Cyber Shogun Revolution

by Peter Tieryas

  PRAISE FOR

  MECHA SAMURAI EMPIRE

  Winner of Japan’s Seiun Award for Best Translated Novel

  One of Financial Times’s Best Science Fiction Books of 2018

  One of Den of Geek’s Best Fiction Books of 2018

  “Intermixing the experience of cinema, literature, anime, comics, and gaming, this is the new generation of science fiction we’ve been waiting for!”

  —Hideo Kojima, game creator

  “How far would you go in pursuit of your dreams? What would you be willing to sacrifice? Set in the fascinating universe of United States of Japan, this is the story of a handful of people who will do anything to become mecha pilots. The characters are truly compelling, and the world Tieryas created is a joy to discover. And if you come for the giant robots, Mecha Samurai Empire has all kinds and the best robot combat you’ll ever read. Seriously, this is a whole new kind of badass.”

  —Sylvain Neuvel, author of Only Human

  “Fascinating and entertaining, Mecha Samurai Empire has a fabulous ‘what if’ premise that imagines an America controlled by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany—and giant armored robots duking it out in arenas and on the battlefield. I caught myself thinking about the book long after I read it, and anxiously await the next installment.”

  —Taylor Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Destroyermen series

  “Mecha Samurai Empire is a spectacular and thought-provoking roller-coaster ride through the United States of Japan that builds, section by section, as it explores profoundly original concepts about robotics and biology.”

  —August Cole, coauthor of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War and editor of the Atlantic Council’s War Stories from the Future

  “Readers will find themselves caught up in Tieryas’s thought-provoking world.”

  —Booklist

  “Extremely fun, intriguing, thrilling, and well written; Mecha Samurai Empire is a one-of-a-kind story that will entice the imagination of any and all who read it.”

  —GeekNerdNet

  PRAISE FOR PETER TIERYAS AND HIS WRITING

  “A searing vision of the persistence of hope in the face of brutality, United States of Japan is utterly brilliant.”

  —Ken Liu, Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award winner and author of The Grace of Kings

  “This is a darkly fun, clever, and unrelentingly ambitious book.”

  —Kameron Hurley, Hugo Award winner and author of The Mirror Empire

  “A perfect patchwork of multiple sci-fi and anime subgenres rolled into one novel.”

  —Esquire

  “Mind-twisting and fiercely imaginative; Tieryas fuses classic sci-fi tradition with his own powerful vision.”

  —Jay Posey, author of the Legends of the Duskwalker series and writer at Ubisoft / Red Storm

  “It’s a tense and intriguing read, a blend of alt history and cyberpunk and thriller. Nineteen eighty-eight California where San Diego is a razed landscape home to American rebels, and Japanese mechas patrol the coast? Heck yes!”

  —Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Crown

  “United States of Japan is a powerful book, unsettling at times—surreal and hypnotic. There’s a bit of Philip K. Dick in here, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but Peter Tieryas is his own voice, a talented author, somebody to keep an eye on for sure.”

  —Richard Thomas, author of Breaker and Disintegration

  Ace Books by Peter Tieryas

  MECHA SAMURAI EMPIRE

  CYBER SHOGUN REVOLUTION

  ACE

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Peter Tieryas

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ACE is a registered trademark and the A colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Tieryas, Peter, 1979– author.

  Title: Cyber shogun revolution / Peter Tieryas.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Ace, 2020. | Series: A United States of Japan novel

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019039582 (print) | LCCN 2019039583 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451491015 (paperback) | ISBN 9780451491022 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Alternative histories (Fiction) | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3612.I932 C93 2020 (print) | LCC PS3612.I932 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039582

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039583

  First Edition: March 2020

  Cover art by John Liberto

  Cover design by Adam Auerbach

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  This book is dedicated to Misa Morikawa, super agent, who moves mechas and mountains alike

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Peter Tieryas

  Ace Books by Peter Tieryas

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Part I: The Conspiracy of the Sons of WarReiko Morikawa

  Bishop Wakana

  Reiko Morikawa

  Bishop Wakana

  Reiko Morikawa

  Part II: The Revolution of the Bloody MechasBishop Wakana

  Reiko Morikawa

  Bishop Wakana

  Reiko Morikawa

  About the Author

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Cyber Shogun Revolution is a stand-alone book set in 2019 of the Mecha Samurai Empire universe. There are new characters, new conflicts, and a whole new brew of mechas. You don’t need to have read either Mecha Samurai Empire or United States of Japan to read this one, but you do need to know that the Axis forces won World War II back in the late 1940s and that the Nazis and the Japanese Empire divided America in half.

  PART I

  THE

  CONSPIRACY

  OF THE

  SONS OF WAR

  REIKO MORIKAWA

  TAIKO CITY

  WINTER 2019

  I.

  Reiko Morikawa hated the rain. It reminded her of cold, damp nights full of regret. But she’d been ordered to Taiko City, once called Seattle by the old Americans, for an urgent meeting of the Sons of War.

  Taiko City looked more dazzling on rainy nights. There were skyscrapers gleaming in vibrant neon, vying for attention with flashy brand logos. Advertisements that were the size of buildings flipped between new portical games, Queequegs Coffee, and various sushi chains that were expanding quickly thanks to breakthroughs in the farming of genetically modified super tuna. Many of the pedestrians were dressed in stylish storm kimonos, while others went for z-cloaks that could change optics to match a given season’s f
ashion trends. Motorcycles zipped by in a frenetic dash, their lights echoing like trails from the past. Reiko spotted a patrol of two of the newer Anubis-class mechas that were designed to protect cities so that tragedies like the Kansas Massacre could never happen again. She’d lived through the massacre, barely surviving in her East Kansas apartment when the Nazis carried out their sneak attack on the city.

  Reiko shuddered at the thought. She was glad to arrive early for her meeting with the Sons of War so she didn’t have to dwell on memories of that day. She, like all the others, had to undergo a ritual cleansing. This meant a washing of hands and feet, then changing into new clothes that included a Noh mask wrapped tightly around her face. Audio recorders were built into each of the masks and acted as a voice recognition system designed to ensure the people behind the mask were who they said they were. If they weren’t, tactile probes on the insides of each mask would become needles and kill the intruder instantly. The eye openings in the masks shut as the members were driven to a secret meeting place many kilometers away. Once they arrived, they had to go through another metal detector and be subjected to a full body search at their destination.

  The corridors were lit by lanterns. The attendees were asked to take off their slippers when they got on the tatami mats and entered the main hall.

  Reiko was one of the forty-seven present, all of whom were wearing Noh masks. The variety of traditional masks had expanded with the growth of the Empire, and the participants wore many types from different regions. The Sons of War usually met in groups of forty-seven, even though there were at least fifty times that number in total.

  Reiko was wearing an onna-men mask, and she spotted several wearing the ghostly onryos. She knew one of them was her friend from her days at Berkeley Military Academy, Daniela Takemi. Daniela had been the one who’d recruited her to the Sons of War and her roommate when the Nazis had attacked Kansas.

  “Nice mask,” Daniela said.

  Reiko replied, “You look very creepy in yours.”

  “We need all the ghosts we can get on our side,” Daniela replied.

  “So we can scare the crap out of our enemies?”

  “Hopefully a lot more than just scaring.”

  Reiko’s attention quickly went to the member who was wearing a George Washington face mask, white wig, and colonial hat. It was a strange choice considering that the leader of the Sons of War, General Noboru Yamaoka, had vanquished the GW threat over a decade ago in the Irvine Trap. Was there a special significance to its presence at this meeting? There very well could be, since pomp and drama were an important part of these ceremonies.

  “Weird, right?” Daniela asked when she noticed the subject of Reiko’s attention. “We should tar and feather them.”

  Reiko grimaced.

  “Don’t be so nervous,” Daniela said. “We’ve been waiting a long time for tonight.”

  “I know,” Reiko replied, then looked down at her artificial arm that was covered with genetically grown skin to appear mostly natural. She flexed her fingers and said, “It feels like it’s been forever since Kansas.”

  “Forever and a half. But it’ll be over soon.”

  Reiko wasn’t so sure.

  The meeting began with a hymn and prayer to Ieyasu, first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate. The old military dictator had united Japan and brought peace to the main island after years of turmoil. He was the de facto ruler of Japan and made all the key decisions. General Yamaoka revered the old shogun, even painting the crest of the triple hollyhock (mon) for his personal mecha when he was promoted to general.

  Even though General Yamaoka did not identify himself as such, everyone knew it was him when he spoke at the meeting. His booming voice, his stoic mask, and his impassioned pose left no doubt.

  “We are patriots. We are here because we love our country. Our governor bribed his way into power by feeding lies to Tokyo Command. He has never served in the military. He is a liar, a conceited buffoon who has no regard for life. It is because of his lack of leadership that the Kansas Massacre was allowed to happen. And worse, in his attempt to save face, he tried to blame others, including our esteemed intelligence community. So many of our most respected colleagues were unceremoniously dismissed or forced to commit seppuku for sins they did not commit. Now we have incontrovertible proof that he is collaborating with the Nazis. The Nazis, our sworn enemies! We cannot leave the fate of our country in the hands of fools. We have taken an oath to each other to wrest control away from Tamura and establish a new government. Anything less, and we’d be shirking our responsibilities.”

  The general’s voice was mesmerizing as he led them through the crimes committed by Governor Tamura, some minor, others sacrilegious, immoral, and inhuman. General Yamaoka named all the officials and soldiers the governor forced to kill themselves solely for political expediency. The general had firsthand experience of the governor’s influence.

  Shortly after the Kansas Massacre, Yamaoka had devised the plan to take over Texarkana Fortress in the German Americas. The campaign succeeded beyond the expectations of the political leadership. Yamaoka conquered Texarkana, smashed the infamous Hitler statue that was purportedly the third tallest structure in the German Americas, and broadcast his victory to the world. The Nazis had been helpless against the new Strand mechas that made mincemeat of their biomechs. But rather than follow up their victory with a march all the way to the East Coast, their governor, Daigo Tamura, incited Tokyo Command to question Yamaoka’s intentions. This had led to all sorts of political fallout.

  “It’s time for us to make our move,” Yamaoka asserted. “We’ve prepared so long for this moment. The poor leadership of those in command has put everyone at risk. The Nazis will never know their place, and even now they’re making preparations for a retaliatory excursion against our forces in the Quiet Border. We’ve tried rapprochement when I was forced to relinquish the eastern half of Texarkana Fortress. Command wants us to give up the western half too, but that’s only convinced the Nazis that the Empire is weak. They weren’t wrong. Our political leaders have made one mistake after another, starting with our losses in San Diego. No one survives an alliance with the Nazis. Not without the use of force. We will take control of our country before our so-called leaders throw it away.”

  Reiko knew the implications of what that meant thanks to the Kansas Massacre. The fact that General Yamaoka’s attempt to avenge her compatriots had been stopped by Tamura still disgusted her, as did the revelation he’d been paid off by the Nazis. She trembled in rage just thinking about it.

  “The commanders of eighteen of the outposts in the ninth section of the Quiet Border have all agreed to be part of the revolution,” an officer confirmed.

  “The fire chiefs at the thirteen local regions are ready for any contingency in case there’s a mishap.”

  Thirty members went down the list, confirming all those who would take part in the revolution that would follow after the death of Governor Daigo Tamura.

  General Yamaoka said, “From here, you will all go to your designated points. The penalty of failure will almost certainly be death for you and your family. But success means we save the country from itself.”

  “We won’t fail!” someone yelled.

  Yamaoka nodded, pleased by the boldness. “No, we won’t. We have reason to believe security, while tough, will be vulnerable to a coordinated attack. Our inside contact on the governor’s staff has given us the exact route with guard detail. For our own security purposes, you will only be informed of your part in the mission. All of your tasks, however trivial they may seem, will be of essence to the mission. For those taking on the brunt of the combat work, I bow in respect for what you are about to do. Though we have taken many precautions and the plan is sound, there is a chance you may not return. Know that you will forever be honored and spoken of with reverence among the Sons of War. I swear that your sacrifice will not be i
n vain,” he said, and bowed.

  The meeting ended. Daniela approached Reiko and said, “You have one of the toughest assignments tonight.”

  “I’ll manage,” Reiko replied.

  “Good luck. Our future depends on you.”

  “No pressure.”

  “Does anything shake you?” Daniela asked.

  “The chicken dancers at the Bertoli Discotheque,” Reiko cheekily replied.

  “I’ll be sure to get us VIP seats after this is over.”

  Reiko went to her mecha, the Inago. It was a Katamari class, which was much smaller than the average mecha at about ten meters tall. It sacrificed bulk in exchange for increased agility and ease of control. Her piloting controls placed her inside a cube of gelatinous fluid called the Salamander. There, she could move without pain, despite the injuries she’d taken during the Kansas Massacre. The fluid held healing properties that eased her muscles and could actually sense what she intended to do. The Katamari could even be piloted without the use of her hands. She could use her feet, her eyes, her brows, and even her voice, though voice commands made most pilots hoarse in less than half an hour. Reiko piloted via a combination of her legs, eyes, and voice.

  The Katamari had a capsule-like helmet and simplified green armor that used stealth optics to blend in with its background. Acoustic microphones, motion sensors, and a variety of other trackers gave Reiko optimal awareness of her environment. She was also given a Skaria Type-19 prototype electromagnetic gun that, when fired, could magnetize and control anything with metal. Another experimental device that she’d long advocated for, the directional plasma shield, made the Katamaris a fierce challenge for any opposing mecha. The shield used a projection of plasma to heat up the air in a given direction, which in turn would be controlled by a magnetic field. The dense heat would cause most projectiles to lose most of their force, or slow down to the point where they would be harmless against the Inago’s armor.