United States of Japan (16 page)

“We can’t go out that way,” she answered, eyeing the hallway.

“Then what should we do?”

Akiko checked the walls.

“Help me set this to maximum,” she ordered, looking at a gauge on her gun arm.

Ben helped her turn the dial to the highest setting. They lifted up the gun and shot the wall. Both of them fell back. The blast ripped a hole that gave them access to outside the building, but the recoil had caused Akiko’s gun arm to tear off. There was blood everywhere. Akiko growled, trying her best to contain her agony. Ben helped her up and even though she was nauseous, she suppressed her pain. They leaned on each other as they jumped through the new opening. Outside, a fire burned around a destroyed vehicle. There were three bodies crawling out of the flipped car. The second transport was still on its way. Ben checked the portical and saw it had traveled more than five miles. The missile must have missed. The third missile had made impact with the building, causing a small explosion that he hoped would delay reinforcements. Ben sprinted to the three fallen GWs. Two were unconscious but alive. The third, Mutsuraga, was on the ground, trying to crawl away and escape. “Do you have a car?” Ben asked Akiko.

Akiko pointed to an older sedan with a corrugated frame. “Only one I could find that still worked.”

“Get it ready,” Ben ordered.

“Where are you going?”

“To keep a promise.”

Ben approached Mutsuraga. The older man looked up at him.

“Do you remember what you once told me?” Ben asked him. “‘The sword is an extension of our soul. Used properly, it becomes a part of who we are, an expression of our being. Kill a man with a gun, and you have no connection to him. Kill him with a sword, and your souls are intertwined.’”

Ben took the sword from Mutsuraga’s sheath.

“I don’t want there to be souls or an afterlife. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to face either of them again, Ishimura,” Mutsuraga said pleadingly.

“I don’t believe in an afterlife, sir.”

“That means I can finally rest.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mutsuraga closed his eyes. Ben remembered the first time the general had taken notice of him at BEMAG, asking him his interests and praising his programming speed. Mutsuraga had changed his life, and now Ben was ending his. He forced his arms to swing, cutting Mutsuraga’s neck. He did not cut at a clean angle, unused to the thickness of flesh and bone. The sword only went halfway through before getting stuck. Blood spilled out of the wound, a viscous overflow that painted his neck vermilion. The general screamed in pain. Ben tried to pull the sword back out, but it was jammed. He had no choice but to push him off using his shoe. Mutsuraga tried to say something, his lips twisting in zigzags. Blood spurted out of his mouth, the skin around his chin doused red. Ben tried to finish him, but his attempts only exacerbated his pain, and blood dripping down the sword smeared his fingers. He pulled the sword back out. “Forgive me, general.” He swung again, and this time the head came off the shoulders. Ben picked the head up and shut the eyelids.

Akiko pulled up in the sedan, driving with her single prosthetic arm. The engine had a screech to it and the fumes from the exhaust were egregiously spewing out gray smoke. He hopped into the passenger side and placed Mutsuraga’s head in the back.

“Which way?” she asked.

“North. To the security perimeter at the Wall.” He checked the portical scanners again. Not only had the vehicle turned around, but four more were heading in their direction. He informed Akiko of the fact.

“Americans?” she asked.

“Most likely. Want me to drive?”

They switched positions and he handed her his portical.

“Do you have a gun? ’Cause I don’t have one.”

Ben shook his head. “All I have is this sword.”

He’d killed in San Diego, but not like this. It’d always been from his desk, checking the tactical simulations, ordering regiments in different directions. The simulation hadn’t handled guerilla warfare well, so he was constantly updating the parameters. The deaths he’d caused had been executed by others. His hands were shaking at the wheel and General Wakana’s words during San Diego still burned him, even though it’d been a decade.
“If you hadn’t let Mutsuraga take the credit for your work, he would not be in this position of authority and today’s bombing would not have happened.”
And San Diego would have been avoided.

“There’s all these new heat signatures in the opposite direction,” Akiko said, holding up the portical.

Ben took a quick glance. The markings were USJ forces. Behind them, the five tracking vehicles had doubled to ten. Most likely the Imperial forces, spotting all the bogies coming from San Diego, would assume the lead car was a hostile and destroy them, not allowing them to get close enough for a kamikaze strike. Neither the car, nor their military crafts, had open porticals through which he could interface, and he didn’t have enough time to break their encryption codes. To go forward was death. To stop meant an even worse end.

“What are you laughing about?” Akiko asked.

Ben hadn’t realized he’d been laughing. He sped up.

Akiko leaned back in her seat. “They’re going to attack us if we don’t slow down.

“It’d be a fine death, wouldn’t it? Destroyed by both the Americans and the Empire.”

Ahead of them, she saw the outlines of an enormous mecha. Tanks were rolling their way. “I guess it’s fitting since we don’t belong to either anymore.”

“The United States of Tsukino and Ishimura,” Ben jested. “Destroyed over a miscommunication.”

“You really want to die, don’t you?”

“It’s the only way to avenge the death of my parents.”

“What?”

“Who mourns for them? Not even their own son.”

Four tanks were rolling in their direction. The mechas stayed put. The defensive barrier was visible. There were multiple cannons, an array of tanks, a battalion of mechas, and a continual sweep of spotlights. They encompassed the entire zone as far as he could see.

“There has to be a way to let them know who we are,” Akiko said.

“There’s no external portical access in the wall.”

Akiko looked back. The American cars were gaining on them, undeterred by the presence of the USJ forces. Artillery shells began firing from the USJ side. Blasts hit the ground next to them, but missed direct contact. The Americans fired back. One of the bullets shattered their back window and another hit a tire, causing it to deflate and the car to spin sideways to a halt. Ben did his best to swerve and regain control. But the Americans were within proximity. Akiko scrambled to the back seat, saw Mutsuraga’s sword, and tried to grab it. Her prosthetic hand could not wield the weapon. Ben put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

Akiko’s eyes squinted. “This-this is it?”

He nodded.

She sat back down, involuntarily tried to move the gun arm that wasn’t there. “Despite anything I may have said in the past, it was an honor to serve together,” she said.

“Kind of you to say that. The feeling is mutual.”

“Are you still scared of me?”

“More than ever.”

The American cars caught up to them, and then passed them by, accelerating faster. The tanks continued firing and the mechas were moving into position. Ben, perplexed, looked to Akiko, then back to where the car was aiming. The first of them reached the tank and drove straight into it, both exploding. From the strength of the fire, Ben surmised they were packed with explosives.

“They’re heading for the Wall.”

“You think they’re trying to penetrate the barrier?”

“Maybe,” Ben said. His eyes widened. “Or this could be a diversion, a strategy from the simulation.”

“What for?”

He recognized it all too well. It was a scenario he’d thought up with Claire, sending as many cars as possible to collide with the Wall and penetrate from a thousand different points. He’d been inspired by the old Battle of Chibi where General Huang Guai took a fleet of ships packed with incendiaries and rammed the opposing fleet to set it on fire. “To distract from wherever the real attack is, which might be here or somewhere else. Depending on our luck, we might temporarily be safe from the Americans.”

“Why do you sound so disappointed?”

“I’m not.”

“There are easier ways of killing yourself if you’re so eager to die.”

“I don’t want to force things before they’re ready.”

“Death isn’t a date.”

“Isn’t it? You play for a while, and then,” snapping his fingers, “it’s the end of the night and you aren’t sure if she wants a kiss or you to drop her off and go away.”

Ahead of them, all nine automobiles had imploded, destroying several tanks. On the portical, more Americans showed up as blips targeting the barrier. They themselves were too small to be noticed by the USJ forces, but he knew the defenses would eventually scan their car and track two living bodies.

“As soon as they detect us, they’re going to shoot us,” Ben said.

“We could wait and hope they send out soldiers.”

Ben shook his head. “They’ll pick us up on their scanners and if we just stay inside, they’ll get suspicious and blow us up.”

“We could run.”

“And go where? Those steroids are wearing out and we don’t have any weapons.” He looked at her seat, which was stained red. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I’ll live.”

“Not for long. You stay put and I’ll go try to get some help.”

“Where?”

He thought of Claire, Wakana, the older Kujira, and all of his compatriots who’d already died. He was the only one still alive. “The gate. Hopefully they’ll do a bioscan and ID me. If they don’t, they’ll kill me, but there’s a tank up there,” he said, looking at the burning one the Americans had partially destroyed. “If I can connect my portical directly into the communication system, I might be able to contact USJ officers on the Wall.”

“Will that work?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “But there’s no better option.” He looked over several different scan reports on the portical, having a general idea of what they meant based on the simulation he’d created with Claire years ago. The Americans seemed to be implementing it perfectly. “It looks like the Empire’s taking a drubbing. If you tell them everything you did was to capture Mutsuraga and spin it so they can make this seem like a victory, they’ll give you a medal for capturing the man who made the
USA
game. Ask them if I can finally get a promotion.”

Akiko frowned. “I know it wasn’t Mutsuraga who made
USA
.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you talking to the general.”

Ben nearly dropped his portical. “If you knew, why did you save me?”

“I don’t know,” Akiko answered. “Why did you help make it?”

“I wanted to create a world where San Diego was still as beautiful as I remember it.”

“I never saw San Diego before it was destroyed.”

“I’m sorry that you didn’t,” Ben said. “There wasn’t any place like it.”

“My brother used to tell me the same thing. He loved the idea of America.”

“Did he?”

She nodded. “He sent the Americans in Colorado our military secrets. He betrayed us because he admired them so much.”

Ben was stunned. “When did you find out?”

“He didn’t hide his trail well, so it didn’t take me long to figure it out. But even after I knew, I couldn’t bring him to justice. He defected, and it would have been over for me and my parents if I didn’t stop him. But I still let him go.”

“Why?”

“Because he was my brother.”

“I thought you said the Americans killed him?”

“They did. On the border. They mistakenly burned him there. Or maybe they didn’t trust him to begin with. When my parents found out he was dead, they pretended it didn’t happen. I’d go home for the holidays and they’d set up a space at the table, talk about him like he was just away on a mission.”

“What about you?”

“I was furious that I let him get to that point. There were so many times I should have stepped in and prevented him from going astray.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because… Because I couldn’t deny some of the things he’d discovered about the true nature of the Empire and the things our soldiers had done,” Akiko confessed. “Every time I tortured one of our prisoners to death, I was terrified my supervisors were going to figure out I had doubts too. I hated every minute I was with them.”

“I-I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

There was a loud shriek behind them as another car raced for the wall.

Ben looked at Akiko and asked, “Remember what you said about justice? About making things better?”

“Of course.”

“Do you still mean it?”

“I’ve never wavered.”

“Make my sacrifice count.”

“But Ishim–”

Ben saluted her, turned around, and walked forward.

“Ishimura! Ishimura!” Akiko yelled.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” Ben assured her and marched forward, even though he knew he wouldn’t be. Under normal circumstances, the guards might scan first. But in battle, they were certain to be trigger happy.

The Americans must have hit them hard as the USJ guards had not spotted him yet. He sprinted towards the tank with broken treads. The turret was on fire, but the outer hull remained intact due to cooling systems that had doused the armoring. He jumped on top, found a panel on the gun, nearly slipped on his feet before getting hold of the canon. He tried to loosen the hatch, but it was burning hot and seared his hands. He blew on his fingers, used his shirt to pull the hatch open. He pulled the wire out of his portical and plugged it directly into the tank’s system. His portical displayed an encrypted set of algorithms that he recognized and set off a numerical breaker. He turned to the barrier, hoping someone could hear his call. Most of the entry points were plugged by burning American cars. There was one intact gate with a warning sign prohibiting non-authorized personnel that was otherwise nondescript. He wondered what was inside. The tank was getting too hot so he got off the hull, the wire of his portical extending until it reached its limit.