Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Mika has the same fear as everyone else regarding robots. Being inside one…’

  ‘Okay,’ Tatsu said. ‘Well, the first thing is that it doesn’t feel like being inside a robot. When I woke up after the procedure, I didn’t know what had happened. I don’t think there’s any difference between the experience of being a human and what I have now. I may be remembering it wrong, but they engineer your body to feel like your old one. But better. There’s a period of adjustment. Your new body has to learn how your brain does things. You need to get used to what your new body can do. That said, you should be able to walk right out of the gate, so you’ll see an immediate improvement. You may notice fine motor skills take a week or two to settle. After that, depending on the specs for your body, you may be better than ever.’

  Mika sipped her tea. When she concentrated, her hand was steady, more or less. It was clearly an effort. ‘What about the social aspect? Cyborgs… Full-body cyborgs aren’t…’

  ‘Considered human?’ Tatsu suggested.

  ‘I… wasn’t going to put it like that.’

  Tatsu flashed her a grin and then shifted to a solemn, thoughtful expression. ‘When I became this, the prejudice wasn’t as strong because Rasputin hadn’t started focusing on Japan. And I went straight into the military who cared more about what I could do than what I was. There were people who treated us as things rather than people. But there were others who refused to see us as machines. After the war, things got worse, even in the GSDF. One of the reasons I live and work in Chiba is that I didn’t feel like I fitted into Tokyo society.’

  ‘O-oh.’

  ‘But, not everyone is the same. I met someone recently who doesn’t care what I am. She’s far from the only one. It’s a hurdle to get over. Once they start talking to you, they’ll see the mind behind the metal shell. It can be lonely and discouraging, but you have an advantage I didn’t.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Yeah, your brother. He’s not going to see you differently.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Nakano said.

  ‘You’ll just be the sister he’s had to look after, able to stand on her own two feet once again. You have real support.’

  ‘That’s… true,’ Mika said. She took another sip of tea. ‘I don’t think the neighbours will be a problem. They know about my condition and they know what the only solution is. Mrs Okomura will probably still make me tubs of stew for the freezer, even after she finds out I can’t eat them.’

  ‘Well, you can,’ Tatsu replied, ‘but you’re better off avoiding normal food. The processing systems will get what they can out of it, but they’re not designed to handle sticking to a human menu. You can get cyborg food that actually looks and tastes like human food if there’s something you feel you can’t miss out on. There are websites.’

  ‘And if Nii-san accidentally ate some of that?’

  ‘It’s safe. Human stomachs can’t extract much of the nutritional content from cyborg food, but it’ll go in and come out normally enough.’

  ‘Right. So I still have to go to the toilet and normal stuff like that.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Less often. Typically, due to recycling processes and such, you can get by perfectly well on one meal a week. Or smaller meals spread out through the week. Still, eventually you have to get rid of waste products. It’s engineered to work the same way as usual, but you won’t need to go as often. And don’t be embarrassed, you’d be amazed at how many people want to know whether cyborgs go to the toilet.’

  Mika’s blush just got deeper. ‘Uh, since I’m embarrassing myself… What about sex?’

  ‘Skin sensitivity is typically equal to or better than a human. That’s all over your body. Psychologically, the inability to engage in sexual activity following the procedure would be damaging. It proved to be psychologically damaging in early cyborgs. They put effort in because it was necessary. Plus, uh, the early development of humanoid robots was heavily driven by the market for, um, animated sex toys. The necessary organs had synthetic analogues long before the technology to make cyborgs was available. So you’ll be able to have sex just like a human. That’s assuming that your brother doesn’t scare any and all potential lovers away, of course. Older brothers can be so protective.’

  ‘I would never do that,’ Nakano said. Well, he sort of mumbled it.

  ‘I’d hope not,’ Mika replied.

  ‘After some suitable vetting, I’m sure I’d have no trouble letting you go on dates.’

  ‘Vetting?’

  ‘Chaperoned, obviously.’

  ‘Chaperoned?!’

  ‘I think he’s joking,’ Tatsu said.

  ‘I should hope so,’ Mika replied.

  ‘Mostly. He’s mostly joking.’

  ~~~

  ‘She’ll go for it,’ Tatsu said as she pulled on her boots. ‘She’ll think about it some more, but she’ll go for the living option eventually.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Nakano said.

  ‘Humans have a desire to stave off death as long as possible. She’ll choose life.’ Getting to her feet, she opened the front door. The sound of heavy rain washed over them.

  ‘It’s raining,’ Nakano pointed out unnecessarily.

  ‘Yeah, well, rainy season.’

  ‘Are you going to be okay in just that dress?’

  ‘I’ll turn off my sense of touch. I won’t even notice it.’ She paused, staring at the streams of water falling from the sky. ‘We haven’t had that much rain so far this year. I guess it’s about time for it.’

  ‘It’ll pass. It always does.’

  ‘Yeah. The storms always pass. I just hope this isn’t a sign of worse to come.’

  Part Two: Health

  Chiba Refugee Zone, Japan, 18th July 2099.

  It was Saturday night and The Hole was busy. People were staying put once they got there thanks to the rain, so the normal cycling of patrons was not happening. Maybe there were fewer tourists about since you could almost swim through the atmosphere outside, but there were still some. The music was loud. The dancers, in and out of the cages, were sweaty and seemed a little frantic. People were drinking, maybe a little bit more enthusiastically than usual. The forecast saw no end to the constant heavy rain and that was depressing.

  Tatsu walked through the throng, heading in the general direction of up. There had been no breaks in the Zima or Nikolaev cases. If anyone knew anything, they were not talking about it. That was also a little depressing. On the plus side, there had been no more than the usual infighting among the gangs. Based on all that, Tatsu was aiming for another marathon fucking session with Kobayashi. Maybe she should start thinking of the dancer as Sachiko. Maybe two weekends of non-stop sex was insufficient to call it. If it went to three…

  She was on the third floor when a message window appeared in her sensorium just as she started hearing screams from above her.

  Alert! Potential biohazard incident in progress. Fourth floor, your location. Immediate attendance required! Alert!

  Sending an acknowledgement, she took the remaining steps two at a time and dashed onto the floor. A biohazard incident? How had that happened in the middle of a Chiba nightclub? Whatever the problem might be, where it was became obvious by the people running away or stupidly gathering around an area to the right of the staircase. Hanging her ID where it would be visible, she shouldered through the crowd and found something out of a bad Gothic horror novel waiting for her.

  There were bodies, four of them. Well, there were what was left of four bodies. What was left was a skeleton and a lot of viscous fluid soaking into clubbing attire. Even in the war, there had been no infectious agent capable of doing that to a human. A chemical or nano-weapon? It seemed too targeted. There were drinks splashed across the table and a broken glass. Added to the placement of the two corpses in one booth, it suggested that someone had been sitting between them and had scrambled out over the table, unaffected.

  Tatsu pulled up her Police Operations System interface and activated Biohazard Notifica
tion. Then she marked out a twenty-metre exclusion area on the map provided. She raised her voice. ‘This is the police. I want everyone to back away twenty metres. I’m activating an exclusion zone. Anyone inside it ten seconds from now will be subject to censure.’ She activated the zone. Everyone inside it running Kannon was now going to get told to get out. Others could see the area marked out by a scrolling banner which warned them off. ‘This building is under biohazard protocols,’ Tatsu added. ‘No one is leaving until we’ve determined whether there’s a threat to the general populace. Did anyone see what happened here?’

  Someone raised his hand, kind of enthusiastically actually. He was a tourist, a Japanese male in his early thirties dressed in sprayed-on plastic jeans and a mesh T-shirt. A pretty-boy type who worked out and thought he was God’s gift to whichever sex he preferred. Tatsu checked his ID and discovered he was Junpei Yamamoto, a systems programmer from Tokyo, aged thirty-three. His MedStat indicators came back as two lime greens. The first, the physical indicator, probably just meant he had been drinking. The second, the mental indicator, could mean anything from work stress to engaging in questionable sexual activities to usually driving his own car instead of letting City Navigation do it. Tatsu was betting it was the sex one.

  ‘It started maybe ten minutes ago,’ he said before Tatsu could ask. ‘They were all fine, and then Iwata started complaining about feeling sick. Then more of them did. People on other tables too. Arima went to the restroom because she felt like she was going to throw up. Then they were doubling over. Then they started…’ He waved a hand at the skeletons dripping goo on the floor. ‘They started melting.’

  ‘You said one of them went to the restroom?’

  ‘Yes. Arima. Ayane Arima. She was really looking like she would throw up.’

  ‘Damn. Stay out of the immediate area, Mister Yamamoto, but stay nearby.’ Tatsu started for the restrooms, maybe twenty-five metres away from the tables where the incident had occurred and outside her exclusion area.

  The women’s toilets were a neon extravaganza. Ten stalls on one side. Ten sinks across from them, with a mirror behind the sinks over which purple strip lighting had been hung. Purple light tubes ran along the top of the cubicles too. One woman was trying to reapply her makeup, though how she could tell what she was doing in the unnatural lighting was beyond Tatsu.

  ‘Did a woman come in here in a hurry?’ Tatsu asked. ‘Looked like she was sick?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ the woman, an American refugee from the look of her, replied. ‘Heard her barfing. Uh, fourth stall, I think. Been quiet for a while.’

  The stall door was locked but it succumbed to Tatsu’s boot and revealed a fifth dripping skeleton. It looked a lot like her skull had fallen into the toilet bowl after the connective tissue had dissolved. What could possibly have done this?

  Without looking behind her, Tatsu said, ‘I don’t care whether your lipstick is on straight, get out of here.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Now! Exclusion area goes up in two seconds, and if you’re inside it, I’ll book you for interfering with a police enquiry.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m leaving.’

  Tatsu activated the exclusion area as soon as she heard the door close. Then she turned and followed. This was turning into a really great Saturday night.

  ~~~

  Tatsu spotted Kobayashi standing outside the exclusion area and headed her way. The crowd had, mostly, cleared now. All the corpses had been removed – with a specialised vacuum cleaner to suck up the goop – and put in sealed metal canisters. Aside from the people in biohazard gear packing away equipment, there was nothing to see.

  ‘I thought you stood me up,’ Kobayashi said. ‘I see you have an excuse.’

  ‘I’m still going to have to stand you up. The excuse is pretty good though.’

  ‘That’s a damn shame. I thought we could go straight to Dream Castle from here. I was going to show you my bunny girl costume.’

  Tatsu winced. ‘You’re just doing that to be mean.’

  Kobayashi grinned. ‘Maybe a little. Rain check on the costume, I guess. No day off for you.’

  ‘I still might be able to swing some time tomorrow if nothing comes up on this.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting for your call. They said we weren’t allowed to leave.’

  ‘Was true,’ Tatsu said, looking back toward the techs. ‘They just called it. No sign of any form of contamination, so we’ve lifted the biohazard flag. You can leave any time you wish. That’ll please the duty manager. Would you believe he came down here complaining about his loss of business?’

  ‘Yes. I would totally believe that. What did you do?’

  ‘Told him he had all these captive customers to sell to, and then I showed him one of the bodies. He’s probably still heaving his guts up somewhere.’

  Kobayashi’s nose wrinkled. ‘That bad?’

  ‘Haven’t seen anything like it since the war. Only rarely then and nothing quite like this. And the circumstances don’t fit. Still, damn manager didn’t care about possible pathogens. Just wanted his doors open.’

  ‘I guess PIN has made people complacent about diseases.’

  ‘Far too complacent.’ PIN, Programmable Immunity Nanomachines, was one of Izanami’s greatest achievements. A colony of nanomachines in symbiotic relationship with the body’s immune system, PIN would eliminate a host of known pathogens as soon as it identified them, attempt to irradicate unknown pathogens, and even destroy cancer cells. It could even act as a switchable reproductive control in women, if you paid for it, eliminating sperm before they could implant. People with PIN were basically immune to disease and cancer, and their life expectancy doubled because of it. And they did tend to think themselves invulnerable because of it. ‘They were all tourists,’ Tatsu said, ‘so they probably all had PIN. Didn’t help them any.’

  20th July.

  Tatsu saw the message come in from HQ and decided that they could damn well wait a couple of minutes. Besides, her brain was otherwise occupied, and she doubted it would refocus for a short while. She was having a race with Sachiko to see who could get the other off first and she thought she might be winning. Clenched together in a sixty-nine on the bed of one of the Dream Castle’s medieval rooms, they had been going at each other as enthusiastically as they could since waking up ten minutes ago.

  Sachiko let out a shriek. ‘Ah! No! I won’t let you–’ Her body tensed and began to shake, and then she was screaming.

  ‘Victory!’ Tatsu exulted right after Sachiko regained enough control to bury her face in Tatsu’s crotch again. ‘I get to chain– Oh, God!’ And then there was just screaming.

  ‘I get to chain you up next week,’ Tatsu said once they were in the shower, washing off the night’s emissions. She poked the message she had received into life as she turned to let Sachiko wash her back. Okay, so it had only taken two weekends to think of her as Sachiko.

  ‘Yes, I’ll be available for whatever depredations you’re planning,’ Sachiko said. ‘I’m hoping for something sufficiently depraved that I get a mental flag, okay?’

  ‘I’ll come up with something suitable. Huh, the lab finally got their act together.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for the final results from the lab. About that incident on Saturday night, yeah? All they’d give me yesterday was preliminary results. They finally sent the real thing.’

  ‘What’s it say? Oh, I guess you can’t tell me.’

  Tatsu frowned. ‘Don’t spread it around and I think I can. They got nothing.’

  ‘It wasn’t a disease?’

  ‘No indications of biological or chemical agents. No unexplained nanomachines or evidence of such machines which self-destructed. Something dismantled five people into soup and bones without leaving a trace.’

  ‘That… doesn’t sound good. How do you stop it if you don’t know what it is?’

  ‘Good question. Like I said, don’t spread it around. I guess I’ll be look
ing into the backgrounds of the people who died. Maybe something there can shed light on what happened.’

  ‘I think I’m supposed to say something like “if anyone can do it, you can, Tatsu.”’

  ‘Ha! Thanks. Your vote of confidence is most appreciated.’

  Tokyo, 21st July.

  Hiroshi Hasegawa did his best not to groan as he spotted the length of the queue at the coffee shop. He got an hour for lunch but taking an hour for lunch was frowned upon without prior arrangement with his manager. You needed an excuse, like impending death, before they would accept taking your whole allotted lunch hour as anything other than company disloyalty.

  He joined the line and, because he was a terribly loyal company employee, began working on the code he had left upstairs by remote. He was part of the ViraShield 14.0 team, responsible for nanomachine coding. Version fourteen had gone out at the end of February with no major problems reported. They were working on the first revision update, though there was nothing really major to revise. Minor bug fixes, that was all. None of them had affected users. Still, quality was important, and they would issue the update as soon as it was ready. ViraShield prided itself on having the best product in the business. Hasegawa intended to see that his part of it was up to the best standard, even if that meant working while waiting in the queue for lunch.

  A wave of nausea passed over him and he frowned. Hunger? Was he really that hungry? No, it was not hunger. He felt terrible. He felt weak, nauseous, really ill. What was going on? He pulled up his medical monitoring system and checked whether there was anything he should be worrying about. Physical green, mental… Well, lime was probably right – he was under stress. Stress. Maybe that was what was causing this.

  Ahead of him, several people left the line and it moved forward. Hasegawa went with it. He managed all of six steps before collapsing, unconscious, onto the floor.