YUKIKAZE (33 page)

It looked like a typical hospital hallway, but it was dimly lit and deserted. The buzzing sound had disappeared. It was silent. Then he heard an echoing cry, a sound like an animal being strangled or the screech of a bird. A white form floated toward him. It was Marnie. The soles of her shoes squeaked along the highly polished floor and she swung her hips as she walked, her full breasts swaying. The very mundanity of the scene fueled Rei’s suspicions. The nurse seemed more like an animate doll than a woman. Feeling a palpable revulsion at the sight of her, he retreated back into the room.

“You need to rest,” she told him.

He sat down on the bed. She extended her arm, took hold of Rei’s wrist, and checked his pulse.

“You seem a bit tense, Lieutenant.”

“I think you know why. Tell me the truth. Where are we?”

“Beneath TAB-14.”

“I’d like to check out the surface. Where’s Yukikaze?”

“You shouldn’t exert yourself. We’re continuing to service your plane.”

“You can’t touch her central file.”

“Understood. We’re working on the ejection system, reattaching the canopy, and resetting the ejection seats.”

“Yukikaze uses type EESS-81-03 ejection seats. Do you have those here? And the canopy is a type made specifically for the Sylphid line.”

“We’re fabricating them in an underground plant. You can’t fly without a canopy, after all. And we’ll manage something for the ejection seats. It may take a little time, though.”

“Why don’t you contact Faery Base? That’d be the simplest thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

“We can’t transmit a signal. Lieutenant, can you activate Yukikaze’s comm? We just can’t figure out the systems, no matter what we try. It has safeguards everywhere.”

Rei’s anxiety increased. What were the survivors of TAB-14 up to? In his current state, he couldn’t figure it out.

“Are you…allies?”

“What are you saying, Lieutenant? Of course we are. As soon as we complete maintenance of your plane, you’ll be sent back. We have no intention of holding you here.”

“I’m thirsty. Can you get me something to drink?”

“Of course. I’ll bring you some liquid food.”

“Liquid food?”

“Your body is still recovering, Lieutenant.”

What Marnie brought for him was like a mixture of bouillon and vegetable juice. It tasted awful. She insisted that he swallow it, telling him to think of it as medicine. Rei could only manage to choke down a third of a cupful before giving it back to her.

“That’s enough,” he said and lay down again, trying to restrain his gag reflex. He looked up at the white ceiling. “I heard something strange a little while ago. A weird sound, like a swarm of bees buzzing.”

“Maybe it was the air conditioning system. Sometimes it doesn’t run that well.”

“Oh.”

Marnie smiled, then took the cup and left the room.

After the door shut Rei drew the gun from his vest. It was a 9mm automatic pistol with a roller locking system and light recoil. There were thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He held the grip and clicked the safety off.

He wondered why they hadn’t taken it away from him. Was it to prove to him that he was in a safe environment? It was true that he could hardly expect an enemy to leave him armed, but he still didn’t feel safe here. Even as they cared for him, he suspected them of some treachery. And the overall impression that the place gave was oddly still, lacking the tension that normally defined the atmosphere of a frontline base. He couldn’t put it into words, but his instincts were screaming at him that he was in danger.

He got up, holding the pistol at the ready, but just as he was about to step through the door, a wave of nausea broke over him. Slipping the gun back into his vest, he gripped the doorframe and called for Marnie. She came running down the gloomy corridor. He got the impression that she was the only one there. He asked her where the toilet was and then rushed to it. His guts turned inside out. After he finished vomiting, he reeled with an overwhelming exhaustion.

Marnie helped him back to the room and he collapsed onto the bed. He felt feverish.

He awoke to the sound of her voice. He raised his arm to check his chronometer and saw that ten hours had elapsed, but he had no true sense of time’s passage. His fever had gone down, and there was now an I.V. needle stuck in his right arm.

“You seem to have a viral infection, Lieutenant,” Marnie said. “You must have caught it out in the desert.”

“No… No, that’s not right…”

“It seems to be presenting neurological symptoms. You’ve been hallucinating. That probably was the cause of your distress. But you’re okay now. You’ll be just fine. How’s your appetite?”

His stomach was empty, but he never wanted to put that liquid food in his mouth again.

“I’ve made some soup for you,” Marnie said as she drew a small trolley up to the bedside and shifted the bed’s movable table close to Rei’s chest. He sat up. She placed a bowl down on the table. It smelled decent… He decided not to eat the portable rations he had and took the spoon she offered him. He took a cautious sip. It tasted good.

“What is this?”

“Chicken broth.”

“Chicken? It tastes different, though. It’s not instant, is it?”

“Don’t spill it, Lieutenant. There’s more if you want. If you eat too fast, you’ll make yourself sick.”

Rei did as Marnie said and ate slowly.

Major Yazawa came in and set a small computer on the side table. “I figured you must be bored, Lieutenant,” he said. “Would you like to communicate with Yukikaze?”

The major turned the computer on. The display glowed and an image of Yukikaze appeared. She was in a large maintenance hangar, or something that resembled one. It was hard to tell. The image was a little hazy.

“This device can synthesize a transmission on any frequency or wavelength. I’d do it myself if I could get a link through to the plane. I imagine you know how to contact it without triggering the security systems.”

“So you can monitor how I do it? What are you people after? You’re acting like…”

Like they were JAM. Just as he was about to say it, a cold wave prickled the skin over his entire body.

JAM. They were JAM. They had to be. These were the first JAM to ever show themselves to human eyes. They were JAM…

“What’s wrong?” asked Yazawa. “You look like you’re scared of something.”

“Major,” Marnie said smoothly, “The lieutenant is mentally unstable. It’s Faery Fever. It looks like he caught it out in the desert. May I ask you to leave now? I have to administer a sedative. Please, Lieutenant, lie down.”

“I… I’m not crazy,” Rei said. “Take me to Yukikaze.”

“You can leave at any time, Lieutenant. However, we would advise against it. You can’t fly in your condition, can you?”

Rei tried to get out of bed, but the major held him down. He was strong. Marnie slid a hypodermic needle into his arm again. A terrible weakness spread across his body.

“You… What are you…?”

“We’re your friends,” Marnie answered. “The same organic life as you.” Both she and the major laughed.

“A bit different, though,” Yazawa said. “We made a small mistake. A stupid one, really.”

“We realized it when we gave you that liquid food. It was the D-type alpha-amino acids,” Marnie added. “Lieutenant, did that chicken broth taste good? I imagine it was to your taste. You can digest that.”

They were voices in a dream.
I’m having a nightmare,
Rei thought. The desert must have gotten to him. When he woke up next, he’d be all right. He’d be back in the real world at the normal hospital at Faery Base. No doubt about it…

Once more he fell into the white void.

HE AWOKE TO the same room. Yukikaze was still displayed on the computer the major had brought to him. He saw she had been fitted with a new canopy.

His head felt hollow. He remembered being given some sort of drug and that he’d heard something very important just as he was sliding into sleep, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He gathered his strength and ventured out into the corridor. One direction led to a dead end. He turned around and backtracked to a T-intersection. To the right was a nurse’s station. To the left was a short passage that ended at a metal door. He thought it might be an emergency exit but couldn’t budge it.

He heard Marnie approaching, her footsteps making that awful squeaking noise.

“Do you need something, Lieutenant?”

“Where’s Lieutenant Burgadish?”

“I’m afraid he’s—”

“Dead? Let me out of here. This isn’t a hospital, it’s a prison.”

“Please return to your room, Lieutenant. You don’t look well at all.”

Seeing no other option, Rei went back to the room. Yukikaze glowed on the computer screen. As Rei looked at her, he grew more and more agitated by the feeling that he’d forgotten something. Why was Major Yazawa so concerned about Yukikaze? If he wanted to activate her comm system, all he had to do was turn it on, right? If they tried to force their way into her internal systems electronically, she might activate her self-destruct protocol, but she couldn’t stop a human from flipping a switch. He assumed she couldn’t, anyway. So in short, the reason must be that Major Yazawa didn’t know how to turn on the system or to use Yukikaze’s instrumentation. But if he was in the FAF, how could he not…

Once again a chilling unease swept through Rei’s body, bringing with it a powerful sense of déjà vu. He clutched at his head.

Were they human? Were they JAM? Externally, they looked no different from any other human. Was that the JAM’s real form? A human form? He didn’t believe that. He was sure he had the answer. They’d given it to him. They said that they were his friends. No, after that. After…

Yukikaze. If he had access to Yukikaze’s data file, he might be able to find proof. He reached out for the computer’s keyboard. He knew it might be a trap. Major Yazawa had to be somewhere monitoring the link between this computer and Yukikaze. Even so, Rei figured that freeing himself from this paralyzed state had to take priority.

He spent a few minutes familiarizing himself with the device. He then composed a pulse code on the same frequency as the SAF emergency tactical line and transmitted it. It worked. The link with Yukikaze opened up.

SEARCH FOR JAM.

The message seemed to leap out at him from the screen. It was the same message that appeared on Yukikaze’s display during battle. That was all he needed to know. Rei quickly switched the computer off.

This was a JAM base. It had to be. But he doubted that Marnie and Major Yazawa were JAM. So what were humans doing in a JAM base?

“Why did you turn it off ?” Marnie asked, entering the room. “Lieutenant, you look tired.”

“I’m not tired at all.”

“How about shaving at least? You look awful. You should see yourself in the mirror.”

Mirror. Something stirred in his ragged memory. Mirror. Mirror image. D…alpha-amino acid. The optical isomer of the L-type. He remembered now. He remembered what she had said. He looked at her. What if this woman’s body wasn’t composed of L-type amino acid proteins, but rather D-type polypeptides, making her a mirror image of a human at the molecular level? Is that what she was?

She approached the bedside, a syringe in her hand.

“Come now, Lieutenant. You should get some rest.”

If she gave him that shot, he might never wake up again. If she wasn’t human, how could he find out for sure? Check her body, her cells, her molecules with equipment he didn’t have?

“Lieutenant, you have Faery Fever. This injection will lessen the anxiety you’re feeling. You’re hallucinating, Lieutenant. Get a hold of yourself.”

“I’m not crazy.”

Still smiling, Marnie took hold of his arm. Rei was tempted to just let go and obey her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he was sick, and this paranoia was a result.

Yukikaze’s warning message flashed in his mind. Just before she plunged the needle into his arm, Rei slapped her hand away and gripped her other wrist, squeezing with enough force to make her drop the syringe.

“What are you doing?!” she gasped.

He threw her down onto the floor and tore open the front of her uniform. Her heavy breasts spilled out. She screamed as he sank his teeth into one of them, biting into her flesh.

He pushed away from her, spat out the piece he’d bitten, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t taste like blood. It tasted like the liquid food that she had brought him. It wasn’t protein.

“Fucking JAM!”

He looked down at her as he drew his pistol and fired a single shot. Her body jerked once, then stopped moving.

He had to get to Yukikaze. He ran out of the room. The adrenaline dumping into his system was clearing his head and returning some strength to his limbs.

The bittersweet flavor of the blood that wasn’t blood lingered in his mouth. The soup Marnie had given him didn’t have that same taste. As Rei ran, he suddenly realized what they must have made it from and felt like vomiting.

Before he could think about it any further he rounded a corner and ran into Major Yazawa. The major immediately reached out and knocked the gun out of his hand.

Keeping his grip on Rei’s arm, he followed through with an outside shoulder throw. His strength was incredible. Rei went with the fall and hit the floor on his left shoulder, feeling a bolt of pain rip through it. Ignoring it, he grabbed on to Yazawa’s arm with both hands, kicked his legs up, locked them around the back of the man’s head, and used the momentum of his body to throw him over onto the floor.

Rei released the hold and scrabbled forward, reaching for his fallen gun. Just as his fingers closed on the grip he felt the major’s powerful hands wrap around his shins.

Before he could even turn to look, he was flying through the air. Straining his abdominal muscles, he twisted his body, just barely managing to get his back around before he slammed into the wall. The shock of the impact momentarily blinded him. He couldn’t breathe. Lying sideways on the floor, he looked up to see the major leaping at him. Two shots. The report echoed down the corridor. The 9mm 205 grain rounds blew Yazawa’s head off.