas much taller.
I take a bathroom break. As I wash my hands, I see myself in the mirror for the first time in a long while. I’ve lost so much weight, I almost don’t recognize the face in front of me. I never knew how pudgy I was until now, seeing my cheekbones pushing out. My belly, which previously was a brick of fat, actually looks like an assemblage of muscles. I’d seen the transition so incrementally, looking down at my body every morning, that I hadn’t realized how significant it was until now.
I hop back in my bed, check my portical messages regularly since I’ve regained access. I know the chances of BEMA changing their mind are slim, but I’m awaiting word on if they’ve reconsidered my rejection based on Colonel Tachibana’s request. I get stupidly giddy thinking about how I’d react if they did.
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