The Matsumoto (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 3)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “No need to cry,” Driscoll said. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so fussy after the terrible makeover you gave yourself.”

  He motioned to my hair, still playing with his handiwork on my face.

  “I should have had it fixed by now,” I agreed.

  “Yes. It draws attention,” he said, hauling out a hairtrimmer from his stack of things. “Hold still.”

  He ran it over my head.

  “Don’t take off too much,” I joked. “I only asked for a trim.”

  No laugh from Roman. It was like I no longer existed to him. But could I blame him? I’d cost him his leg and almost his life.

  Which was the fault of you shadows by the way, I griped bitterly to Zeta.

  Sure, pass the blame. Be a child. Ever heard of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Everyone passed the buck to someone else and then they all got cursed for it.

  I don’t remember that being the moral of the story.

  There was no moral. Just a story. And forget the man. Men only break your heart and leave you to do everything on your own.

  And people wonder why I’m so warm and fuzzy.

  “What do you think? Do I get a tip?” Driscoll asked, holding up a mirror. My hair was even and short. I wasn’t beautiful, but at least it didn’t look like I’d hacked it off in a makeshift kitchen.

  “Sure. Stay away from Matsumotos.”

  “I already know that one,” he said.

  “They’re still tracking us,” Shiga called to Driscoll from the front. “Should I try to lose them.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, looking irritated.

  “Who is following us?” I asked.

  “No one,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at me as he packed his gear up.

  I touched him on the shoulder and said, “I think I should know.”

  He sighed.

  “A team from the Fleet ship that discovered The Cardinal’s Blood has been tracking us since we came dirtside...or planet side, I guess,” he gestured at the water all around us. “We’ve been three steps ahead of them, and we still are.”

  “It sounds like they’re getting close,” I said, running my fingers through my new haircut.

  “These IDs are secure, and we are breaking up into smaller groups once we get to the checkpoint, so they likely won’t have the manpower to follow all of us.” He paused and shrugged, glancing at Roman’s prosthetic. “Keep your head down and they won’t find you. You aren’t what they are expecting.”

  I grunted, accepting his logic. Maybe I should work on my relationship with my father. It was the only one that was working out for me right now.

  “You’ll be on your own when we reach Derivat. Don’t let me down.”

  “I’ll see you on the other end,” I said, and gripped his forearm. “Be safe and thank you.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” was all he said, and then he cleared his throat.

  I saw Roman stripping down awkwardly and trying to get his prosthetic leg through his pants. I moved to help him, but he waved me off and asked Choshi for assistance. Stung by his rejection, I stripped and changed into the loose, practical clothing. My light shirt had a deep, black hood and a purple scarf that I wound around my face, leaving a small portion of the hideous fake scar over the top. My real scar was also partially visible, and I hoped we weren’t overdoing it.

  “I hid her sword in your crutch,” Driscoll told Roman. “Just in case.”

  I wondered what had become of that.

  “Derivat approach,” Shiga called from the front.

  “Here we go,” Driscoll said.

  I looked back, trying to catch Roman’s eye, but his gaze slid away.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Our hovercraft was shunted into a long line of civilian craft by the planetary police. They had their work cut out for them. In every direction that I looked, water and aircraft were trying to approach Derivat. A dangerous swell still rocked the ocean, and watercraft were getting a priority place in the queue, but there were just too many of them to expedite. On the far side of the city, a space-to-water dock was filled with six enormous freighters. As we found our place in line one of them rose into the atmosphere and rocketed out of sight. An hour later we had barely made a gain in the queue and another freighter swooped down from the heavens to take its place.

  “They’re taking as many civilians as they can out on freighters,” Shiga said from the front. “The police are sending a standard info packet to everyone in the queue. When we reach processing, our IDs will be assessed to see if we qualify for evacuation, and those who qualify will be given an evacuation number based on a variety of parameters. These evacuation numbers are non-negotiable.”

  Driscoll grunted. Nothing, in his mind, was ever fully non-negotiable.

  “They can’t possibly get everyone off planet,” Kitsano said. “That would be hundreds of millions of people. There aren’t near enough commercial craft for that and all the military craft are fighting.”

  “We’ll just have to hope we’ve drawn the lucky numbers,” Driscoll said.

  “And the rest?”

  He shrugged. “You know as well as I do that we can’t save everyone.”

  But I was going to try.

  Derivat loomed ahead of us. Housing millions, and with the streaming influx of refugees, it took on the appearance of an ant colony - if ant colonies were ever built on the sea. According to my studies, Derivat was actually built on land, but from here it was apparent that it had long exceeded its limits in that regard. In the city center skyscrapers shot as high as modern technology could take them, but as the solid ground gave out the woven structures of rural Nightshade dominated, creeping out over the water like a water-strider settlement.

  Roman studied the city intently during our approach. Through our link I felt occasional spikes of anger and despair, and my own pain lashed against me so that it took all my effort to hold myself together and not break apart. I knew he was thinking of Ashlyn and how she grew up there. He felt lost to me already.

  Four hours later our turn for processing finally came. Our hovercraft was directed to dock, and Shiga’s chip was scanned for ownership, although we all knew we were unlikely to ever see the craft again. Thousands of other small craft were tied up along the hastily rigged docks, and workers in high visibility vests were hastily throwing together more of the jury rigged constructions.

  We were hustled down the winding gangway to a small tent with one wall open. Harried city workers scanned our chips and assigned us temporary numbers. Behind them surges of people pushed and shoved and the din of voices and cries was almost unbearable.

  We were directed into a line of people being scanned by a med comp and then being issued numbers by an anxious bureaucrat. Every so often the pre-fab tent rocked and swayed with the tumult. In the crowds I glimpsed shadowy figures. I hoped that it was just the stress that was making me see shadows everywhere, and not the VX-7.

  When my turn came Roman was right in front of me.

  “Can you walk without the cane?” the bureaucrat asked sharply, she wore a name badge that said “Cox.”

  “I don’t think so,” Roman replied.

  “Any known diseases?”

  “No.”

  “Applying for refugee status?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone travelling with you?”

  He gestured to me without looking at me. My heart ripped like an old flag and fluttered in the wind.

  “Sister?”

  “Sure.”

  “Approved. Find temporary housing for both of you and ration card on the chip. Next.”

  She looked at me while trying to hold her folding table in place as another shock wave made the ground beneath us tremble.

  “You’re the sister.”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice.

  “Answers all the same as his?”

  “Yes,” I managed.

  “Burn need looking at?”

  “
No,” I said.

  “Next.”

  I followed Roman out of the tent, in a long line after the other refugees. Parents of small children desperately clung to them else they be swept away in the throngs. The children cried, but that only make the parents hold them tighter. The elderly tottered slowly, not trusting their feet. Everyone looked at their chips with the same disconsolate look. Around us, crowds from within the city jeered and cursed, angry at the influx that would reduce their own chance of making it to safety. A man in front of me fell as a thrown rock hit him in the arm, and Roman hauled him up, scanning the crowd for the culprit. He was nowhere to be seen.

  “We need to get out of here!” someone said, desperation thick in her voice. “Any idea what number they’re transporting off planet right now?”

  “Don’t bother asking. The lady said it would be days,” someone else replied.

  “Days? Please, no!”

  Days. Days of fearing a planetary strike and sharing over-cramped quarters with everyone else. I felt ill as I thought about it. We left the hovercraft with only the clothing on our back, our IDs, Roman’s crutch and the book. We hadn’t packed for days of anything. Not that there had been any time to pack.

  We stumbled through the crowds, jostled and harried as we went. I grabbed the back of Roman’s shirt and hung on to it, even though I was sure it didn’t help him to walk with his new crutch. I didn’t want to lose him in the thick crowd. Every few minutes a person faded slightly, like he was becoming a shadow, and on the faces of the shadowy I saw glimmers of panic and rage.

  We pressed through the streets towards our assigned housing. Any thought of city transit was quickly cut short. All motorized vehicles had come to a stop under the press of bodies. Occasionally an emergency vehicle would muscle its way through, but no vehicles moved in or above the streets and our progress through the mass of bodies was slow. I felt claustrophobic and anxious, the smell of people and fear filled my nostrils and the whites of their eyes haunted me. How many would be shadows by morning? How many would go missing or be dead by the time this was all over?

  I kept my fears to myself. Roman had made it plain that he no longer cared to speak to me. He was slick with sweat from the effort of walking on his new leg, and he was leaning heavily on the crutch, but the movement of his prosthetic was good. I pushed ahead of him and then cleared a path for him, but I could feel his resentment through our link. I was doing his job.

  We arrived, eventually at the door of one of the bamboo dwellings on the edge of the city. It had the number and locator displayed on our chips. We pressed the buzzer beside the door. Loud voices and chaos carried through the flimsy walls.

  “Not more people!” someone said from within, and then a harried looking elderly man opened the door.

  “Come in. Two of you? No more? Good.” He ushered us in and then busied himself with latching the door behind us.

  The small bamboo house was packed to the edges. The main room was round with a kitchen to one side, a small door that I later discovered led to a bathroom, and a ladder to a loft above. People were crowded into every inch of space, sleeping propped against the walls, or standing in tight knots. Children weaved and darted between them all. I tried to count heads, but had to stop and count again so many times that I just gave up.

  I kept my head down as Roman led me to the perimeter of the room and I sank with my back against the wall beside him.

  “Is this your house?” he asked the old man who had let us in.

  “Sure. My son’s, really, but he was off-planet and I’ve been watching it for him.”

  They descended into small talk and I opened up the print book and began to read.

  I’ve given significant thought to my enemies and the days to come. It has been a long journey to this place and the life of a sworn pacifist is not easy.

  Tell me about it.

  What follows in this journal are the things I feel my descendants should know, particularly with regards as to why I adopted pacifism, why I believe they ought to continue it, and how we may adapt to the challenges of a violent world. I have entrusted these words to my Hand with the instructions that they pass them down to the true heirs. The Hand has served me well already and a silent balance to the extreme power I have acquired for my family is both necessary and desirable.

  Neal Matsumoto certainly had a high opinion of himself, that was for sure.

  “What is his name?” Roman asked an older lady as he teased a small child who was hiding behind her.

  “Ryu. He’s four,” she said.

  Self-sacrifice is the key for without it there is no Empire and the people have no defender. When self comes before the cause or before others, that is the downfall of a would-be ruler. Self must be sacrificed on the altar of the good over and over again for as long as one is alive. Sometimes that sacrifice will end the life. This is necessary and desirable.

  “His parents died in the first strike. We brought him with us, but he is a handful and I have five of my own to care for.”

  I’d missed whatever had moved Ryu from behind her back to playing with Roman’s crutch. I hoped he didn’t find the katana inside it. I skimmed further down the journal.

  Pacifism in its purest form must be a relinquishing of all violence, both those violences perpetuated by the individual, but also by the command of the individual. A vow of pacifism denies both these things. I find it difficult to be an Emperor without the violence that sped my path here. It will be my life’s work to find such a path.

  I wondered whether he had achieved it.

  I doubt it. He was assassinated a few years later, as you should remember from your history books, Zeta piped up.

  It doesn’t mean that he didn’t perfect pacifism first, I argued.

  Well, he didn’t perfect it effectively, or he wouldn’t have died of assassination. That’s the problem with non-violence. It doesn’t prevent the violent from doing evil to you.

  I heard a clatter and looked up. Roman had joined Ryu in his play. Through the constant undercurrent of anger and bitterness pouring off him I felt a small spike of joy.

  The house buzzed with anxious voices and the laughter of children until late into the night. There was no food, although the old man passed out an herbal tea at one point. I declined.

  I continued to read the journal and study the accompanying histories from the QR codes on the molars. Neal Matsumoto was a clever devil. His insights into tactics and the occasional gem he threw out there about our history was fascinating, but in all honesty I was reading because there was nothing else for me to do. I was trapped here, just like everyone else, desperately awaiting my shuttle off the planet. Just like them, my ultimate destination was uncertain and riddled with peril.

  Eventually I must have drifted off. I awoke to the sound of the kettle being placed on the stove and a ring at the door. A man in a Fleet uniform poked his head in the door and I felt myself sink deeper in my hood, hoping the scarf still covered my face well enough. Roman slept against the wall beside me, with small Ryu curled up against him.

  “I’m here for family number 85721,” he told the old man. “Don’t any of the rest of you try to leave. The streets are no longer safe. We will come for each number in turn.”

  The old man nodded and scurried up the ladder, returning quickly with the family, and then went back to his constant occupation of brewing tea. They filed out, just more nameless, faceless refugees. An hour later another family arrived. If I had been asked I would not have been able to tell the difference between the two. What had I become, that compassion had been replaced by exhaustion and listlessness?

  Weak. You’ve become weak. A true leader sees the people and thinks of how to properly order their lives.

  Maybe one of the other Elders could speak in my head for a while, Zeta, I suggested, I’m feeling a touch too vulnerable for your barbs right now.

  Grow a thicker skin.

  My ultra-elephant-hide skin was my problem right now. If I was a real
human girl I’d be huddled behind this scarf crying my eyes out over my lost life, lost love, and the trail of lifeless bodies I was leaving behind me with every step. Instead I was, reading a dead man’s journal and hoping that I could find a way to fight myself out of all of this and force the happy ending I wanted so badly. Maybe happy endings can’t be forced.

  Another official peaked his head in our door and looked around, although this one said nothing. A shiver of fear flickered up my back. What if the Fleet team that was hunting us down were dressed like the officials? We’d be easy targets in this tiny woven house full of civilians.

  Roman stirred beside me.

  Roman?

  I glanced over. His eyes were open and on Ryu.

  Roman?

  Nothing. Figured. He was done with me.

  Leave him here with the boy. Men never have the fortitude to handle women like us anyways. Call on us and we will be your shadow army and fight our way onto transport and off this planet.

  I’m not ready to give up on him yet.

  Maybe we should have picked Driscoll.

  I thought you hated Driscoll.

  I do, but he has balls.

  Nice mom. Very ladylike. I sighed and ran my hands through my hair under my hood. I didn’t know what I was doing, only that I wanted to stay this course until Roman abandoned me on his own. I didn’t have what it took to keep him, but I couldn’t leave him, either.

  The ringing of the door began again, and the old man shuffled over.

  “Family number 85798,” the official said.

  That was me and Roman. I glanced over at him, and he looked up at me, and then looked away. He wasn’t coming with me. I sighed, blinked back my tears and stood. Alone or not, I still had to go. My choice was determined a long time ago and nothing now could make any difference. I walked to the official.

  Behind me I heard a woman’s voice whispering.

  “Please. Take him. I can’t. He needs you. I won’t be bringing him with me.”

  The boy began to cry and the woman babbled incoherently, thrusting the screaming child at Roman. I could barely look at them, the thought of the orphan boy passed so callously from one person to the next was too painful. Better not to think of him or the thousands of others just like him.