Cyber Shogun Revolution

by Peter Tieryas

  “I thought the Tokko knew everything.”

  “That’s the image they like to present. But I’m not all-knowing,” he told her. “So where we heading?”

  Reiko turned around. “We have a train to catch. You ever been to a bear fight?”

  “A what?”

  REIKO MORIKAWA

  QUIET BORDER

  I.

  The Katamari mecha Inago was being towed by the Shinkansen through the Quiet Border from Dallas Tokai to Texarkana Fortress. Reiko Morikawa was inside the bridge with Bishop. Though the Katamari was on autopilot, she made sure to check scans for any issues.

  Over at the navigation panel, Bishop was reading a report of his own, and it appeared to be about the Sons of War. Reiko understood the governor’s desire to have the Tokko involved, but didn’t like it. Even with Bishop, she couldn’t tell whether his reluctance to kill Bloody Mary was really out of a sense of obligation or a hidden agenda the Tokko had.

  “You going to tell me the real deal, or force me to read this whole report and figure it out on my own?” Bishop suddenly asked Reiko.

  “What do you mean, ‘real deal’?”

  “Who really are the Sons of War?” he asked.

  Reiko was not expecting the question, as she assumed Bishop would already know. “They are a group of officials dedicated to protecting the Empire from all its enemies.”

  “Are you part of the Sons of War?”

  “I am.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Why do you sound surprised?”

  “I just figured, you know, the name ‘Sons’ and all.”

  “It’s a general term that’s not meant to specify gender. They couldn’t be called the Children of War. And we choose members irrespective of ethnicity or gender.”

  “So why did you join them?”

  Reiko turned to Bishop, wanting to understand why he was asking. “Because the country needed change, and the Sons of War were the only ones willing to take action,” she said, being cautious in what she revealed.

  “What kind of action?” Bishop asked.

  “After Governor Tamura was killed, we stepped up to make sure the country didn’t fall into chaos.”

  “Why would Bloody Mary want to kill your members?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out,” Reiko replied.

  “She thought the Sons of War were trying to trap her on board the cargo plane,” Bishop pointed out. “Were they?”

  “Not as far as I know. But they could have been.”

  “Is there anything one of them might have done that pissed her off?” Bishop asked.

  “If she has grievances, she hasn’t told us about them. But I don’t believe there’s a valid reason for her to attack.”

  Bishop shook his head. “I don’t think she agrees.”

  “That’s why we have to find her and question her.”

  “She doesn’t strike me as the Q-and-A type.”

  “Isn’t the Tokko’s specialty making people talkative?”

  “Someone like her won’t ever let us take her alive. The Nazis have been after her for as long as I can remember, and they still haven’t been able to get her. Besides, she let you live, right? Why didn’t you kill her?”

  “I tried.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “I’m more prepared now and will do anything to stop her.”

  “Getting your revenge will take more than preparation,” Bishop said.

  “This isn’t about revenge.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No,” Reiko disagreed. “It’s about stopping a killer.”

  “Y’all didn’t seem to mind as long as it was Nazis she was killing.”

  Reiko wondered if Bishop really didn’t know about Bloody Mary’s involvement in the former governor’s assassination. If that was the case, it meant the Tokko didn’t know the details. Or was he just pretending not to know?

  “The only good Nazi is a dead one,” Reiko answered.

  Bishop said, “They have a similar saying on their side. Just substitute ‘Nazi’ for a word that’s derogatory about us.”

  “You’ve been to their side?”

  “During Texarkana, we had the Nazis on the run,” Bishop said. “It was so bad, lots of them forgot to take their shoes, and we’d find dead soldiers with their shoes missing ’cause the other Nazis were stealing them. If Governor Tamura hadn’t stopped us, we would have kept on going.”

  Reiko heard the rancor in his voice. “I know it was tough for the soldiers.”

  “Tough, we can handle. The stuff we endured was beyond that. So many of our soldiers were killed. If we’d taken over more and kicked the Nazis off the continent, maybe their sacrifices would have meant something. But it’s depressing thinking it was all for nothing, since we gave up half of Texarkana and command wanted to give up the western half too.”

  “Which branch did you serve in?”

  “Army, rocket pack corps.”

  “For some reason, I thought you served as an army chef.”

  Bishop laughed. “If only I had, I’d probably be in a different place now.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Still married, but with kids, running a restaurant,” he answered, both sarcastic and plaintive.

  “Sounds like you long for that life,” Reiko said.

  “It’s stupid to long for a past you can’t change.”

  “Even in high school, you wanted to run a restaurant with your brother, right?”

  “I did. But my brother died outside of Texarkana,” Bishop said.

  “I’m sorry,” Reiko said.

  “Don’t be. Didn’t you tell me you wanted to be a mecha designer?”

  “I became one,” Reiko said.

  “Job not for you?”

  “Something like that,” she replied, remaining intentionally vague.

  “Is it a good or bad thing that it’s years later and we’re both where we were when we were eighteen-year-old kids?”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Lost, not sure where we’re going, hunting an elusive someone.”

  “Who was that elusive someone when we were eighteen?”

  “Ourselves,” Bishop answered.

  Reiko shook her head, not liking the underlying assumption he’d made. “Bloody Mary is nothing like us.”

  * * *

  —

  It wasn’t a long ride, and as they got closer, Reiko relayed her detach protocol via portical to the Shinkansen. They separated a minute later with the station in visual range. Her entry would be through the military gate connected with the USJ’s main base. There was a direct road to East Texarkana that all military vehicles had to pass through for necessary authorization.

  She was comforted by the familiarity of the controls. Much of it had become instinctual, so that she could adjust the mecha’s route without consciously thinking about what she was doing. The gel within the Salamander kept piloting painless. She swerved around some debris by the tracks and checked the weather again.

  Governor Yamaoka had been in charge of the armed forces at Texarkana until his promotion. His replacement was General Furuya, a man who was said to have wrestled eighteen Nazi soldiers to their deaths. The general was a loyal member of the Sons of War and had already cleared Reiko’s entry.

  West Texarkana Fortress stationed over fifty mechas, which was good from a security perspective but a nightmare for logistics. The fortress, having been German until the invasion, wasn’t set up to support the maintenance requirements of such a high volume of mechas. That meant equipment was constantly being shipped in. As Reiko made her way through the base, she felt like she’d been here before even though she never had. It was because she’d studied the camp schematics back at Mechtown in Berkeley. Her design sensibi
lities came back to her as she observed the heavy construction going on for the new mecha facilities. Four massive domes hid several of their top secret prototype mechas. She felt two of them weren’t aligned properly to take advantage of the geography and the solar energy they could harvest if they’d planned it slightly better. Outside of them, multiple Anubis- and Leviathan-class mechas were still undergoing repairs. Jets and tiltrotor aircrafts were arriving and departing. Several officers who recognized the Inago sent their cursory greetings. She’d get back to them later.

  “How long since you’ve been back?” Reiko asked Bishop.

  “I’ve visited West Texarkana a few times over the past year, but not the base,” Bishop said. “It’s grown a lot since I was stationed here. I think almost three times its size. It was just tents and dirt back then.”

  “You miss it?”

  “Miss? I guess you can get fond of even hell if you’ve been there long enough.”

  “The camp was that bad?”

  “For the longest time, they didn’t have bathrooms, and the Nazis had snipers who’d shoot people going to the outhouse in the middle of the night. If you woke up and had to pee, you were risking your life making that trip.” Bishop pointed at all the Labor mechas doing construction work and asked, “I thought we were getting ready to withdraw?”

  Reiko knew there was no way in the world their forces were going to leave voluntarily, agreement or not, a decision she wholeheartedly supported. “You’d have to ask USJ Command about that.”

  “You think they’ll tell me?”

  His question sounded so sincere, she had to look back at him to see if he was serious. “You’re the Tokko agent. You tell me.”

  “I’ll send them a portical message to ask.”

  Reiko noted wryly, “I’m sure they’ll tell you their master plan.”

  “Would they tell you?” he asked.

  “Only if they felt it necessary. Everything’s on a need-to-know basis.”

  “I’m digging through Bloody Mary’s files, but most of it’s classified or doesn’t officially exist.”

  She thought of asking the governor for his assistance. “I might be able to help with that after we get back from Texarkana.”

  “Ooh, you got that kind of pull?” Bishop asked.

  “We’ll find out.”

  They were halfway through the base when Bishop pointed at a mecha unlike any other, massive, bulky, and wielding a fusion sword that was almost the same size as its frame. “Which mecha is that?” he asked.

  Reiko recognized it. “It’s the Zombie, General Furuya’s personal mecha.”

  “You think that sword’s big enough?”

  “I think in the original design, it was twenty-five percent bigger.”

  The general’s adjutant contacted her with a text message and wrote, “Good luck with the investigation. Notify us if there’s any trouble.”

  “What happens if there is trouble?” she replied.

  “Return to our side of the border and we’ll handle it.”

  “Thank you,” Reiko wrote back, appreciating the support, but understanding its deeper import. As long as they were on the other side of the border, the general could not come to their aid.

  They exited the base and went down the road that connected to the Nazi side. As they got closer, the wall loomed above them. The Nazis were building additional layers on top to make it taller. There were multiple prisoners hanging off the side of the wall with hooks in them, still alive, trying their best to ward off flies and ravens.

  She’d seen the intelligence reports that the Nazis were working on a new Hitler statue to replace the old one their mechas had smashed. They hoped to make this one even taller, as the original statue had been smashed to pieces by mecha fists.

  Three biomechs moved toward them. They were each around ninety meters tall and covered in the regenerative skin that resembled oil being melted in a cauldron.

  “No matter how many goddamn times I see them, they always seem uglier,” Bishop said.

  Reiko checked the biomechs on their scans. They looked different from the ones from Kansas. These had more musculature, as well as more of an anthropomorphic appearance. Ever since the Leviathan classes were able to defeat the biomechs, the Nazis began to incorporate imperial technology. While these biomechs had the tumor-mutated flesh, they also had armor plating on their chests, legs, and arms to better shield them. The swastikas on their armor were colored red.

  “This is Captain Reiko Morikawa,” she said over the communicator, audio only. The governor’s office had arranged authorization through their ambassador, who resided in East Texarkana. Arrangements like this weren’t uncommon, but they’d be watched everywhere they went. “I’m sending over proper visa documents for myself and Bishop Wakana.”

  “Do you have any cargo?”

  “Just a box full of paintings.”

  One of the biomechs stepped closer.

  “You okay?” Bishop asked.

  “Why?” Reiko asked back.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “It’s the seat,” she replied, doing her best not to follow her instincts and fire.

  “Is Bishop Wakana a military officer?” the biomech pilot asked.

  “Negative. He is a retired army officer,” she lied, providing the cover story they’d arranged for him.

  “State the purpose of your visit,” the pilot ordered.

  “We’re going to watch a bear fight with an acquaintance.”

  “Is that the sole purpose of your visit?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” she said, even though she was thinking, And if it’s not? I’ve already gotten permission. Get out of my way and stop wasting my time.

  “Don’t step out of line, especially driving that small garbage collector,” the biomech threatened her as he ended the call.

  “This garbage collector is good at taking out Nazi trash,” Reiko said, though the Nazis couldn’t hear her.

  As they went through the gate, the biomechs watched them all the way through.

  She knew her Katamari wouldn’t be able to handle a biomech, but she still would not walk away from a fight if challenged. Reiko thought back to Kansas all those years ago. She couldn’t believe she was inside the German Americas.

  The initial area around East Texarkana Fortress was mostly in ruins. There were cages, tanks, soldiers, and biomechs she spotted on guard. She spotted two men fighting over a piece of bread. Her auto magnification indicated the bread was rotten with maggots.

  “Have you been to East Texarkana before?” Reiko asked.

  Bishop shook his head. “We went straight from the base to the battlefield.” Bishop looked toward the eastern part of the city. “I’ve always wondered what Texarkana used to be like when the Americans were in charge.”

  “It was smaller. The Nazis expanded it, and it grew after it became a border town.”

  “I mean the actual living conditions.”

  “Everything was great as long as you were rich,” Reiko stated.

  The coliseum was not far and was one of the few sites undamaged during the invasion, primarily because General Yamaoka had spared it. Unlike Dallas Tokai, which was full of modern buildings and skyscrapers, East Texarkana looked like a city from antiquity. Houses, farms, and military factories were mostly what she saw.

  “Is that all smog?” Bishop asked.

  The dense pollution around them appeared to be coming from the factories pumping out gas. “They still use fossil fuels for energy.”

  “How quaint,” Bishop commented. “Who are we meeting here?”

  “One of our agents, Rudo. He’s arranged a meeting with Cossack. We’re hoping she’ll be willing to part with information about the buyer.”

  “In exchange for what?” Bishop asked.

  “That’s what we’ll find o
ut. Since we’re only asking her to identify one of our citizens, we hope she’ll be amenable at the right price.”

  “Unless there happens to be Nazis hiding in our country she’s delivering them to.”

  “We’ll get the information one way or another,” Reiko stated firmly.

  Bishop caught the intentness of her voice, but did not probe. Instead, he asked, “Rudo’s army intelligence?”

  “He is, though he actually used to be part of Tokko,” Reiko said.

  “Used to be?”

  “He was fired.”

  “For what?” Bishop asked.

  “Misuse of intelligence from his portical reports. He was censured and relieved of his duties. The army was all too glad to pick up his tab. He provides the best intel on the Nazis. But he’s addicted to gambling. We’re keeping a close eye on him in case his need for money gets the better of him and the Nazis tempt him with a bigger pot of cash.”

  “Thanks for sharing that.”

  “Sure. Anything about the case you’d care to share?”

  “If I do, I’ll let you know,” Bishop replied.

  “Does your portical scan tell you everything about me?” Reiko asked, genuinely curious what her report would say.

  “Not everything. Most important government officials and current military are exempt.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to me about that, would you?”

  “Why would I lie?” Bishop asked back.

  She was going to ask if he was being rhetorical, but thought better of it. “It can tell you about other people?”

  “Depends, but yeah.”

  Reiko had something on her mind. “There’s a friend I’ve been looking for, Daniela Takemi. She’s been missing for a few months. Is there any way you could check on her whereabouts?”

  Bishop shook his head and stated, “I don’t do personal searches unless they’re related to the mission.”

  “Even if you just told me she was okay,” Reiko continued, “I’d be fine with that. I’ve tried asking everywhere, but no one will tell me.”