Purgatory Strider

by Shiden Kanzaki

  As crowded as the room was with them, the yellow bags looked a bit like gigantic muscat grapes, hanging in bunches from the ceiling—each one with a Gastrea inside. Like purple wisteria trees laden with grapes.

  “She had to burn the vineyard.”

  Even though they had never met, the voice of Dr. Surumi rang softly in Rentaro’s mind.

  “This…,” Hotaru whispered. “This is crazy. It can’t be real.”

  “Well…believe it.”

  Hotaru must have known it by then; she was just pretending not to. For some reason, her professed disbelief made Rentaro furious.

  “They’re raising them! They’re raising Gastrea in here! And not just any Gastrea, either…”

  He knew letting his anger out on Hotaru wasn’t constructive at all. But the pure, unadorned horror seizing him made it impossible to control.

  “The Gastrea they care for in here get put into those cages we saw once they reach maturity. These aren’t normal Gastrea… They’re making them so they’re immune to Varanium. That’s why being in a Varanium cage doesn’t kill them. God… So this was it the whole time?”

  Sumire had said it herself: “Swans, you know, are supposed to be all white in color, but then they found a population of black swans in Australia. It turned the world of ornithology upside down back in the day. The entire world ran on this assumption that swans were supposed to be white, so nobody was ever able to predict that black swans would ever be a thing, too.

  “So the ‘black swan theory’ is where you build long-term predictions while bound by your current state of comprehension, but thereby fail to account for unpredictable events even after they happen…

  “If you’ve had ten years straight of bountiful harvests, you’d never imagine that a flood would ravage your farmland tomorrow, right?”

  No, you wouldn’t. A strain of Varanium-immune Gastrea? Who would ever guess? And if the virus ever got out and their numbers started multiplying, the human race would immediately lose all their safe zones. Every nation, every human being would meet their maker. The Gastrea conquest of planet Earth would be complete.

  This was the Black Swan Project. What an ugly, horrible, disgusting thing. And most of all, Rentaro couldn’t believe this was all the work of mankind.

  “But what’s the Five Wings Syndicate going to do with these…?”

  Rentaro shook his head. “If they had enough of these Varanium-resistant Gastrea, they could deliberately set off a pandemic anytime they liked…”

  “They can’t! There’s no way you can domesticate Gastrea like that. They’re never going to listen to them. They’ve already tried implanting electrodes in their minds, and it didn’t work. Even if all the Gastrea in there were released right now, they’d just scatter off in a million different directions.”

  “The trifdraphizin.”

  Hotaru’s eyebrows arched.

  “That’s the one puzzle we still haven’t solved. Why is the Five Wings Syndicate so desperate for trifdraphizin that they’re willing to risk blowing their cover to buy up the black-market supply? That drug puts its victims in a deep hypnotic state. Maybe they’re putting the Gastrea they’re raising here in a catatonic state and—I don’t know how—but maybe conditioning them into attacking or going toward Tokyo Area? You know, like how they condition soldiers to immediately pull the trigger when a target appears.”

  Conditioning was the way people trained animals to perform certain tasks—instilling a conditioned reflex that made them perform the action on command. If you stuck a mouse in a maze and conditioned it with cheese to memorize the correct path, it would eventually run through the entire thing without hesitation—without cheese—simply because it was conditioned to run the maze. And after a soldier was conditioned in boot camp to open fire the moment he saw a target, he’d be able to pull the trigger independent of his own will, improving the chances of killing his enemy. Army commanders loved it, but it had a side effect: post-traumatic stress disorder. Making soldiers kill people they didn’t want to kill. Committing these murders permanently altered their mental state, and there was no limit to the mental fallout and subsequent health bills.

  All of it showed that conditioning worked, even on high-level animals like humans. Gastrea couldn’t be any different.

  “But… But even if it’s theoretically possible, what are the chances of it working without a hitch?”

  “That’s why they’re conducting this whole experiment. To see.”

  Rentaro looked up at the dome. The muscat grapes on the vines distracted him too much to notice that the dome, about two hundred meters in diameter, had a tangled mesh of pipes and wires snaking down from the center, like a tall, straight tree trunk. The dome was, in a way, a vast, computerized tree, the pipes keeping the grapevines alive.

  “I’m sure Five Wings releases the Gastrea grown here all the time as an experiment. To see whether they can get into Tokyo Area or not, you know? And they put that star-and-wing mark on them so they can tell them apart from other Gastrea. Then they have crews pick them up. I’m sure the Gastrea you and Suibara killed was Varanium-resistant, too. Normally, it would’ve been whisked away before it ever made it to Dr. Surumi’s operating table—but she found out. She knew too much. So they eliminated her.”

  This is what you wanted to tell me. Isn’t it, Suibara?

  Rentaro heard a sob behind him. He found Hotaru down on her knees, face buried in her hands.

  “Why…?” she wailed, shaking her head back and forth. “Why did Kihachi have to die for this…? Just being with Kihachi made me so happy, and then…this happened…!”

  It was true; Hotaru was just as much a victim of the Black Swan Project as the others. And she might have more company soon. If Black Swan ever got out, Tokyo Area would be crushed. Suibara tried to blow the whistle on them. He knew how dangerous it’d be for him, but he tried anyway.

  If we crack under pressure now, the thing Suibara lost his life trying to reveal will be lost in the darkness again. The Five Wings Syndicate will just continue their experiments somewhere else.

  Rentaro couldn’t bear to let that happen. He shook his head lightly and looked up at the giant tree in front of him.

  “You know what, Hotaru? I was wrong. I thought that if I came back with some evidence, that’d be enough to clear my name. But this is on a whole other level now. We can’t let a single Gastrea get out of this facility. We have to kill them all right here.”

  “How?”

  Rentaro turned his head toward the center of the cultivation room. Hallways fanned out from the large pipe in the center. They were fairly basic in structure, the floors made out of steel mesh that looked like it was recycled from the construction phase. Rentaro picked the nearest one and walked toward the trunk, his soles clanking against the metal, and Hotaru following. Looking down, he saw that the catwalk spanned above a mass of wires—the “roots” of the tree, so to speak.

  White fog steamed around, dissipating into a thick, milky mist. The chill they felt must have come from the evaporating liquid nitrogen, or whatever this was. Something told him that falling on those cords could be hazardous to their health.

  Upon reaching the center of the dome, he and Hotaru checked out the assorted machinery accessible to them. It seemed to control operations around the vineyard. Destroying it might kill off the Gastrea gestating inside.

  It made Rentaro marvel at his enemy all over again. The Five Wings Syndicate had the resources to build this massive facility. What kind of scale were they built on? And how far had they sunk their talons into Tokyo Area by now?

  It was lucky they had stayed constantly on guard this time, expecting the enemy at any moment. It paid off when, all of a sudden, they felt a menacing presence behind their backs.

  On went the cybernetic arm. The extractor installed inside grabbed a cartridge. The ejector kicked it away from his body.

  Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 13—

  “—Rokuro Kabuto!”

&
nbsp; The swirling motion he added to his fist as it whizzed through the air collided against something advancing upon him from Hotaru’s side. For a moment, a shock wave crossed the room, like the air itself had been deconstructed. With a loud boom, the object—a rifle round—was deflected into oblivion.

  Rentaro turned in the bullet’s direction. Hotaru, taking another moment or two to realize she had been targeted, swiveled her head around, searching fruitlessly.

  “Welcome, Satomi. I figured you’d be coming.”

  A shadowy figure trudged its way across the corridor. He had a broad nose and an ice-cold stare, but above the boy’s popped uniform collar, a twisted smile was painted on his face. He brought the sniper rifle lingering over the mist back to his side, stuck both hands in his pockets, and walked toward Rentaro.

  “Yuga Mitsugi,” muttered Rentaro, voice filled to the brim with disgust. There was no sense of surprise. Sooner or later, he knew the guy would show up. And he knew that, so long as he failed to take him down in battle, there would be no victory against the Five Wings Syndicate.

  “Hotaru,” Rentaro said, eyes still fixed upon Yuga, “I need you to do me a favor. Take all the plastic explosives in the bag and plant them around the main parts of the lab. I’ll join you once I beat this guy.”

  “But I wanna—”

  “Please. I need to settle things with him personally.”

  Hotaru frowned at the interruption.

  “…Good luck, Rentaro. Please don’t die.”

  With that, she mentally shook off her concerns, picked up her traveling bag, and headed for the main door. Rentaro followed her from the corner of his eye until she disappeared, then turned back to the presence in front of him.

  Silence reigned for a few moments, accompanied by the mist billowing around them. Except for all the machines humming, it almost looked like they were standing on a rope bridge deep in some uncharted mountain valley.

  “I’ve got you, Yuga Mitsugi,” Rentaro rumbled in a low voice. “I know what you’re doing. I’m gonna blow the whistle.”

  “I’m gonna have to give you a ‘no’ on that.”

  “What is Five Wings after? Are you gonna sell the Varanium-resistant Gastrea to some third-world terrorist or something?”

  “Sell them? Why would we do something like that? We’re gonna use them.”

  Rentaro had trouble understanding this for a moment. The logical part of his brain refused to accept it.

  “Use…them?”

  “Exactly.” Yuga broadly extended his arms and began to breezily pace in a circle around his adversary. “The mission of the Five Wings Syndicate is world hegemony. World dominance. I don’t know how it was before the war, but the Five Areas of Japan comprise one of the richest countries in the world. We’re a major Varanium exporter, and we’re a world leader when it comes to technology. By themselves, the rest of the world’s nations are helpless. Like badgers hunkered down in their badger holes. We need to step up in their place, maintain world order, and exterminate the Gastrea on a worldwide level. But in order to achieve that, we need to bring the world under our administration. To make sure everyone’s marching to the beat of the same drum. Our drum.”

  Rentaro narrowed his eyes.

  “But it’s tragic, though, isn’t it?” Yuga continued. “All the different races, religions; all the conflicting ideologies in the world. Too many nations that would never listen to our call to action. If we want to keep everyone on the same wavelength, first we have to clear out the countries that aren’t reasonable. That’s what the Varanium-resistant Gastrea are for.”

  “Clear out…? How is that different from taking over the world?”

  “It’s completely different. We’re trying to provide proper guidance to the world. That’s what it takes to create a Gastrea-free planet. And as part of that effort, we need to step up. The US used to be called the ‘world police’ a long time ago—well, now it’s our turn. We have to take their place and make the troublemaker nations of the world submit to us. After all, it’s truly a pity, but mankind—the supposed ruler of all things in the world, that most social of animals—is simply unable to create a form of government without an elite ruling class. As supposedly intelligent as we all are, we’re still so blindly obedient to authority. It’s just like a colony of ants. That’s why we need to teach people who the queen ant is around here. The Five Wings Syndicate, you know… It transcends borders. It transcends political affiliations. It’s a group of people distressed by the destruction of their native lands, working under the same flag to make the world a better place.”

  “Are you being serious at all?”

  “I’ll tell you that, at the very least, the people above me truly think this. That’s why the vanguard force of this group is the New World Creation Project. Not New Humanity.”

  With a blaze of speed, Rentaro drew his gun and fired at Yuga’s feet. The bullet ripped through the sole. The barrel, as hot as his own anger, pounded against the side of his arm.

  “Don’t give me that shit. Is that what Suibara had to die for? That? You made Hotaru break down in tears for that bullshit?”

  Yuga shrugged his shoulders in a not-my-problem gesture.

  “I’m sick of all this talking. We’re never not going to be in conflict with each other… Now I know that all too well!”

  Rentaro’s left eye, and both of Yuga’s, activated simultaneously. The preliminary calculations were underway.

  “Today’s going to be a great day,” Yuga hissed. “Let’s get started. The New Humanity Creation Project, or the New World Creation Project—which is the truly legitimate evolution of mankind?”

  The final battle between Rentaro and Yuga was underway.

  It was heralded by a particularly large burst of billowing mist, hiding both figures within. It cut off Rentaro’s ability to harness his cybernetic eye—but his foe was in the same boat. He pushed off the ground and, at astonishing speed, covered ten meters in a single instant. Next came Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 5—Kohaku Tensei—and despite not using a cartridge, his fist zoomed across the air at subsonic speed, blowing away the white mist. But it was Rentaro whose eyes burst open in surprise afterward. The enemy he sought was not there.

  The next moment, an intense pain raced across his temple. He blacked out for half a moment.

  “Ngh!”

  Looking back, he saw that Yuga was somehow by his side now, about to unleash a kick. In his right hand, he gripped a large knife—really more of a short sword. The path it took for his follow-up attack seemed to leave white-hot afterimages, like a flash of lightning. The CPU in Rentaro’s eye raced to gauge this threat. It found an escape route just in time. He turned his head back to dodge, wound his elbow up, tensed his arm, and aimed a knee kick to Yuga’s face. It was blocked just before it made impact.

  His enemy’s face was right in front of him now, twisted with hate. It seemed to Rentaro like that face was sunken into his head. Then stars went off in his mind. By the time he realized he had been the victim of a head butt, he was spewing blood from his nose and taking several unbalanced steps backward. His vision lurched. The blood plinked against the metal catwalk, like crimson flowers on a meadow.

  When he looked back up, Rentaro had lost Yuga in the heavy mist again. He almost fell into a panic, just barely retaining his wits.

  I can’t track him with my eyes.

  I am my gun, and my gun is me: The unity of man and machine, so expertly honed in the VR training Rentaro undertook to defeat Tina, was attuned not only to his own gun, but to the sound of the trigger bar scraping against his enemy’s frame, the firing hammer going down through the sear.

  Just as he dove to the right, a flash erupted from the fog. The scream of gunpowder deafened his ears.

  “Wha…?!”

  Somehow, despite both sides being robbed of their artificial-eye skills, Rentaro dodged the bullet. The surprise was obvious in Yuga’s yelp. Rentaro was instantly there. By the time Yuga adjusted his
aim, Rentaro’s fist was already speeding within range. Both hands were free; both feet were planted on the ground.

  “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 15—”

  A cartridge made an ominous ka-chack as it tumbled out. Rentaro’s Super-Varanium fist propelled itself at unthinkable energy levels as it tore at Yuga from below. It broke the sound barrier and, like a wrecking ball, blew the mist away. In a panic, Yuga crossed both arms in self-defense. It was pointless.

  “Unebiko Ryu—! You’re outta here!”

  The uppercut, curving from below toward Yuga’s chin, smashed through his left arm. It sent his body a good ten meters away.

  But he wasn’t done. Launching a leg cartridge to thrust him forward, Rentaro closed in for a second attack. Drawing a semicircle in the air with his body, he rose up to Yuga’s midair position and launched another leg cartridge. The casing arced in the air, tracing a gold-tinged path behind him.

  Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 16: Inzen Kokutenfu.

  “Raaaaah!”

  The flying roundhouse kick buried itself into the still-midair Yuga’s stomach, this time sending his body downward. He crashed against the bare steel of the catwalk with a loud clanging sound, bouncing several times from the force of the impact before putting a dent in the anti-fall railing.

  How’s that?!

  To a normal human, the first uppercut would have been enough to crush every bone in their body. No matter how mechanized his body was—

  “Huh?!”

  Rentaro found his eyes opening wide in shock once more. Yuga stirred, hoisting himself up via the dented railing. He had nothing to say, his tousled hair covering one eye. The other one, its iris spinning rapidly, glared at him.

  “I’ll kill you.”

  “…You got me at the hotel,” Rentaro replied. “Now we’re even.”

  “I can’t lose to the Tendo style a second time!”

  …A second time?

  As he shouted, Yuga took two survival knives from his belt, gripping one in each hand as he screamed at the heavens.