CHAPTER THREE
"…dangerous. We should kill them now!"
"We don't know what they…"
"…can use their powers! They would…"
"Unacceptable! You're going to get us…"
"…two calm down!"
Voices were cutting in and out. There were at least three people in the room, but possibly more. Jadeite was only barely aware of their presence. His eyes were covered by some sort of dark cloth. His hands were bound behind him and he knew he was lying down. His ears were still ringing and he could still smell the smoldering ruins of the office building as it crashed down on top of him. He tried to mentally assess his condition. Aside from his ribs which were already bruised, a slight stinging sensation around his lips, and a considerable headache he felt fine. No bones felt broken and thankfully it didn't seem like he was missing any limbs.
"What were you even thinking bringing them here?" A voice asked, now clearing up substantially as Jadeite regained full consciousness. The man's voice seemed impatient and jittery, "They could be from one of those crystal-ships!"
"Then what were they doing trapped in a building full of Sufferers?" a second voice asked. This one seemed to be quite a bit more level-headed.
"We don't need this extra burden." The third voice spoke up. He seemed indignant like the first, but not as brash, "You should have left them in the rubble."
"And deny my Hippocratic Oath?" the second man, apparently some sort of doctor, rebuked his colleagues.
"Look outside, Tomoe!" The first man barked, "The end of the world came and went! Things are a bit different now. Your scruples are going to get us all killed!"
"From where I sit nothing has changed, Shin." The doctor replied, "Primum non nocere."
"You're not even a doctor, Tomoe." Shin replied. Jadeite heard the unmistakable sound of metal slipping out of leather, "You might not want to do harm, but I certainly can."
"Shin, wait!" the third man shouted.
Jadeite was not about to find himself blindfolded, bound, and helplessly stabbed to death. He summoned his strength and snapped the bonds that held his arms and tore off the blindfold. Zoisite was unconscious on a cot next to him. He saw the bespectacled doctor named Tomoe who was wearing a tattered lab coat go wide-eyed. The third, unnamed man was large and imposing, but even he was surprised by Jadeite's sudden return to consciousness. The second man, Shin, was younger, wielding a dagger, and undeterred by the fact that his target had risen from the gurney. Jadeite dodged out of the way of the knife, rolled off the bed and in an astounding display of speed disarmed Shin and wound his arm around the young man's neck in an inescapable headlock.
"Yoshiro!" Shin gasped towards the third man and he drew a pistol out of a holster at his side and leveled the weapon with surprising accuracy at Jadeite's temple.
"Stop it!" Tomoe shouted and forced Yoshiro's gun away from Jadeite's head and stepped between the two men, "Everyone just calm down!"
"Tell him to release Shin." Yoshiro ordered and retargeted his weapon at Jadeite's head again.
"What if you miss, Yoshiro?" the doctor pleaded, "You might hit Shin."
"I won't miss." Yoshiro promised.
"Get him off!" Shin cried from Jadeite's iron grasp.
"Stop pointing that gun at me and I'll let him go." Jadeite told the assembled men. They all seemed surprised that he could speak, let alone speak their language so well, "Did you hear me?"
"Let Shin go and I'll put the gun away." Yoshiro ordered.
Jadeite grumbled to himself. No stand-off like this ever came to an easy conclusion. Reluctantly he relaxed his grip on the young Japanese boy and released Shin in a show of good faith. He only hoped the elder Yoshiro retained some sense of honor and would, as he bargained, not shoot him in the head. Shin rejoined the other men across from Jadeite and Yoshiro lowered his handgun to his side.
"What are you waiting for? Shoot him!" Shin cried out.
Yoshiro didn't answer. His eyes moved to the side and his mouth twitched in a slight grimace of pain. Shin whirled around to see a newly conscious Zoisite standing behind Yoshiro with a scalpel pressed against his kidney. Zoisite's other hand darted up holding a full hypodermic needle and he shoved it against Yoshiro's carotid artery drawing a small trail of blood from the prick.
"I have no idea what's in here." Zoisite told Shin and the doctor, "So if you don't want Mr. Yoshiro to be the lab rat, I suggest everyone takes a few steps back."
Tomoe and Shin did just that and slid back a few steps on their heels. Jadeite approached Yoshiro and pulled the gun out of his hand and performed a cursory check to see if any other weapons were hidden on him. Finding none, he nodded to Zoisite who reluctantly released the taller man and shoved him away.
"We should have just gassed them." Shin mumbled.
"Where are we?" Jadeite demanded in spite of Shin's threats.
"Don't tell them anything!" Shin warned loudly.
"Shut up, kid." Zoisite ordered and stepped forward aiming his scalpel at the younger man.
"Please, there's no reason for violence." The doctor said and stepped to the head of his group, "I'm Professor Souichi Tomoe. These are my assistants, Shin and Yoshiro Sato."
"Why did you bring us here?" Jadeite asked forcefully.
"You were caught in an explosion." Tomoe explained and Jadeite vividly recalled the moment. Tomoe turned to Zoisite and said, "You were thrown clear of most of the rubble when the building collapsed." He said to Jadeite, "But the building practically fell on top of you. It's a miracle you're alive."
"The miracle is how he convinced us to drag your asses back here at all." Shin grumbled.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Zoisite barked at the younger man again.
"Zoi…" Jadeite attempted to get his colleague to back down and addressed the professor respectfully, "Thank you for your help. Did you see the men who set off the explosion?" Jadeite's heart began to beat faster with the anticipation of finally reuniting the Shitennou.
"You're looking at them." Yoshiro responded and motioned with his thumb to Shin and himself.
"You two?" Jadeite gasped. His hope receded, "Why?"
"Unfortunately it's the only way we can defend ourselves." Tomoe replied and motioned to a workbench nearby littered with papers and components, "I used to be heavily involved in genetic research, but these days I'm afraid basic chemistry has become my primary interest."
"You're building more of those bombs, aren't you?" Jadeite asked astounded that these three men were capable of such complete destruction.
"We've been doing it now for about three months." Tomoe replied, "We scour the area for the raw materials and I can break them down into the proper components to build the explosives. It's the only thing that has been keeping us safe."
"If a large enough group of Sufferers gets too close to our refuge Shin and I herd them into an open area and toss one of these into the middle of them." Yoshiro announced proudly, "I've never seen a single one of those things survive after one of Doc's bombs goes off."
"And that building we were hiding in was too close to your refuge for comfort, huh?" Zoisite asked.
"No, that was just a good opportunity to then their numbers." Shin answered swiftly with a mischievous grin, "What did they call that in the war movies? A preemptive strike?"
"Wait." Jadeite put the pieces together in his head, "The Sufferers are only attracted to living things. You must have known that someone was inside that building when you set off the bomb."
Yoshiro and Shin traded a nervous glance with the professor, but said nothing. Zoisite's hands clenched into fists and he was beginning to breathe harder. Jadeite was going to have to control him if the wrong words were said. Zoisite's temper was never the most predictable element within the Shitennou.
"Forgive me." Tomoe said and removed his glasses to wipe his eyes, "We put you in unnecessary risk, but…" he paused and looked over the two strange men before him, "But I needed to bring you here to be sure that you would help us."
"Help you?" Zoisite snapped, "You tried to kill us!"
Yoshiro grumbled to himself and grunted, "Like one of our bombs could harm a Sailor Senshi…"
"A what?" Jadeite and Zoisite both asked.
"We saw you in the square fighting off the Sufferers." Tomoe revealed at last, "We saw your strength and stamina and the strange powers that you wield, but we thought all the senshi were stationed within the Crystal Tower."
"They are all hiding in the Tower." Shin remarked coldly, "Once this shit-storm hit even the senshi turned tail and ran."
"We're not senshi." Jadeite interrupted the growing debate and all eyes were suddenly on him, "Although we have had dealings with them in the past."
"If you're not senshi then what are you?" Yoshiro demanded, "No human moves the way you do or can cast energy from their fingertips."
"We're something different." Jadeite replied cryptically. No need to go into detail with these people. "But that doesn't matter." Jadeite remembered the abbreviation CT from the cell phone in the office building that fell on top of him and addressed the professor again, "What is this Crystal Tower?"
"You're… you're kidding, right?" Tomoe asked astonished. Jadeite indicated with a scowl that he was not. "The Crystal Tower is the only safe place in the world right now. It's dead-center in the middle of what used to be downtown Tokyo."
"Used to be?" Jadeite asked further.
"It's called Crystal Tokyo now." Tomoe replied, "At least that's what they used to call it before the plague and the Sufferers."
Jadeite glanced at Zoisite who wore the same blank, confused expression. He turned back to the professor and hazarded another question, "How do we get there?"
"Professor, stop!" Shin screeched and threw himself in front of Tomoe, "You can't see it, but I can. He's one of them, I know he is! How else can you explain his strange powers and these ridiculous questions?"
"Shin, would you just—" the professor tried to interject.
"NO!" Shin cried and accused Jadeite directly, "Your people did this to us! Well, you're not going to get anything from me. I'll die before I let them tell you anything, so just kill us and be done with it so you can go back up to your crystal-ship."
"Crystal-ship?" Jadeite wondered aloud. He heard movement and saw the blur of Zoisite coming up behind the Doctor.
"I've had enough of this." Zoisite threatened. They all spun around to see him standing near the workbench. He chose the box-shaped bomb that looked most complete and gestured towards the circuits, "It's time to stop fighting and accusing and time to start making a whole lot more sense."
"Go ahead." Shin threatened the Shitennou, "You'll both die with us."
Zoisite wasn't one to be threatened. He flicked a switch near the circuit board and an LCD screen began a fifteen second countdown. Yoshiro, Shin, and Tomoe all backed away with a start. Zoisite nonchalantly tossed the bomb to Shin who, in spite of his fear, caught and fumbled with the explosive before tossing it against the opposite wall.
"GET OUT!" Yoshiro screamed at the top of his lungs and the group headed for the door. Jadeite was blocking their way.
"You're insane!" Shin shrieked and tried to shoulder his way past the immovable Shitennou.
Zoisite had retrieved the bomb and walked over to the group as the timer continued to count down. They backed into the concrete wall behind them and tried uselessly to claw their way through it.
5…
4…
3…
2…
The copper-haired King snapped his fingers and the circuit went dead. The bomb was rendered inert again and he casually tossed it over his shoulder back onto the workbench. Jadeite glared at his companion with a disapproving look for using any shred of their powers, but Zoisite only shrugged in response.
"I don't know what you think we are." Jadeite said slowly and methodically, "But I can assure you we are not your enemy. We do not come from whatever these crystal-ships are and we most certainly did not cause whatever happened to the Earth."
In spite of his disapproving and trigger-happy companions Tomoe replied, "I believe you."
"Good." Zoisite spoke up, "Now, onto more important matters… Do you have any food?"
The professor's group and Jadeite all cocked their heads toward Zoisite who offered them nothing in reply but a look of innocence. Apparently the awkward request was just what was needed to cool off the rowdy bunch because Yoshiro was the first to laugh at his odd manner of request. For the first time since the Shitennou awoke to this blasted world they sat down and ate a real meal, albeit one derived from freeze-dried military rations, but it might as well have been a royal feast.
"So what exactly happened?" Jadeite began his inquiry to the professor seated next to him, "Where did these Sufferers come from and why is it only safe in the Crystal Tower?"
"It started in the late twenty-first century." Tomoe began, "Everyone blamed global warming at first. Ocean levels rose, coastal cities flooded, the ice caps disappeared. But then earthquakes started ravaging the planet and long-dormant volcanoes started erupting. People were dying; hundreds and thousands every day. It was like the planet was being torn apart from the inside."
"What caused it?"
"We still don't know." Tomoe replied and his two colleagues nodded as well, "All we know is what stopped it." A tiny, knowing smile drew across his lips, "Sailor Moon."
"Sailor Moon?" Jadeite asked with a start. He was not expecting to hear of her.
"She sent a broadcast out on television, radio, and the internet asking everyone who heard her message to believe in her." Tomoe answered and smirked, "Can you believe such a request? It sounds ridiculous to even say it, but at the time and considering that Japan was sinking into the sea with each passing second we were willing to try anything to save ourselves."
"She focused some kind of energy through an item called the ginzuishou." He explained, "I couldn't understand any of what was happening myself, but somehow I knew that she was putting her life on the line to save the world… I think that's what finally got the people to believe in her … and then I fell asleep."
"Asleep?" Jadeite coughed.
"A deep hibernation." The professor clarified, "Whatever that ginzuishou did, it covered the earth in some sort of protective energy shell and everything was put into a state of suspended animation. When we woke up the damage to the Earth had been healed, like nothing had ever happened. That's when Crystal Tokyo was built, practically overnight, and Sailor Moon was hailed as the savior of mankind."
"How long was this hibernation?" Zoisite wondered.
"At least a thousand years." Yoshiro answered and the Shitennou's eyes went wide, "Anyway, that's what the professor says."
"Is that true?" Jadeite gasped.
"Yes." Tomoe replied evenly, "That's what Sailor Moon told us when we awoke, or rather Neo-Queen Serenity as she's now called. Scientists confirmed it by measuring stellar drift among a hundred other tests. It's now the mid 30th century, but as far as we're all concerned it's like we were just asleep for a thousand years."
"So in reality nothing has changed all that much?" Jadeite asked completely astonished, "I mean, except for this Crystal Tokyo place, right?"
"That's right." The professor replied and cast his glance down at the table, "At least that's how it was until the plague hit."
"And the plague is what created the Sufferers?" Zoisite inferred. The present company nodded slowly.
"I was one of the foremost genetic researchers in the world before all this happened." Tomoe told his guests, "I tried everything I could, but nothing I did, none of the research or tests I performed helped. Whatever the plague was that swept across the Earth wasn't genetic. It wasn't even biological; it wasn't affecting matter on the material scale. It was affecting people's energy, not matter, and rewriting it."
"It was like a storm of dark energy." Shin recalled solemnly, "The wind was black; even the lightning was black."
"It spread from a central point just south of the city." Professor Tomoe explained further, "Neo-Queen Serenity and the Senshi tried to stop it, but by the time they managed to counteract the plague it had already spread across three quarters of the world. Most of the people who were within sight of the Crystal Tower weren't affected, but the rest…"
"You mean the rest of the world is like this?" Zoisite paled at the thought.
"Most of it, yes." Yoshiro answered, "People who were inside sealed buildings when the plague hit were spared, or if they were underground or high enough above sea level, but the vast majority of the Earth's population was stricken."
"The Sufferers were human once." Jadeite stated in a businesslike tone, "I've had to kill them to survive."
"So have we." Shin agreed.
"Is there any chance they could have been cured?" Jadeite finished his thought.
No one wanted to answer. One look at any one of the ragged, disheveled creatures would tell you that they had been ordinary men, women and children before the plague turned them into the foul energy-sucking things they were today. Jadeite remembered the first one he killed, the little girl in the alley. Zoisite was poking at a pile of reconstituted rice trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone. Not even Professor Tomoe spoke up. Jadeite decided to change the topic.
"Where did the plague come from?"
"The crystal-ships." Shin answered first, "Haven't you seen them?"
"No." Jadeite replied honestly.
"You'd know if you had." Tomoe replied picking up on and envying the ignorance in Jadeite's voice, "They still fly over the city sometimes. They're huge, as big as skyscrapers. They appear to be made out of a substance similar to obsidian shaped into huge spikes protruding from the center almost like a dandelion seed."
"Where did the ships come from?" Jadeite asked, "Are they extra-terrestrial?"
"They come from a rogue planet called Nemesis." Tomoe answered, "But the people behind this atrocity are not aliens. They're the political refugees who opposed Neo-Queen Serenity's rise to power."
"You say that like we should know what you're talking about." Zoisite mentioned somewhat rudely.
"You mean you don't?" Yoshiro asked crossly, "Just where exactly are you people from, anyway?"
"A person calling himself the Wiseman led a revolt against Crystal Tokyo not long after it was created." Tomoe interjected to halt any arguments that might erupt between Yoshiro and the easily-angered Zoisite, "The dissenters branded themselves with inverted, black crescent moon markings on their foreheads, the exact opposite of the golden crescent that adorns the forehead of our Queen. They called themselves the Black Moon Clan and opposed the ginzuishou's power which rendered everyone on earth, for the most part, ageless."
"Immortal?" Jadeite questioned, "And they opposed that?"
"The Wiseman convinced his followers that it was abomination against nature." The Professor elaborated, "Neo-Queen Serenity was too compassionate to destroy them, the Clan was too powerful to imprison, and she would not willingly force immortality upon them, so they chose exile on Nemesis."
"And now they've come back for revenge." Shin added.
"They tried an all-out attack which didn't work. They destroyed plenty, like our city, but they couldn't overcome the strength of the Queen and her Senshi." Yoshiro continued, "That's when they sent the plague that created the Sufferers. Now the only truly safe place in the world is inside the Crystal Tower."
"And the Black Moon Clan is still out there?" Jadeite asked on the edge of his seat.
"Yes." Tomoe replied sadly, "And no one knows what they're doing. For that matter no one knows what's happening inside the Crystal Tower. We've been trying to get back there, but we've been stuck here for the last three months."
"Why?" Zoisite asked plainly, "You've got enough explosives here to level half the city. I'm sure you guys could make it."
"We might be able to make it." Yoshiro answered, "But there are many who wouldn't."
"There are three of you." Zoisite replied dryly.
Tomoe exchanged glances with his assistants and stood up from the table. "Come with me."
Jadeite and Zoisite followed along and fell in behind the Professor as he unlocked a padlock on a set of chained double doors. They walked into a long dark hallway that led deeper into the building they were in until they came to another similar set of doors.
"We didn't come here just to set explosives and kill off the infected." Tomoe said regretfully as he undid the lock on this door, "This is why we're here."
He swung the door open and the Shitennou could do little but stare in slack-jawed amazement. The room beyond was both tall and deep, stretching out before them in multiple levels. Clothes and sheets were hung on lines stretching between the levels and a multitude of people moved about within. Small rooms with barred doors lined the walls and he recognized the building as a prison. However, it seemed that it had been repurposed as a refuge for these men, women and children who had not been affected by the Sufferer plague. Two children ran past the door laughing and playing oblivious to their entry.
"There are nearly five hundred people in this building." Tomoe estimated, "We were told when we left the Crystal Tower that we wouldn't be able to get back in, but we left anyway. We left for these people who couldn't make it to the Tower in the first place."
"How do you survive?" Jadeite asked in amazement.
"We have a very large stockpile of rations that we scavenged when we first arrived here." The Professor explained and waved to a woman he recognized as they walked around the middle level of the prison refuge, "We also try to grow as much food as we can, but unfortunately the only thing that wants to thrive in this overcast environment is mushrooms and other fungi."
"Tasty." Zoisite remarked as they walked along.
"I'm able to purify the water fairly easily." He continued, "And Yoshiro and Shin go out and scavenge what they can every few days. It's nowhere close to an ideal situation, but it's the best we can do."
"There are plenty of able-bodied men here." Jadeite observed as they walked and spotted several younger men playing makeshift basketball on the lowest level, "With this many you should have no problem defending against the Sufferers. How close is the Crystal Tower from here?"
"It's not the Sufferers that are preventing us from leaving this place." Tomoe replied mysteriously.
"Then what?" Zoisite asked, "The crystal-ships?"
"The Shinigami." Shin answered and shivered where he stood.
"The what?" Zoisite openly laughed.
"Don't laugh!" Shin barked immediately, "The Shinigami is the god of death. He hears everything and sees everything that happens in this building."
"What do you mean?" Jadeite asked intrigued by this development.
"We don't exactly know who or what he is." Tomoe explained, "But from what we can tell he's a complete lunatic with a high-powered rifle. He's foiled every attempt we've made to leave. He shoots our explosives right out of our hands and openly attacks anyone who strays too far from the building."
"How many have you lost?" Zoisite asked as his tactician's mind began churning.
"None, thankfully." The professor answered, "Aside from our explosives he only fires warning shots and it's enough to scare people into turning back, but I fear if we tried to leave he wouldn't hesitate to start killing."
"He's turned the path to the Crystal Tower into his own personal Thermopylae." Yoshiro answered. Between his skill with a handgun and mentioning of that historical battle Jadeite assumed he had been a military man before all this happened.
"Why don't you just find another route?" Zoisite asked the obvious question.
"The other routes are either too dense or too exposed." Yoshiro explained quickly, "The deeper into the city we go the more Sufferers we encounter and if we try to make for the suburbs we leave ourselves open to the Black Moon Clan and their crystal-ships."
"What about underground?" Jadeite suggested. Tomoe shook his head.
"Most of the underground passages were collapsed in the first attack." He explained, "The subway was one of our first attempts, but the tunnels have become so unstable that the risk is now too great to explore them."
"You have to take some risk if you ever want to leave this place." Zoisite advised, "This Shinigami is just one man. You have hundreds here. The odds are definitely stacked in your favor."
"I'm not willing to sacrifice one man to bring that lunatic down, let alone hundreds." Yoshiro exclaimed, "We made a promise that we would bring back as many people as we could find and now that we've found them, I'm not going to lose anyone!"
"Yoshiro…" Tomoe tried to calm his companion down, "I know you have your doubts about the Shinigami, but I assure you he is no ordinary man. There may even be more than one person although we have never seen more than a silhouette."
"We've sent a half dozen people out against him before." Yoshiro added, "But he managed to terrify or injure each one. The speed and accuracy of his shots and the impossible angles he manages are not the work of any normal human being."
"I've seen him bend bullets around telephone poles and shoot the knots off people's shoelaces." Shin shivered against his words, "The Shinigami is just playing with us, biding his time until he strikes."
"Is this why you brought us here?" Jadeite asked after hearing the explanation, "You want us to take care of this Shinigami for you?"
"Please believe me when I tell you we have exhausted any other option." Tomoe begged the Shitennou and specifically addressed Zoisite, "When we saw you fighting that horde of Sufferers in the square it was the first time since we came to this place that we had any hope of leaving. These people we're protecting have done nothing to deserve this miserable existence; they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"What about the Sufferers?" Jadeite asked and motioned to himself and Zoisite, "The powers you witnessed us using will draw them in huge numbers. We may be able to defeat this Shinigami for you, but then you'll face a literal army of Sufferers."
"We can handle them." Shin said reluctantly. For all his youth and bluster he seemed at least marginally repentant for killing what was once human.
"And if you agree to help us I know we can make it to the Crystal Tower without losing anyone." Tomoe said expectantly, "Once we get past the courtyard to the main road it's a straight shot to the center of Crystal Tokyo."
"It seems like that Tower is where we want to go anyway." Jadeite said and glanced at his oddly silent Shitennou companion, "Zoisite? Are you up for this?"
"Answer me one question." Zoisite replied and looked Professor Tomoe in the eye, "You've spoken so highly of this Neo-Queen Serenity, but I'm forced to wonder something." He stepped closer and looked almost broken, "Does she have a King?"
"Yes, she does." Tomoe answered. Jadeite and Zoisite's hearts missed several beats, "King Endymion."
"Endymion?" Jadeite gasped at the name.
"He was the one who authorized us to come out here and look for survivors." The Professor told them and then looked somewhat puzzled, "Does that make a difference to you?"
"Yes." Jadeite answered breathlessly, "We serve King Endymion as well; somewhat differently."
"Then he hasn't given up on us!" Tomoe exclaimed drawing his own happy conclusion.
Jadeite and Zoisite were rapt with the revelation that not only was their Master alive and well, but apparently had ascended to his rightful position as monarch over all the Earth. Zoisite's eyes were moist, Jadeite noted, and he thanked every power that he could think of for this one measure of hope.
"Professor Tomoe." Jadeite addressed the scientist and cracked the knuckles of both hands in one motion, "Take us to this Shinigami."
