“He threatened all of us and that’s not acceptable.”
“What can we do?”
“I left him a surprise,” Akiko said.
“A surprise?”
“Something in the derringers for the next time he plays with them.”
“When did you do that?”
“Before we left, I asked to Orochan to assemble it.” She steadied herself on the boat. “He won’t go easy.” Akiko tried to ignore the unsteadiness within herself, the collapsed structure of the military that had supported her this far, the haunting facade of Jenna Fujimori who lingered in all those who had died in the match tonight. “I didn’t know so much social injustice existed in the USJ. If I get back in the Tokko, I will make sure things change and prevent these kinds of crimes from ever happening again.”
Ben looked at the determination in Akiko’s gesture and said, “I hope you do. I don’t think even Mutsuraga would appreciate the way his game is being used on the boat.”
“You think he cares?”
“At the least, he would be dejected.”
“Why don’t people fight for change?”
“Because the ones who do get hunted down.”
Akiko gazed at the ocean, her eyes lost in the black void as she contemplated all those who had died in the debilitated ruins of time. “My ma used to tell me stories about the heroic deeds of the Emperor and his father. How hard they worked to try to bring justice to humanity, even though humans went against the decrees of their gods. I can’t get that poem by the Emperor Meiji out of my head.”
“The one in the game?”
Akiko nodded. “All the seas, everywhere, are brothers to one another. Why then do the winds and waves of strife rage so violently through the world?”
A hard wave hit them, splashing them with saltwater. “I bet he never rode on a boat in the middle of the night to visit a penal colony so he can hunt down a defector after playing a portical game for his life.”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
CATALINA ISLAND
July 4, 1988
12:18am
* * *
It had been arduous for Beniko Ishimura to pretend to be confident during the USA match. His nerves were frayed from doing his best to act cool. No one could suspect he had a plan, a “cheat” he wasn’t even sure had been implemented in the final form of the game. He kept on worrying he would betray himself with a panicked glance or an unintended stutter. His whole life had been a masquerade and he wondered if all the players felt that way, performers dancing to a fatal ballad. The Emperor was a distant absolute, an audience that was present even in his absence.
General Kazuhiro Mutsuraga had been an authority figure for most of Ben’s career. Mutsuraga had given orders, and Ben had obeyed. The general had saved him from being carted off to the far reaches of the Empire. Ben had known the general was not a very creative programmer, nor a particularly adept tactician. He played politics well, fitting the mold of the stern Japanese commander. He didn’t need to be skilled. Ben had willingly filled his subservient role for the first few years. It made him cringe now at the way he adulated over officers and colleagues who never would give him the time of day. Requests to dinner, bowing obsequiously, fawning over trivialities. Most of them just assumed he was wheedling them so he could get something and ignored him. In their eyes, Ben wasn’t just a lackey, but the boy who’d betrayed his way into the cadre. He wasn’t worth replying to.
Catalina Island looked desolate. It had been bombed countless times during military exercises and the shrubs that constituted plants were scarce. On the beach, there were huts, trash, and hundreds of men and women, sitting by beach fires, staring vacantly. Even after Ben and Akiko landed, there was no reaction. Akiko tried to elicit a response by tapping, then hitting one on the head. The man was oblivious to her presence. She looked over at Ben and saw him examining one of the prisoners. The woman wore torn pants, no shirt, had flaccid breasts, and gazed blankly out at sea. Her head was patched with metal strips. Partially healed scars ran down her neck. There were Japanese words printed in the seams of her flesh.
“Laziness,” Akiko read to Ben.
“This one says ‘gluttony.’”
“What happened to them?”
Ben tapped the metal plate, waved his hand in front of their faces. “I think they’ve been lobotomized.”
The majority sat without any emotion, their brains as vacant as the landscape.
“Did you know about this?” Akiko demanded of Ben.
“I was going to ask you that.”
“It wasn’t on any reports,” she replied.
Ben knew there were many things that weren’t on reports. He remembered one of his exchanges with Claire Mutsuraga, the general’s late daughter. It was after the general had sent them out of San Diego to Los Angeles. Claire was studying porticals and Ben was transitioning into his new position as a censor, which meant lots of drinks with his colleagues. One drunken night, he stumbled home and was surprised to find his door open. Claire was waiting for him on his sofa, holding up her portical.
“W-what are you doing here?” he asked, his tongue slower than his brain.
She handed him her portical. “Why are all the reports related to my mom’s death classified?”
Ben perused the screen and all the files had a “Forbidden” label over them. “Ask your dad.”
“What do you mean?”
He took a seat, drunk and dizzy. “Ask him about how she died.”
“I did. He told me Imperial soldiers accidentally killed her when they set a bomb for the George Washingtons. He wanted to make peace with them, but the cadre wouldn’t let him.”
“That’s what he told you?” he retorted, with a scoffing edge to his voice.
“That’s not what happened?”
Ben concentrated, trying to remember what he should say. “It is.”
“Then why is it all classified?” Claire demanded.
“That’s between you and him.”
“You’re not involved in any way?”
He was about to answer, but she raised her hand.
“If you lie about this, I won’t forgive you.”
Ben struggled with an answer.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” Claire asked. “What are you afraid of?”
All these years later, he still didn’t know. Should he have just told her the truth that night instead of waiting for her to discover it on her own?
In the present, he said to Akiko, “Those barracks look empty. We should get some sleep.”
“Is it safe?”
“The western side has no guards,” he answered and checked his portical. “See this grid? It has all their locations. No one’s near and the main posts are at Avalon. Even if someone noticed us, we could just pretend to be lobotomized.”
“Why are we here?”
“To see an old friend,” Ben answered.
“How is that going to help us find Mutsuraga?”
“Kujira used to be one of the top mecha pilots in the USJ. She’ll meet us here tomorrow morning.”
“What’s she doing on the island?”
“Hiding from authorities.”
“Does she have a–”
“Yes. If she’ll take us on her mecha, it’s the safest way in and out of San Diego, and the best way to make sure we get Mutsuraga.”
There were multiple bunk beds without mattresses. All of them were rock hard and uncomfortable. Ben lay in a lower bunk and Akiko took the one across from him.
Ben was about to sleep when Akiko asked, “Do you have regrets about anything?”
He thought again of Claire. “I try not to second guess myself. What about you?”
“Many of late,” she answered. “I’ve wondered how USJ Command can allow a place like this to exist.”
“You mean Catalina?”
“Catalina and Mosquito’s casino.”
“It’s more likely they either don’t know or it got lost in the bure
aucracy and someone trying to save face didn’t report it.”
“Ignorance is worse than authorization.”
“You didn’t know about these places either.”
“Something I’m glad has been rectified. I’ve always thought the traitors were those actively trying to overthrow the Empire, but now I know there are more insidious forms of rebellion. I’ve lapsed in my duties to the Emperor.”
“I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”
“It would be beneath him to have to contemplate the moral quandaries of a maggot like myself.”
Ben laughed. “That’s an interesting way of describing yourself.”
“To the Emperor, we are all maggots.”
“And we metamorphose into flies who eke out a living eating the shit of our commanding officers.” Ben’s head ached and he closed his eyes again.
He heard Akiko get up.
“You’re going to need a lot of rest for tomorrow,” Ben said.
“Have you heard about the toxoplasma gondii parasite?”
“Is that a new type of weapon?”
“It’s a parasite that’s in many warm-blooded creatures, but can only reproduce sexually in cats. When they infect rodents, it reprograms their brain. Very subtle behavioral shifts that make them easier for cats to prey on. The parasites actually rewrite their biochemistry. Our scientists noticed even infected humans start behaving differently, less aggressive depending on the individual. But you wouldn’t know it without getting tested for it.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“Regret is like a mental parasite that alters your behavior,” Akiko said. “I want you to be honest with me. Do you think I’m a fool?”
“Of course not,” Ben replied. “Why would I think that?”
She approached him, arms crossed. “Why are you always so afraid to speak your mind?”
“What?”
“You almost always give the answer you think I want to hear, not what you’re really thinking.”
“You want to have a heart-to-heart?”
“I want you to be honest,” Akiko answered.
“OK. I’m terrified of you.”
“Terrified?”
“One moment, you seem like a good officer, incorruptible and devoted to your cause. Next, I have no clue what’s gonna set you off and make you go apeshit.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? You kill so easily. I’m scared I’m going to say something wrong and you’ll shoot me.”
“Is that why you suspected me of killing Hideyoshi?”
“For all I know, he could be shark bait,” Ben said. “The thought didn’t cross your mind?”
Akiko became completely still. Ben tensed, wondering if he’d gone too far.
“It’s never easy,” she finally said. “In the Tokko training, they study your emotional reaction to torture and killing. They primarily recruit field operators from candidates with little to no aversion for what would be considered cruel and inhumane.”
“You have no feeling torturing people?” Ben asked, having a hard time wrapping around the fact that it could be quantified or measured.
“According to their diagnostics, very little.”
“I’m not asking about the diagnostics.”
“It’s better this way for us to carry out the Emperor’s–”
“You want me to cut the bullshit? You too. Stop hiding behind the Emperor,” Ben said.
“Everything I do is–”
“Sure,” Ben said. “I think you get a kick out of it.”
“What?”
“You heard me. And that bugs the shit out of you, doesn’t it?”
Akiko rubbed her brows with her gun, perturbed she could not deny his claim. “Whenever I go ‘apeshit,’ a different side of me takes over.”
“The true you.”
“How is that more true than any other side?”
“Because you can’t control it.”
“I can control it,” she asserted, though uncertainty was withering her confidence. “Mostly… But sometimes, sometimes… There are things that set off other things and I don’t know what’s happening. I-I’m scared of that part of myself.”
Ben propped himself up. “Really?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I already told you I’m scared of you,” Ben said.
“I mean, aren’t you scared of that part of yourself too?” she snapped.
“I don’t know. I’ve never killed with my own hands before.”
“Soldiers tell you it gets easier with every kill. The physical act does. I’ve come up with creative ways of making it even more horrifying for prisoners, all in the Emperor’s name. But what if the Emperor is fallible?”
“What if?”
“Then the truth of what we’re doing would be too terrible to accept.” Akiko looked down at her feet. “I’ve inflicted too much pain to try to appease what little of my conscience is left and I’ve never sought anyone’s approval. I have to live with that. Empires aren’t built on the backs of good people.”
“They’re built on their corpses.”
“Things have to change.” Akiko gazed out of the barracks. “I’m going for a walk.”
She left without giving him a chance to reply. He knew better than to follow and he was too tired to think. Even his dreams took a break for the night as his repose swam in a swarm of black.
10:11AM
Morning accentuated the soreness throughout Ben’s body. It was cold outside and the rigid mat hadn’t been good for his back. His forearms hurt and his ankles felt like ice. He did his best not to think about the people who had been killed the night before. Instead, he planned for the long day ahead, which made him feel worse. Akiko was sleeping in one of the beds, curled up like a fetus.
He stepped outside. There were no birds, barely any plants. The prisoners were in their dazed state, a surgically induced nirvana that had cleared their mind of worldly attachments. He knew many of them were from San Diego, “war criminals” brought here to be rehabilitated. There was a desiccated path that led into the island. Bushes struggled to maintain their roots. Flies infested the rotting bodies of the prisoners who didn’t seem to mind the nests of maggots sweltering in their wounds.
“Are you Ben Ishimura?” a portly and pimple-faced teenager asked, pointing a gun at his chest. His clothing resembled the prisoners and he even had a metal plate on his head.
“I am,” Ben said.
“So you’re the one who’s been blaring message after message. What kind of ID do you have?”
“What do you need?”
“Send me your portical clearance.”
Ben slowly took his portical out of his pocket and tapped some buttons.
“Kujira sent you?” Ben asked him.
The teen checked his portical and confirmed Ben’s code. He presented his portical display and said, “Put your thumb on there.”
“Why?”
“I need to check your fingerprint.”
Ben did a quick visual scan of the portical, but saw nothing dangerous. He pressed his finger on the display screen. The teen looked at the results, which confirmed Beniko Ishimura’s identity.
“So now you know who I am,” Ben said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Kujira.”
“You’re not Kujira.”
“I am,” he insisted.
“I know her and you’re definitely not her.”
“You’re looking for my mom.”
“Mom? You’re Kujira’s son?”
“Ma bit it two years ago.”
“I just communicated with her a few days ago.”
“That was me.”
“You pretended to be her?”
“I didn’t know if you were who you said you were. Lots of rotten people out there.”
“I’m one of them,” Ben said.
“She only said a few bad things about you,” Kujira said. “Which meant she thought you were OK.”
Ben examin
ed her son. The only resemblance he saw was in their fiery eyes. “I’m sorry to hear the news. She was the best mecha pilot I knew.”
“She had a good run.”
“How did it happen?”
“Radiation from all the piloting she did. The army never mentioned anything until she was sick and they denied it until the very end.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t kill her,” the younger Kujira snapped.
“She was one of the finest officers I ever knew.”
“Why are you here, old man? You were pretty vague in your communications.”
“It’s because I wasn’t sure if they were being monitored. I needed a huge favor from her,” Ben said. “And I’m not that old.”
“You look old,” Kujira replied. “What kind of favor?”
“A ride.”
“You came all the way here for a ride?”
“It’s a place only she could take me,” Ben said.
“San Diego?”
“It’s a war zone and only a mecha has a chance of getting in.”
“She told me everyone from San Diego was a murderer or a liar.”
“That’s not far from the truth.” Ben recalled how their whole philosophy had boiled down to the precepts from the Sanko Sakusen – the Three Alls Policy. Kill all, burn all, loot all. “But there were officers who tried to make a difference. Your mother was one of them.”
“What about you?”
Akiko stepped outside with her gun arm aimed at Kujira’s head.
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
“Did you get enough sleep?” Ben asked.
“A few hours. Who’s the kid?”
“That’s the son of the friend we’re looking for.”
“Can he help us?”
“Why should I help you, lady?” Kujira asked, though he lowered his weapon, prompting Akiko to do the same. “I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t have to, of course. I brought the gift your mom wanted, which I guess was actually you.” Ben took a portical out from an inner pocket in his coat. “A thousand of the latest portical games, action adventures, role-playing shooters, and simulation games.”
Kujira jumped at the portical. “I’ve played all my games way too many times and I’m sick and tired of them, especially the old American ones. If I have to see James Leyton as Jesus Christ again, I’m going to nail myself up on those rocks.” He was ecstatic.
United States of Japan Page 24
