We leave the elevator and walk down a long corridor with a door at the end.
“We’ll just go through here and outside.” Before I can register what Sakai is saying, he opens the door, and we step out into the outdoors. A blast of hot, dry air hits me in the face, the impossibly bright sun beating down on my head through a translucent tarp. We’re standing on the edge of a rock garden in the open air.
My thoughts are blank. I try to look around, but I’m paralyzed. I have never (never!) been outside of the city in my life. I can’t think of one person I know who has ever seen the sky or breathed air not circulated through Nishikyō a million times over. I will my feet to move forward and follow Sakai and Jiro, but my knees are weak. I only make it about a meter before being frozen altogether.
I instinctively look at the ground. “Just look at the ground!” my brain is screaming at me. I register green succulent plants growing in little urns amongst tan colored gravel, but they’re fuzzy around the edges. Next to them sits an empty watering can I fix my eyes on. I do not move. Moving would be a mistake.
Everything entering my head is roaring and distorted, but I think I hear Sakai speaking to me. I raise my head a millimeter, and he is approaching me. No. He’s grabbing my hand and leading me out farther past the tarp. Stop!
Blue.
All I see is empty, blue space forever, and then the world tips over and falls on top of me before turning black.
Chapter
Nine
“Sanaa, can you hear me?”
I feel the press of lips against my forehead and warm hands either side of my face. I’m sure that’s Sakai, and the roaring in my brain is starting to sound like water rushing through pipes instead. I’m not boiling hot anymore, so I chance to open my eyes and find myself inside the door with a view of the ceiling. Both Sakai and Jiro are crouched over me, concerned, and my head is throbbing.
“What happened? Why does my head hurt?” My mouth is completely dry, my tongue withered and unusable.
“You went down like a sack of bricks, Sanaa-chan. I think you hit your head. We’ll get you some ice.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Jiro says, his eyes wide. I realize he’s holding my hand, so I squeeze it.
“I… I’m okay.” I try to sit up, but Sakai put his hands on my shoulders, and I lay back down.
“You looked up and, before I knew it, you were on the ground.”
I lay silent for a moment thinking about the sky, the rock garden, the watering can. It did happen. I’m not imagining things.
“I’ve never been outside before. All the heat… and the air. The blue sky was crushing me, then the world spun around… and I blacked out?”
Nothing is making sense. Everything was too frightening. Both Jiro and Sakai sit in silence, and I burst into tears when the shock on their faces doesn’t fade.
“What was that? Why did that happen to me? I was so helpless. I couldn’t move.”
Sakai brushes the hair off my face. “Can you sit up now? I think you had a panic attack.”
I pull myself up and am relieved to find the world staying in one place. But a panic attack? Blowing all the breath from my lungs, I take a deeper, calming one.
“I didn’t feel panicked. It was like a part of my brain turned off.”
“May be agoraphobia. Doctors working on the colonization say forcing people who have lived inside all their lives to live outside might be difficult. I think it might be more difficult than they thought.”
I wipe the tears from my face with my free hand. I am not letting go of Jiro.
“I couldn’t help it,” I say. “Never been outside before.”
Sakai nods. “We’ll have to desensitize you.”
Now I am starting to panic. No, no, no. The blue sky will suck me up and spit me out into space. It’s a wonder gravity even works outside. No, I will not go outside again. Deep breath.
But then I look at Sakai and realize I am not going to get away with staying inside for the rest of my life. Nishikyōdoes not exist on Yūsei. No domed city. Everyone will live outside. Oh gods, what a nightmare.
Sakai stands up, and Jiro pulls me to my feet before letting go of my hand. I want to snatch his hand back and hold on forever. I am cold and alone without it. Instead, I hug myself.
“I want to go home now.”
“Okay, Sanaa. Okay.”
Sakai leads us out of the ward and back to the train. I would give anything to forget this day. Well, at least everything that happened from the elevator ride on.
* * * *
I head straight home and take a nap before having a quiet meal with my aunts. Today was so confusing, and I can’t concentrate on their conversations. Aunt Kimie asks me about work and all I’m able to say is I have tonight and tomorrow night off. Everything else about my attitude, I blame on the crazy workload.
After dinner, I sit in bed with my tablet reading over news stories and exchanging messages with Miko. She’s been happy but misses me. I’ve missed her and Helena, too. I’m glad Miko will be at the izakaya tomorrow night with Yoichi because I’m dying to see a friendly face. Helena is working a double-shift tomorrow, so it’ll just be us.
“I’m so excited you managed to talk to Jiro!” she writes. “How did that happen?”
I think for a moment about what lie I’m going to tell this time to keep everybody in line. This is getting difficult. Eventually, this web of lies I’ve woven is going to disintegrate, and someone, probably me, will be hurt.
I better go for a half-lie.
“Well, you know I love karate, and I wanted to try something else. He’s teaching me sword fighting. But you can’t tell Aunt Kimie because she’ll freak out.”
There’s silence for at least three minutes, and I sit and watch the clock waiting for Miko to write back.
“Wow. Sword fighting? Really?”
I shocked her.
“Yeah, he came… recommended.”
“Okay, Sanaa-chan. Somehow I can’t imagine you wielding a sword, but… Fine.”
You’re not the only one, Miko.
“I’ve only trained with him a few times in between long shifts, and it was weird with Jiro at first. I have a huge crush on him, and I have no idea if he even likes me. Can we not be too forward about it tomorrow, Miko-chan? Please?”
If I don’t come right out and ask her to do this for me, she’ll make some sort of silly comment and embarrass us all. She and Helena know how much I loved Joshua and teased me about it constantly until we broke up and he starting making fun of me in front of other people. Chad was how I coped. I hate being embarrassed, and if I go through it again with Jiro, I may never recover.
“Sure, Sanaa-chan. You know I’ll be polite and sweet. I’m happy to see you try someone else.”
A new message pops up, but lo and behold, it’s from Jiro. My finger hovers over the screen before tapping on the alert.
“I hope you’re all right after today. How’s your head?” he writes. I reach up and touch the back of my skull, but, thankfully, a bump never formed. I must be more hard-headed than I thought.
Miko’s messages are flashing in the background, but I’m going to ignore them.
“Fine, actually. No bump. Just tired. Been a long day… Well, long few months. I don’t sleep much at night.”
“Me neither. Too much to think about.”
Is it too much to ask he’s thinking about me? I’m needy. I really am.
“I lay around for hours and hours staring at the ceiling and letting my brain work.”
“No wonder you’ve been so tired at practice. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
I’ve never been good at hiding my fatigue. Aunt Kimie says I’ve always been a great napper. As a kid, I would keep slowing down until someone stuck me in bed, and then I’d sleep for hours at a time. I am still like this. Jiro commented on my exhaustion once a few weeks ago, and I brushed it off and asked that we never talk about it, and he hasn’t, until now.
“I will just have to work harder at tiring you out so you collapse from exhaustion every evening.”
Sounds good to me, but I don’t think his idea of work and mine are the same. My mind is in the gutter.
“You’re doing an excellent job already, thank you very much.”
“Okay, then. Get some rest. Oh, and before I go, I’ve sent you a drawing. I hope you like it. Oyasumi-nasai.”
I access my inbox immediately. Jiro changed his mind. That must mean something. I open the file he sent me and catch my breath. He is so skilled with line drawing this could be a photograph in black and white. I wonder if he ever uses color?
The drawing is of three paper lanterns hanging from a string along a wooden beam. Every swoop and swirl of the wood is painstakingly drawn out, every little bump and imperfection. It is so rare for me to see real wood, I wonder how his imagination must work. Each lantern is swayed a bit as if a wind has come and bumped them out of place. Delicate silk cords hang from the bottom of each, knotted and twirled together, furled by the breeze. Such a small piece of life but so iconic of life. The illustration is a study of how orderly things move within the space around them. It is brilliant.
Jiro has more talent in his little finger than I do in my whole body. I’ve seen the way he fights. He has this carefree, creative, and spontaneous side that comes out when he’s holding a sword in his hand. From what I see here, it’s the same when he draws, but he channels the creativity with his attention to detail. We are so different, but sometimes I think about how alike we are. We are both passionate about what we do and what we believe in. Both observant, determined, and ambitious to a fault.
I write back to him only to say, “I love it.”
I prop up my tablet with the drawing next to me and stare at it as I drop off to a dreamless sleep.
Chapter
Ten
Today I’m going to follow the top Taira henchmen and find out what they’ve been up to for the past couple of months. I’ve already compiled my dossier on the clan leader, Tomio Miura, so it’s time to move down the ranks.
My first subject, Minamoto, was an easy enough target. I ran into a dead-end with him after only a few weeks and set him aside. Whatever illegal activities he’s up to, they must all revolve around money because I’ve seen no signs of violence from anyone in his clan. It’s either that or they keep everything away from the cameras.
Tomio Miura, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care who finds out about his illegal activities. His records are pretty blatant. After running the same routines on him I ran on Minamoto, I found two people that worked for him disappear in a two week period. One died of natural causes. The other ended up in the Ku 2 main hospital with internal injuries before dying of them.
So, I went back in the records over the span of five years and found twenty-seven people have died while working for or around Miura. Countless more have been injured. With a sense of dread, I set him aside for a few days and concentrated on the other clan boss, Noboru Maeda, for a bit. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to see what had happened to those men and women.
I can’t avoid the violence anymore.
Sakai reviewed my work two days ago and said, “Sanaa, you must investigate all of the bosses in these families. You’re not going to make any progress if you just follow the heads of the clans.”
Fine. I’ll do it.
Tadao Matsuda is first. He’s a strange one. I’ve seen him with Miura on several occasions, and I put his name on my list immediately once I looked him up. He’s two years younger than Sakai at forty, and grew up in the same ward and neighborhood as Sakai did. They must know each other. He’s married to the now Chief of Colonization, Emiko Matsuda. He’s tall and well-built but dyes his hair this dirty brown color I personally find revolting.
I’ve been transfixed by him, though the few times he’s appeared on surveillance have been uneventful. His vacant and unfeeling eyes bore into people he deals with face-to-face. There is no emotion, not even the hint of a smile. He’s so cold, I shiver.
What I find most intriguing about Matsuda is that he was not born into any one of these major families. He’s the only son of two complete nobodies in this world: a seamstress and a shop owner. By marrying Emiko, he technically became a member of clan Minamoto which confused me to no end. If he married into Minamoto, why is he working with clan Taira? So far, in all of my digging, I’ve found these clans never mix.
While I wait for the computers to compile the video feeds I’ve requested, I sit and think about what I will say or do with Jiro tonight at the izakaya. I wonder if it’s a good idea to continue this flirting when I still have to train with him each day, but I do like him a lot already. I find him attractive, funny, sweet, compelling…
Ugh. I lean forward and put my head on the desk. I’m dying to lay my hands on him, and I’m not even sure if he finds me attractive at all. Our relationship has been so formal and polite. Maybehe goes for curvy, tall women? And I’m Straight-Up-And-Down Sanaa, as Joshua dubbed me when I broke up with him. I hate that nickname. It’s the main reason I spent so much time in the karate dōjō. If I can’t be sexy, at least I can be strong.
I shouldn’t sit here and try to analyze. I do that already with everything else in my life. I should just let things happen the way they should happen.
The terminal pings, and my video is ready. I take the two feeds from outside of Miura’s omiyage shop and scrub back in time to the day before this last man died of internal injuries. He was rushed to the hospital from this shop according to the response team records. Miura’s store keeper told the medics who showed up that the man was crushed under boxes when stock shelves fell on him. Somehow I doubt that’s what really happened.
There! Matsuda is walking into the omiyage shop with this man in front of him. Huh, Matsuda has a sword strapped to his back? When I pause and zoom in, the katana’s handle is peeking up over the top of his coat.
I start the video again and watch them enter the store. They have a short conversation, and the two men enter the back room. When I scrub forward fifteen minutes, the medics arrive, proceed to the back room, and eventually carry this man out on a stretcher. Matsuda follows them out and stands at the door dispassionately as the man is hauled into an ambulance and whisked away. He then jauntily walks off down the street like nothing happened.
Well, that video was not very damning. What other feeds are available for the area around this store? Another front video feed from two stores down? No. That’s not going to give me anything. What about around the back? Yes. A feed exists from one store down, and the camera is mounted opposite the door. I request the video for the same timeframe and bring it up on the screen next to the other video I just watched. I sync them both up and let them play at the same time.
When Matsuda and this man… Wait, who is this guy? I check my Ku 2 hospital records. His name is Hideo. When Matsuda and Hideo enter the back room, they come out the back alley less than a minute later with another man I didn’t see in the store. He must have been in the back room.
Dammit. They are on the edge of the right side of this video feed, flitting in and out of the frame. Hideo stands with his back against the wall while the other man speaks forcefully into his face.
Without warning, the unknown man steps aside, Matsuda takes two steps forward into frame, and kicks Hideo straight in the abdomen.
With a gasp, my hands fly to my mouth. Hideo is on his knees and then on his side as Matsuda’s boot comes up and down again on Hideo’s ribs. Again and again. He winds up and uses the toe of his boot to kick Hideo in the face. Hideo slumps even further to the ground, blood spewing from his nose and mouth. He brings his arms up to his face to shield himself, his lips moving. Is he pleading for his life? No, Hideo’s mouth curls slightly. He’s laughing at Matsuda.
Matsuda’s hand flies
up to his sword but the other man pulls at his arm, stopping him from cutting the last bit of life out of Hideo. Whatever Hideo said angered Matsuda enough to want to kill him. Instead, Matsuda draws a short knife from under his jacket. He’s about to stab this broken and bleeding lump of a man, but he flips the knife around and bludgeons Hideo upside the head until he’s unconscious.
“Sanaa-chan.”
Sakai is standing behind me. I didn’t even hear him come in. Bile rises in my throat as I turn back to the video. Hideo is being dragged inside, and the unknown man is spraying the blood from the pavement outside with a hose.
I stand up shakily from the desk, push past Sakai, and run for the small bathroom two doors down from the theater. I’m about to lose my breakfast straight into the toilet when instead my vision goes black along the edges, and I sink to the floor to stop myself from keeling over.
No, no. Deep, deep breath. Concentrate on not passing out, Sanaa. Stay conscious. You’re stronger than this. Smarter than this. You will not collapse.
And with every moment I think these mantras to myself, the edge recedes, and I calm again.
I’m stronger than this. Smarter than this.
A soft knock on the door echoes in the tiny bathroom. “Sanaa, are you all right?”
“Go back, Mark! I’ll be there in a minute.”
I turn my cheek to the cool plastic wall of the stall and hope to the gods the bathroom was cleaned this morning. Hoisting myself up, I straighten my shirt, exit the stall, and startle at my pale, sweaty face in the mirror. My freckles are standing out even more than usual, and my hair is stuck to the side of my cheek. I run my hands under the cold water from the tap and bring them to my eyes pressing down hard until stars form in the blackness. Don’t cry, Sanaa. Don’t be weak. I release the pressure on my eyes and the world comes back into focus. Taking a deep breath, I wipe my hands off and return to the theater.
Sakai is standing over my videos, Matsuda beating Hideo again. I don’t want to watch it a second time, yet I can’t tear my eyes from it.
Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars Page 18
