BA3 - Chapter 35

Yamamotto set the train down on the rubble of the auditorium. From my vantage on the crumbling balcony, I could see red splashes painting the windows of the used-to-be train car. My hands trembled as I looked down at the destruction.

My stomach flipped upside-down and back below my hammering heart. A million thoughts raced through my restarted mind. I had been wrong about the roof, and my miscalculation may have cost us the mission if Yamamotto had noticed. Jiyong was still alive, but would they run, or complete their mission? If I didn’t do my part and he was on the other end waiting, they would be waiting for nothing, and perhaps die for nothing.

“Jiyong,” Yamamotto said, shaking my shoulder.

My gaze snapped to him and I took a panicked breath.

“We have to go. We don’t know if another attack is coming.”

I nodded vigorously, unable to conjure Jiyong’s personality in the moment. I followed Yamamotto through the narrow, creaking halls. Boards had collapsed in on themselves, blocking our way to the stairs. I didn’t see Hana, or sign of struggle, and had to assume she’d made it out safely before this, or found another way.

“Go back, there’s another way down.” Yamamotto grabbed my arm and pulled me along.

I couldn’t say or do anything but follow. My racing thoughts were pinned on the others. He dragged me along through the buckling halls and down another set of stairs that led toward the stage. We reached the bottom to the sound of terrified, painful screams. The entrance to atrium had collapsed, pinning a man half under the rubble.

Yamamotto reached out a red glowing hand, infusing the debris with his munje, and then lifted his arm. The rubble pushed up and out of the way, compacting against the walls. Two bodies, mangled and bloody, lay motionless ahead of him on the ground. I rushed forward and pulled the screaming performer out of the way.

His legs and pelvis were crushed, dragging uselessly as I moved him. “He’s badly injured,” I reported.

The performer’s eyes rolled back, and his screaming ceased.

“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Yamamotto said. “Leave him for the rescue Enjiho, they’ll take care of him.”

“But if we leave him like this he’ll die here,” I protested. I knew the reality of the situation, and I knew I had to leave him, but Jiyong wouldn’t have given it up without a fight.

Yamamotto bent down and pushed a wave of black munje into the man’s chest. “I’ve slowed his heart. This should keep him alive until a rescue team arrives. We must go now, Jiyong.”

Tears came to my eyes and I nodded.

Yamamotto pushed me forward. “I’m right behind you.”

We rushed through the backstage area, following the flow of performers and stagehands as the fled for the exits. It was all chaos and confusion, following marked signs that pointed us to safety. I tripped on abandoned set items, but Yamamotto dragged me up to my feet before I could be trampled. He held me under the arm and kept up with the crowd.

The streets outside the performance hall were swarmed with injured and dusty performers. The noise from all their screams invaded my thoughts, pulling me down into a pit of terror. I breathed heavily as the noon-day light faded to night, and fire blazed around me. Raiders ran through the muddy streets, setting the simple shacks of Gan-ji alight, murdering anyone who stepping in their way, and thieving everything they could grab.

“It’s not real,” I whispered.

A hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped, looking at the offender. It was Yamamotto, tears in his eyes. “This is very real. It is what happens when power goes unchecked and transforms men into monsters.”

I closed my eyes, willing away the hallucination. When I opened them again, the horrific scene from twelve years ago—the day I was ripped away from my village—was gone, replaced with a new nightmare. Elegant women in ripped and bloodied silks cradled their glassy-eyed comrades, wailing over their bodies. Some stared into space, unable to process what had happened. Other screamed, unwilling to accept it. Passersby gathered at the fringed of the action, some stepping in to provide aid or relief.

Shadows stretched over the ground and I looked up to see the floating trains navigating a space to set down in the street. Armies of Enjiho poured from the doors of the five vehicles and approached Yamamotto for instructions.

He pointed them this way and that, giving orders like an organized leader—though he’d had time to plan and knew exactly what to say.

“Jiyong, I need to get back to headquarters to sort out what’s happened. You should get back to Hana,” Yamamotto said when he’d finished directing the Enjiho.

“I do want to get back to her, and the others, but great-uncle… I want to help you figure out who did this. I know I can—”

He shook his head. “This is a matter for me and my team.”

I took a deep breath and prayed my ry glimmer was still holding. I pulled down the collar of my robe to reveal just a hint of what would be the machina disc. “We can help you.”

Yamamotto’s eyes bulged and he looked between me, and the spot on my chest. He grabbed my hand and slid the robe back up, then looked at me in silence. His brow furrowed as if he were mulling something over.

If he wasn’t going to bite, I’d have to push harder. “Please, great-uncle. I just want to help get to the bottom of this, and I think I know where to start.”

“That boy from Anbura who warned us?” he asked, wide-eyed recognition.

It was obvious to me he was playing a game. He wanted me—or rather Jiyong—to follow this lead and make these assumptions. He wanted Jiyong to get involved, and I had no doubt the carefully crafted evidence would point to king Hisachi. This had always been Yamamotto’s aim. He wanted Kokyu.

“The boy is Ko-nah. He’s in the business of breaking countries, who knows why for. He was involved in the attack on Busa-nan and may still work with my former father. I think he was trying to back out at the last second when he stood to warn everyone, so we know he’s not the only one pulling the strings, and he may yet have a shred of dignity. If she—”I tapped my chest—“and I could connect to your surveillance systems in the Enjiho, I bet we could figure this out.”

“Don’t tell people about that idle, my boy,” Yamamotto whispered, then looked around nervously. No one was looking at us amid this horrible chaos. He sighed. “It could be dangerous.”

“Not anymore than it already has been. Your Enjiho can protect us, right?”

He thought on it a second more. “All right. Come with me.”

We walked through the crying crowd, Yamamotto never looking down once. I had to admit, it was easier to keep walking through if I didn’t take in the suffering. It was no wonder he was avoiding the dead eyes of those he’d gotten killed.

We boarded one of the floating trains that had dropped off a host of Enjiho. Yamamotto moved to the far end and placed a gold glowing hand against the wall. There was a click, click, whir and a once invisible panel opened on the wall. I almost reached up to tap on the little monstrosity imbedded in my back but stopped. This wasn’t the right time to be using his machina, no matter how important this information might be.

Yamamotto fiddled with some basic looking controls, then gave it another burst of ma munje. The train doors closed and the vehicle jolted to life. In minutes, we were flying at maximum speed toward his office.

“I don’t want this to sound condescending, but I’m proud of you,” Yamamotto said after a moment.

“What for?”

He took a seat on the bench at the front. “You’re a young man who knows what’s right, and you’re willing to put your life on the line to make it so. I need men like that.”

I sighed deeply and looked out at the city. Plumes of smoke rose around the city from other impact points.

“My family needs me, too,” I said with a hint of sadness.

He hummed. “But one day they won’t. One day, your mother will be cured, your siblings grown up and capable… What will you do with yourself?”

I wracked my brain for what Jiyong had said all those months ago. He wanted to be a Historian, something something, discover the secrets of the ancients. I think he’d gotten enough secrets burned into his chest his first year, and didn’t need more.

“First I need to find a way to get us separated,” I said, tapping my chest again. “Then, I want to become a Historian and uncover the secrets of the past.”

Yamamotto stared out the window. “It’s horrible what they left us. They had technology advanced beyond our wildest dreams, and destroyed it—for what?”

I scowled. “They destroyed it?”

“I’m still piecing it together, but I believe so. If I had a smart, capable young man like you on my team of Historians, I’m sure we could figure it all out,” he offered with a smile.

“I’ll consider it. Thank you for the opportunity, jobu-ke.” I wasn’t in a place to accept any offers on Jiyong’s behalf, and I was sure the jig would be up soon anyway when the little metal bastard squatting on my spine was unleashed in his laboratory.

We landed on the rooftop of the headquarters and took an elevator down to his top-floor office. He gestured for me to sit at his desk and my heart raced. He hadn’t taken me through the portal to his lab, and if I were discovered here—this soon—Jiyong wouldn’t have a chance to prepare. I needed to stall and get him to open that doorway.

I sat at the desk and put my hands on the controls then closed my eyes. I allowed a fraction of stored ma munje to flow into the machina, saving as much as I could for Jiyong’s later use. I scowled, hummed, and then opened my eyes to look at Yamamotto.

“Is there a machina more closely related to the surveillance footage storage? There’s a lot of different systems here that’s making it confusing for her.” I pulled the words out of my rear, hoping they’d be believable enough to earn me passage into the secret room.

“There is a storage unit in my private office that holds the footage from the last sixty days.” He held up a closed fist, then spread his fingers wide. A burst of golden ma munje erupted from his hand into an archway, and on the other side, a room full of machina I’d never before seen.

This was it. I hoped Jiyong was in position.

I hesitated at the opening and Yamamotto smiled kindly. “I’ll go first.”

He stepped through, the portal rippling like disturbed water. I followed after him, keeping my mind’s barrier sharp as I passed under the opening. I couldn’t know what else this portal was capable of, what other munje he’d infused into it, and I knew there were ways to connect minds with magic like this.

On the other side was a tall ceilinged room with no windows, and no visible door. There were machina all around the room with displays laid into the tops and control panels at waist height, and tall rectangular towers beside them.

Queasy fear pulled on my stomach as I realized the truth. There was no escape from this room, and no escaping this ending. I reached a hand up to my back and pretended to scratch myself, then gave a tap-ta-ta-tap-tap on the metal frame of the machina.

Yamamotto walked to a tall, square tower near a display screen. “You can access them directly here. I do so frequently and analyze the information for crime statistics. Then we run initiatives in given communities to help stabilize them. It’s been very effective, and rewarding.”

“I’m sure,” I said with awe as I looked around the room.

There were wires crisscrossing at the top of the ceiling, leading all over the room and into different towers of black metal. The lighting was soft, and artificial, streaming in from unseen sources beyond the wires. Control panels, viewing screens, and other objects my mind had no equivalent for lined the wide room. At the center of it all was what looked like a table, but the top of it was made of little angular pieces of glass.

Yamamotto chuckled. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity for questions later. For now, we need to find those terrorists before they hurt anyone else.”

I reached back and tapped the machina again, hoping Jiyong was there, and ready. I didn’t know how much longer I could stall for, and Yamamotto was looking expectant. I hoped I could pull a few more convincing tricks before my time was up.