“What’s going on?” Akiko asked.
“I think they have to blast their way through the damaged mechas blocking the entrance.”
“But the crew…”
“It would take hours to carry out a rescue mission and remove them. They’ll probably be sacrificed so they can get through quickly.”
The porticals on the Musasabi were in high alert, continually checking the scanners. Kujira was snoring in his seat.
Mechas intentionally kept themselves off the electric kikkai in order to remain insulated against attempts to take over their controls. But Ben wondered what a simulation would predict given the parameters – one mecha against the six that remained.
“Is it OK to sleep like that?”
“All of them do it,” Ben said. “It’s to rest their nerves since they never know when the next bit of sleep will come. I’ve heard stories of pilots who lost their brains because they stayed up a week straight hooked into their mecha.”
Kujira was enjoying his sleep, spit dribbling onto his shoulder.
A bright explosion resulted in a pillar of smoke.
“The mechas are destroyed,” the portical alerted him.
Kujira blinked. Looked up at the scans, checking the heat signatures.
“Sixteen suckers dead because their pack leader doesn’t know basic tactics.”
One by one, the six remaining mechas pounded through the corpses of the two dead ones. No one mourned the machines.
Kujira shook his head giddily. “Let’s dance, let’s dance, one-one-two-four, one-one-three-four.”
The Musasabi released its clutch on the tower and plummeted straight down, landing gracefully on its feet despite leaving a crater. It charged its sword and plunged it into the ground. The sword didn’t break through at first and Kujira maintained the thrust with both hands on the hilt, pushing with all the mecha’s strength. It was like cutting a mountain with a knife, only with six death machines heading their way.
“What are you doing?” Akiko asked.
“The core stabilizer is directly underneath. If that goes, the whole island will sink,” Kujira explained.
Do we want that? Ishimura was about to ask, but thought better of it.
The Musasabi lifted its left arm up. The fingers rotated down and eight plates in the knuckles opened. A cannon emerged from the orifice and charged up its magnetic pulse before unleashing a stream of bullets that pummeled the ground. The surface gave way and cracks fissured apart. Kujira lifted the sword up with his right arm and thrust it back in, breaking open the ground.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Kujira exhorted, rapidly shaking his hands.
The Musasabi broke through to the core and ruptured it. The whole island quavered, shook, then began to sink. The ground swelled with seawater.
“Should I activate autobalancing?” the main portical asked as a cautionary measure.
“Daft, it is,” Kujira said. “Do we look like amateurs? Let those simulation trained monkeys activate theirs. We’ll break them apart and they won’t even be able to react.”
“What’s he talking about?” Akiko asked.
Ben thought about it for a minute. “The autobalancing system means motion is compensated for. If there’s a sudden movement, like an attack, it’ll react opposite to what the pilot wants.”
“Don’t they know that?”
“From what I’ve heard, most of the new mecha trainees from Vancouver are on a cheaper budget and trained on simulation cores. No real combat experience so the USJ can save money. Command thinks piloting is easy to outsource.”
“They all accept lies as truths,” Kujira said, “because they’re cowards. No one fights mass madness. Even the old-timers were too afraid to fight for their own rights.”
The other mechas looked similar to the Musasabi. But General Itoh’s personal mecha was a quarter bigger, crimson shoulder pads, a lavender titanium plume above its helmet. There were curved spikes on both arms and additional armaments on its girdle. Its hand was pitch black and made it appear as though it were wearing leather gloves.
Itoh’s voice came over the communicator. “I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t power down immediately, I am going to personally rip that piece of lard apart and melt each piece for scrap parts.”
Kujira giggled back. “You can try, Itoh,” he said and shut off the communicator.
Itoh split the mechas into three groups of two, dividing them so they could attack from three different angles on Kujira’s central position. Ben thought Kujira would withdraw, try to find a more easily defensible point. But the Musasabi remained still, or as still as could be, considering the whole island was shaking and dropping into the water. The sea had risen to knee level. Kujira shook the controls continually to maintain balance, adjusting, compensating, tweaking, similar to a circus tightrope act. The island’s descent wasn’t a slow, level one, but a spurring gallop, dropping on a slope before jolting back up and tilting the other way. The smell of fuel and seawater intensified, a pungency exacerbated by the sweat in Ben’s nostrils. He gripped his belt when the shaking increased. It took a strenuous effort just for the Musasabi to stay in place.
The first of the smaller mechas charged at the Musasabi with a spear. At the same time, another attacked from the right flank using an electric sword in a two-pronged strike. Kujira blocked the sword with the Musasabi’s sword and simultaneously managed to grab the spear coming at him from the other side. He then swung the spear towards the other mecha. Three turrets on his chest unleashed a torrent of bullets at the cooling vents on the opposing mecha who would not release the spear. The vents were seared shut, and seconds later, the hydraulic adjusters on its spine ceased motion. Kujira lifted his right foot and slammed it into the chest of the opponent with the sword, knocking him back. But the balancing adjustors prevented its legs from falling as it normally would, causing the top of its body to whiplash back in comedic fashion. The machine resembled a contortionist. The Musasabi pointed its sword in place for when the mecha would auto-balance itself into place, committing a seppuku of sorts as it regained its stance. Sure enough, the mecha impaled itself on the Musasabi’s sword. The central generator’s auto-balancing system forced it to get back into its position, even if that meant destroying its hull on the edge of the enemy blade. The one with the spear had limited mobility as it scrambled to get a worker crew down into the spine hydraulics. They did not have much time, but just as the Musasabi was about to deliver its death blow, another mecha struck from behind.
Kujira’s motions were so rapid, Ben thought it was a portical film on speed run. His face was focused, though there was unmistakable glee. The battlefield was Kujira’s canvas. A mecha with enormous fists landed an uppercut into the Musasabi’s left chest, disrupting the circuitry on the left hip. The Musasabi nearly reeled over to the side, managing at the last second to use boosters to soften its fall and align itself with the wall. As the Musasabi stood back up, Itoh’s personal mecha, the Mangusu, flung a morning star in its direction. The chain whipped around the Musasabi’s arm squeezed, then tore it in half. The whole limb from the elbow dropped off. Emergency alarms were blaring red on the bridge.
“Shut those off!” Kujira ordered the portical. “Hey, old man.”
“Yes?” Ben asked.
“You and your partner need to get to the escape pod.”
“Why?”
“San Diego isn’t that far and I’m going to do something risky. If it fails, she’s going to blow. I can only stall for a minute.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not going to leave,” Kujira said.
“You said if it fails, the mecha’ll blow up.”
“So what?”
“You’ll die.”
“Better to die here than out there. This is my ma’s gift to me. I can’t leave her.”
“But–”
“You have thirty seconds.”
Ben bowed to him. “Find a way to survive.”
“Don’t worry. If I go down, I’m taking all of them with me.”
Akiko and him ran for the escape pod, a tubular pod with two seats. They put on their seat belts and pushed the lever. The rockets on the pod ejected them towards San Diego. Ben looked behind and saw that the neck of Kujira’s mecha had opened and a cannon emerged. A bright beam of red fired at its opponent, blowing the head off the Mangusu. The escape pod flew for two minutes before a parachute sprang out from the rear and softened their descent.
5:53PM
“San Diego-Tijuana used to be one of the most thriving cities in the USJ,” Ben explained. “Millions of people used to come here for leisure.”
They exited the escape pod and all either of them could see was dirt and the occasional ruins. There weren’t any trees, no floral life. It looked as devastated as Catalina, only with broken jalopies and crumbling walls.
“How far are we from the actual city?” Akiko asked, covered in sweat, her face wan.
Even for Ben who’d seen the city being destroyed, he couldn’t hide his shock. “I don’t know. The Empire hasn’t used atomics here, so I don’t understand why it looks so bad.”
“Probably a combination of aerial bombing campaigns and shock troops razing anything anti-USJ. The Wall around San Diego prevented activity from springing back up,” Akiko conjectured.
“There used to be houses, buildings, museums, pretty much whatever you can imagine stretching from here to way up north to Los Angeles.” His eyes drifted to a fossilized past.
Akiko injected herself with a steroidal enhancer and the physical relief it provided was apparent as her mien gained color again.
“Are those safe?” Ben asked.
“Temporarily, but I only have a few left. What’s the plan?”
Ben became quiet as he looked back at the desert. “I’d hoped we were going to have the mecha take us directly to where we could find Mutsuraga.”
“Where is Mutsuraga?”
“He’s with the Congress.” Ben lifted up his portical. “When I gave Martha Washington our access codes, I stole all the information on her portical. I have details on almost everyone there.”
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know…” He took out his portical and input new commands. He sighed several times, frustrated. “We can’t have come this far to be stopped now. I didn’t plan for this in my simulation.”
“You simulated this whole thing?”
“I always simulate everything. We were supposed to get to Congress with the mecha, then force them to talk. I would get Mutsuraga and return afterwards. Since the GWs don’t have a mecha, my success rate was seventy-eight percent. But now, I have no idea. Damn, damn, damn. I need new data for the new variables.” He tried putting in new commands again, but that angered him more. “I don’t have updated area maps for San Diego. This is ridiculous. I can’t believe we’re just stuck out here. How could I be so stupid? Why didn’t I prepare for a possible mecha contingency from the USJ? The–”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“You don’t seem calm.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Have you heard of improvising?” Akiko asked.
“I tried putting in new parameters.”
“Try without your portical,” Akiko stated.
“How? Human calculations are imprecise and prone to error.”
“What about if you go to one of their guards and demand to see Mutsuraga?” Akiko suggested.
“I would if I could find one. Right now, I have no idea where we are in relation to the Congress.”
“The GWs must have seen this pod land. They’ll send someone to investigate.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Akiko was looking through the scope on her gun arm and saw the traces of a car in the distance. “Call it a hunch. Do you have a heat scanner on your portical?”
“I do.”
“Check it for vehicles.”
Ben examined the scanner and saw heat signatures on his portical, which he identified as automobiles. “Are those Americans?”
“Who else would be on this side of the Wall?” Akiko said back. “Is there any way I can track you?”
“Why?”
“Reason with them, try to get them to take you to Mutsuraga. I’ll bust you out later.”
Ben checked his portical again. “How would you get to me?”
She pointed at the four jalopies. “Those are gasoline cars. My dad used to work on them so I know my way around the engine. You find Mutsuraga and, when the time’s right, I’ll come for you.”
“But–”
“We don’t have time to debate this. Either go with my plan, or we wait for the Americans and do our best to capture one and kill the rest.”
When Ben continued to hesitate, Akiko said, “I’ll hide in those cars. How do I track you?”
Ben handed her a portical. “This’ll have my coordinates.”
“Don’t you need a portical?”
“I always carry a few spares. There’s a digital key in there too. It might actually be able to start the older cars.”
Akiko asked Ben in a serious tone, “Will you be able to handle yourself?”
“It doesn’t seem like I have a choice.”
“Ishimura,” she said, in a more empathic voice. “This isn’t a simulation. If I’m not with you to kill–”
“I can defend myself.”
“But if you run across the GWs and they get hostile–”
“You worried I can’t defend myself?”
“I’m worried you can’t kill.”
Ben’s brows crinkled. “The day I reported my parents, they shot themselves. The soldiers cut off both their heads and showcased them publicly… Every time I tried to cut that prisoner’s head off during officer’s training, that memory kept on coming back to me. Don’t worry. I can kill if I need to.”
Akiko’s eyes went soft. “I won’t be far behind,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She hid just as the old military jeeps arrived. The Americans smelled as though they hadn’t washed in weeks. While different ethnicities in a group wasn’t uncommon, it felt strange for Ben to see so few Japanese among them. Most of their clothes were old, sewed and stitched together with whatever was available. Half of the Americans had shaved their heads and some wore the iconic white wigs the GWs were known for.
“Where do you think you’re going?” an American asked. He was the same height as Ben and he wore a khaki dress and a baseball cap. The man’s nose was obnoxiously big and his eyes bulged like a bug.
“I’m here to see General Mutsuraga,” Ben answered.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s the man who designed the USA game. Martha Washington told me he was with the George Washingtons.”
“Where are you from?”
“I escaped the USJ forces after they attacked me.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Beniko Ishimura. Mutsuraga will know me.”
They debated what they should do. Ben did his best not to look in Akiko’s direction. Eventually, he heard someone say, “He’s the one Martha messaged us about.”
“You sure?”
“She told us someone was coming our way before she got caught.”
He was given a seat in the back of the jeep.
6:39PM
It took twenty minutes of driving to reach a road full of decimated buildings. Throngs of impoverished Americans surrounded oil cans and formed globules of activity that seemed to vanish whenever he turned his head. Most of the walls had graffiti of words he didn’t recognize. The city was divided into square structures that were essentially makeshift shacks, designed without any regards to aesthetics. Streets split up the blocks in asymmetrical clumps and there were occasionally bigger buildings, like the one that resembled a Shinto shrine and another that was identical to the high school he attended, though both were in shambles. Out i
n front of the school, three USJ soldiers had been hung. Two were Asian men. The left one even resembled Ben, despite his hands and feet having been chopped off. The final one was a woman wearing a bloodied uniform. She looked more like a wax statue than someone who had once served the Empire. Their bodies were still fresh as they twirled in place.
They crossed a broken through truss bridge. Piles of gravel begged for attention, but were ignored. Grain elevators and storage bins that hadn’t been used in years littered the geography, while grass built up bivouacs against penstocks that only carried air and blood. The Americans stopped in front of a four-story building. Scaffolding attempted to hide old antiaircraft missile launchers and artillery cannons that were placed inside the glassless windows. The weapons had been purloined from the USJ a decade ago and set up to defend against enemy attacks, older models with minimal security against kikkai incursions. He opened up his portical to see if he could access the control systems for the missile launchers.
“What are you doing?” one of the Americans asked.
“Checking the weather,” Ben answered. Surprisingly, they did not try to stop him. “Where are you taking me?”
“Congress.”
A pregnant woman breastfed her baby while she played the USA game on her portical. Five teens were advising each other on how best to defeat more Japanese soldiers. A row of strangers competed in a USA match against one another. Many of the Americans gave in to the invisible portical leashes that tied them to the alternate history in which they were the victors of a land of liberty and freedom.
The hall of Congress was a dilapidated room with the sheen of respectability. There were no decorations, no designs to reveal their identities aside from a big American flag. A group of a hundred sat in a circle, holding hands, praying out loud in a chant. They were mourning someone and the chaotic jumble of their words formed a jarring choir that veered between eulogy and paean. The poetry of their religion was tempered by a hope emerging from the riptide of circumstance. There were empty caskets that represented their fallen brethren. Ben knew their leaders were named after historical personages. Whenever one fell, another would replace them. This George Washington, the tenth Washington so far since the conflict a decade ago, was a black man who had lost his right leg in a mining accident in La Jolla (if Ben remembered the reports correctly). He had broody eyes and a rigid jaw from the time it was stitched back after he’d been beaten to a pulp by the USJ. Underneath the mask of suffering was a shrewdness that regarded Ben with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. Next to Washington was someone he assumed was Abraham Lincoln, part of their “Congress.” He wore a mask to help him breathe after one of his lungs had been shattered in a poison attack – they said he hunted down the soldiers who’d done this to him, carved out their lungs, and put them into jars he kept as souvenirs.
United States of Japan Page 27
