“Don’t talk about that fire again,” #2 moaned.
“I know what I saw.”
“Three women walking around naked in a burning building? You were hallucinating from the smoke inhalation.”
“I don’t want to use dynamite to execute traitors anymore. It’s too risky, especially if you don’t time it right.”
“I always time it right. You’re just sloppy.”
Akiko wished they would shut up. They’d placed a rod on her back that pressed uncomfortably and made it difficult to sit. Bumps on the road exacerbated the pain with each tremor. It was still dark, so the pair of lights blinking outside caught her attention.
“Something’s wrong with the car,” #1 said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not responding to the wheel.”
“Our seatbelts came loose.”
“What?”
A truck drove straight at them. She wondered if she was dreaming the whole thing until the truck smashed into their vehicle, causing them to spiral out of control. Their vehicle crashed into the wall and her head smacked against the front seat, though her belt held her firmly. Aside from a nasty bruise and a headache, she was OK. The twins hadn’t fared as well. With their seat belts unbuckled, they’d been hurtled out the front of their car. The back door opened. She blinked, unable to believe her eyes, ignoring the smell of blood in her nose.
Ben unstrapped her and helped her out.
“W-what are you doing here?” she asked.
“I came to rescue you.”
“Why?”
Ben paused in place. “You saved my ass twice. I couldn’t just leave you to burn. Besides, we’re both servants of the Emperor, right?” he said, repeating back to her what she’d said to him earlier. “Do you have a portical?”
“Why?”
“I need to put an inhibitor on it so they don’t track us,” Ben explained.
“I left mine behind.”
He handed her a poncho to cover her hospital gowns. Ben was wearing khakis, a brown windbreaker, and a tie-scarf hybrid that was trendy among gamers.
He went to the two brothers and examined their necks.
“Are they alive?” she asked.
“Barely,” he answered, feeling their neck veins pumping blood.
Despite their Imperial service, she advised, “You should kill them.”
“They’re not waking up any time soon.”
“We can’t take any risks.”
“I know. But by the time they wake up, we’ll be long gone.”
She grimaced and examined the crashed vehicles. “This is very unlike you.”
“What’s unlike me?”
“Smashing a truck into a car in a rescue operation.”
“Thanks?” He lifted up his portical. “This thing did all the calculations and jammed the controls on their car. Hit it at a perfect angle so that it’d incapacitate them, but leave them alive and keep you safe.”
She stared at the bodies. “They accused me of being a traitor.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“I’ve been following the Kempei’s portical feed.”
“Where’s General Wakan–”
“General Wakana is dead. He was ordered to commit suicide last night,” Ben answered.
Akiko felt her face turn numb. “What for?”
“Incompetence. Failure of security under his watch. You would have received a similar order after you returned to base.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” He held up his portical and showed her the Kempeitai orders to the two brothers, ordering them to commence with torture for a full day before giving her the option of suicide. The next message had clearance from her Tokko supervisors to proceed.
“Bu-but… I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“In their eyes, you’ve done everything wrong, thanks in part to testimony from my former love, Tiffany Kaneko. Welcome.”
“To what?”
“To life as the rest of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The constant fear of being arrested and killed for crimes you didn’t even know you committed. We’re snails living on the razor’s edge.”
“Wh-why didn’t you just let me die? I-I have no future anymore.” Her voice was fractured.
He stared at her prosthetic arms. “You want to stay and give up?”
“It would have served your interests if you’d let me die,” Akiko said.
“I don’t think in terms of interests. And, like I said, I owed you.”
“I can’t believe they accused me of betraying the Emperor, after all I’ve done. They suspected me of being ideologically corrupt.”
“The one holding the gun can make up whatever accusations they see fit,” Ben said. “We need to hurry.”
“Where?”
“Long Beach.”
“Why Long Beach?”
“There’s only one way out for the both of us. Bring back Mutsuraga’s head,” Ben said. “Everything will be forgiven then. They might even exonerate Wakana after the fact.”
Akiko looked back at her two Kempei interrogators. “I don’t know how much help I can be to you.”
“I’m not expecting your help. I’m leaving you with a friend.”
“A friend?”
Ben glanced uneasily down the road as a car drove by. “We really need to get going.”
“Is Mutsuraga in Long Beach?”
Ben shook his head. “San Diego.”
“Inside San Diego?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“How do you know that?”
“Martha Washington told me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because I made a deal with her,” Ben informed her.
“What kind of deal?”
“One that saved both our lives.”
“In exchange for?” she wanted to know, distressed by the idea of any kind of arrangement with the terrorists.
“Don’t ask.”
“San Diego is completely sealed. It’s hard to get in or out.”
“Hasn’t stopped the GWs.”
“Our defenses have a weakness,” Akiko surmised.
Ben checked the agents again. They were both unconscious. He took their porticals, programmed something. “It’s the western coast. USJ ships can’t fully cover the whole border.”
“What about our mechas guarding the coast?”
“Good question. I don’t know how they got past them.”
“How will you get past them?”
“I have a friend in Catalina who can help us,” Ben said, as he put the porticals back.
“Catalina, the prison?”
“Yeah. The Tokko and Kempei have been on my ass all day so it’s been hard. They’ll be after both of us when they find out what happened here.”
“But ho–”
“I’ll explain more on the way. We have to get out of here now.”
“Shouldn’t we hide them?” Akiko asked, looking at the unconscious agents.
“They need medical attention and there’s no way anyone can trace us anytime soon.”
She went over and kicked both of them in the face.
Ben walked to a car parked on the street and used the portical’s digital key to open the door.
“Let’s go.”
5:43AM
Akiko read the orders multiple times. “If Agent Tsukino is uncooperative, bring her back for direct questioning with the Inquisitors. Inflict physical and mental pain as needed for a day maximum. Encourage honorable end.”
“Honorable end” was a euphemism for jigai. She chilled at the thought of General Wakana committing seppuku with his guts spilling out of him.
“I just followed orders,” Akiko insisted. “How can I get in trouble for obeying what they told me to do?”
“They had to blame someone for the bombings. Wakana and you got the fall after Tiffany pointed the finger at the two of
you.”
“But he didn’t set the bombs.”
“Incompetence under his supervision. One of the governor’s favorite aides was a victim. A vicious bastard they used to call the Tendon Breaker because he was so cruel during San Diego. Everyone killed two nights ago served in San Diego with me.”
“The George Washington’s vendetta against all of you?”
“Looks like it. Wakana was one of the few people in a position of power who stuck his neck out for peace. Even when we try to do the right thing, we can never escape our sins.”
“I don’t think any of us want to,” Akiko said.
“What do you mean?”
“We all want what we feel we deserve, even if we outwardly deny it.”
“What is it we deserve?”
“Everyone has their sins.”
“The whole concept of sinning is an illusion,” Ben stated.
“You don’t feel guilty about anything?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“Did Tiffany accuse you too?”
Ben shook his head. “I was left off her reports.”
Akiko thought about Hideyoshi’s words to the Kempei officers, at least what they’d told her he’d said. “Suffering isn’t an illusion. Neither is pain. As sadistic as Koushou was, maybe he was right and we’re just microorganisms inside a bigger being struggling for our place.”
“Microorganisms don’t kill each other.”
“They do all the time. Viruses ravage and devour mercilessly, even to the point of destroying the host. There are theories that say viruses evolved from bacteria, but viruses like bacteriophages specifically target bacteria.”
“Descendants killing their ancestors.”
“Almost all religions try to kill the faiths before them, even if they owe them an ideological debt. Shinto is one of the few that’s amenable to symbiosis.”
“You’re comparing Shinto to a virus?”
“A civilized one. That’s why we absorbed Buddhism and that’s why we incorporated parts of Christianity when we took over here.”
“What is it with you and diseases?”
“I’m fascinated by their effect.”
“Even if they kill?” Ben asked.
“Our scientists use bacteriophages to attack deadly bacteria and protect us from their effects.”
“What happens if a bacteriophage gets out of control and attacks the scientists?”
Akiko peered out the window. “Then the scientists die.”
Ben laughed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. You hungry at all?”
Akiko heard her stomach growling. “I’m starving.” They’d fed her intravenously to replenish her nutrients, but she craved hot sustenance.
“Any particular kind of food you feel like?”
“Anything as long as it’s cooked and not too sweet.”
“There’s a Mexican place in Long Beach I love right next to where we need to be. Only thing about their nachos is their beans make my shit hard and I get all constipated. Stop me from eating too much because I always overeat.”
“Thanks for letting me know that. You just made me lose my appetite.”
“Don’t tell me you’re squeamish about the scatological.”
“Of course not. Shit can say a lot about a person,” Akiko stated.
“Like?”
“Where they’ve been eating, who they’ve been consorting with, chemical composition, the–”
“Forget I asked.”
6:02AM
Long Beach was where trendy shopping stores blended into the seedy underpinnings of the red light district. Vendor-bots sold extra porticals, fruit juices, and companionship as they rolled through the streets with spinning lights. A colossal dome covered a large section of the love district with pectorals of light tensing from the fumed lust of strangers exerting more than their muscles. Butt clubs, exotic dancers with extra limbs, fetish recreation libraries, the biggest collection of dolls in the world, a Victorian-themed brothel, virility enhancement stores, and bondage baseball were some of the more extravagant set pieces of interest. Four prostitutes in translucent kimonos rode skateboards selling their services. Biker gang members were leaving after a night of debauchery. Bored housewives left the companionship of their boy toys for the night. Sushi and toast were being served on top of naked men and women for breakfast. Confederate flags were waving at the corners of buildings, some women clad only in southern colors. A string of love motels were painted a different color from their neighboring ones so that there was a stream of pink, verdant green, mauve, light purple, and pastel yellow rooms.
“Why are we here?” Akiko inquired.
“I need transportation,” Ben answered. “And the only ships allowed to Catalina that don’t check individual IDs are the ones sent by the Love Service Guild. I have a friend, Orochan, who owns one of the love boats.”
They parked in an eight-story tall lot. It was early morning so many of the stores were closing. Ben took her to the Mexican restaurant he’d mentioned. Two tired waitresses bowed and welcomed them. There was a stage, but no dancers. Some drunks were passed out in their seats. The jukebox was a cranky fortress of broken records. They were seated in a stall and Ben ordered, “Super nachos.”
Akiko selected the tostada.
When the waitress left, Akiko asked, “Has the death count from the GW attacks gone up?”
“Still a dozen. I was supposed to be lucky thirteen.”
“Did you know any of the victims well?”
“I knew them just enough to know I don’t regret their deaths,” Ben replied. “They were all butchers in San Diego.”
“You mean good soldiers.”
“The best. I almost feel honored I was targeted.”
The waitress brought the food. Ben ate without saying a word. Akiko didn’t try with the chopsticks and struggled with the spoon in her prosthetic hand. Ben, trying to be polite, focused on his own food. She lowered her mouth into the tostada and ate directly. She didn’t like the taste, but she was so hungry, she didn’t care. She swallowed the beef and lettuce, feeling it invigorate her. Ben chomped softly on his carne asada and chips.
“Why are you so quiet?” she asked between bites.
“I don’t want to bore you with ‘an exchange of useless information,’” he replied.
It took her a moment to recall her own words earlier in the week. “I didn’t know you were so sensitive,” Akiko said.
“Don’t want to offend.”
“I need some useful information.”
“Like?”
“Where can I find a gun to attach to my arm?”
“There might be dealers here. I’ll ask Orochan to help you after I leave.”
“You can’t be serious about leaving me behind.”
“I’m going to drop you off with her and–”
“I’m coming with you.”
“I’m going into San Diego,” Ben said. “You said yourself you wouldn’t be of much help.”
“You can’t survive by yourself.”
“I’ll do fine.”
“You failed your officer field training because you co–”
“I know why I failed.”
“You need me,” Akiko said, point blank.
“Why do I need you?”
“Because I’m not afraid to kill.”
“You think I don’t kill out of fear?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know why you don’t kill, but it’s a weakness that’s going to get you killed. It nearly got you kicked out of BEMAG.”
“That was a different situation.”
“You couldn’t chop a prisoner’s head off under orders. That’s pathetic.”
“And you think you with a gun arm is going to improve our chances?”
“Not think. I know.”
Ben chomped on a nacho. “I saved you because I owed you. But I think your fervor fringes on lunacy.”
“The Emperor is our god. Anything short of lunacy in our d
edication is treason,” Akiko said.
“You feel that even now?”
“Absolutely,” she said, even though she knew her faith was wavering.
“That’s why I can’t take you with me.”
“What?”
“If someone insults the Emperor while we’re in San Diego, are you going to go ballistic on them? Can you even pretend to be a GW sympathizer?”
Akiko tried to wipe the meat off her lips. “What’s your plan?”
“Get Mutsuraga no matter what it takes, even if it means outwardly betraying the Emperor.”
“You tell me what really happened with him and his wife in San Diego, and I’ll play along.”
Ben scooped up the beans on his plate and began explaining the true history of Mutsuraga’s wife, Andrew Jackson, Wakana, and the whole bloody mess. He left out his own involvement concerning the actual programming of the simulation and the games.
“That explains why the whole matter is classified,” Akiko said, once he finished. “I didn’t know you and General Wakana served so closely together.”
“He’s the one who got me the job as a censor.”
“He supported my career as well,” Akiko said, plaintive at the thought of his loss. “What about his family?”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”
Akiko remembered how much Wakana doted on his children.
“We can mourn him when this is all over,” Ben said, anticipating her thoughts. “There’s still a long way ahead for both of us.”
“Why is Mutsuraga in San Diego? Doesn’t he hate the GWs?”
“He knew they’d provide shelter as a defector and the creator of the USA,” Ben explained, licking the guacamole off his spoon. “He tells a very different version of what happened in San Diego to the GWs.”
“You told Martha Washington the truth?”
“That’s why she let us go and told me where he was.”
“Where is she heading?”
“She suggested it’s a one-way trip and doesn’t expect to come back. For all I know, she could already be dead.”
“What else did you tell her?” Akiko asked, in an apprehensive tone.
“Like I said before, I’ll do whatever it takes to get Mutsuraga.”
“You gave them passwords.”
“Nothing that won’t be changed automatically on the new shift.”
United States of Japan Page 19
