FIVE
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Toshiro stirred. Some bird was sounding off, a bird with a remarkably irritating call...
Beep.
Beep.
He tried to ignore it. He was terribly tired, too tired to want to bother getting up and closing the window. He felt that he could easily sleep for a week. His left hand ached and felt prickly. He must have slept on his arm wrong; the hand had been sensitive to cold, and certain kinds of pressure, ever since the Imakandi snake had bitten him.
Beep.
His futon felt oddly spongy, too soft. He shifted position, threw out his right arm.
There was nobody beside him. Maybe Hiroko had left the room to escape the rhythmic, annoying, high-pitched chirping. Toshiro rolled over to the right and pulled his pillow over his head. His pillow was too soft too, certainly not filled with rusks. It felt rather like those pillows people used in the future, the ones filled with foam or feathers.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Oh, hell," Toshiro murmured. He'd have to get up and close the window. He moved the pillow and started to sit up. His head whirled and he flopped right back down. Cautiously lifting his head, he looked around. He was in a hospital bed, with the rails up on both sides. His bandaged left hand, swollen fingertips peeping out, was propped on a pillow. His left arm was bruised and swollen nearly to his shoulder. His throat was scratchy and there was a dry, foul taste in his mouth. An IV tube ran into the inner bed of his right elbow. Two little paper circles were taped to his chest. The wires running out of the circles led to a machine that was emitting those annoying beeps. Toshiro was completely disoriented. There were no hospitals in his own time, none of this equipment had been invented yet; had he dreamed defeating Aku, dreamed going home, dreamed having a daughter?
Maybe if he shut off that noise he could think. He studied the machine, but didn't find an OFF switch. His swords were on the night table beside him, but, weak and shaky as he was, he wasn't sure he could swing hard enough to silence the machine--
Swords. He had only had one when he had been thrown into the future--
His mind cleared, he remembered, he struggled up to a sitting position, clinging to the bed railing for support. He had to try to find his wife and daughter.
A toilet flushed. A door at the side of the room opened, and Hiroko came out. In a chest carrier she bore a little bundle wrapped in a bright red plaid blanket, a bundle that moved slightly. "Toshi-chan!" she exclaimed in delight, and hurried over and kissed him passionately. He was quite sure his breath stank. Hiroko didn't seem to mind. "Toshi-chan! You're awake! Really awake!" She kissed him again, and drew the baby out of the carrier. "Meet your son."
"My son?" Toshiro pushed the button that raised the bed.
"Look at that! I didn't know it did that," Hiroko said. He leaned back and she carefully settled the baby into the crook of his good arm.
"Where's Tetsu?"
"Over there taking her nap. We've stayed right with you." Hiroko pointed. Toshiro leaned to the left a little, so he could see past the foot of his bed. There was a futon spread out on the floor, in which Tetsuko slept.
"Is she all right?" he asked. "Are you all right?"
"Everyone's fine, nobody was hurt except you. We've been very concerned about you."
"When did you have the baby?"
"Four days ago."
"Did you have any trouble?"
"None at all. It didn't even hurt."
Toshiro started to reply and his voice caught and broke in his dry throat.
"Here, have some water," Hiroko said, picking up a pitcher at the far side of the table. She held the glass for him while he drank. "Better?" He nodded and drank some more. "They stuck a magic needle in my back, like acupuncture, but there was only one needle, and I went numb. I could feel the baby coming out but it didn't hurt."
"There are a few good things about the future," Toshiro said, looking at the baby. He had the wide Tokugawa eyes but otherwise seemed to take after Hiroko. His little rosebud mouth moved and he made tiny sounds.
"Katsushiro," Hiroko said with mock formality, "I present you to the shogun."
"Four days," Toshiro repeated. "I don't remember a thing."
"You woke up now and again, and sometimes you'd talk, but it didn't make much sense. The people in that box on the wall--" Hiroko indicated the television. "--talked about your condition every day, at noon and at six. You're well-liked here, Toshi-chan."
The baby stirred. Toshiro nuzzled the downy head, enjoying the sweet baby scent. "Katsu-chan, Katsu-chan," he said softly. He noticed a shoe box on the windowsill.
"We all expected you to die. On the third day, a man came. He's a very small man, almost like a dwarf. His name is Xtor and he said you were his friend--"
"Xtor!"
"He's a scientist, whatever that is, but anyway, he said he'd been working on a universal poison antidote, and offered it. He warned us he hadn't tried it on any human beings yet, but you had nothing to lose, you were on the verge of death, so I told him to go ahead and try it. He put the medicine in one of those magic needles and used the needle to put it in your arm. You were still alive that night, so he gave you some more medicine, and you've been doing better ever since. He left last night to go make more medicine, in case you relapsed. He'll be back sometime today. Kiku-san will be here to see you, too." Hiroko smiled. "She'll bring her baby for you to see."
"I'll be happy to see Xtor again," Toshiro said. "And as soon as I have, we'll go home."
"I don't think you're well enough." Hiroko smiled again. "But you probably will be by the time you finish the list."
"List?"
"We have a six-page list of people who say they know you and want to visit you. The only ones we've had in so far were Xtor-san and people from clan MacNeal." Hiroko smiled again. "Colin-san said you were an honorary member of clan MacNeal, and now the rest of us are too. Katsu's blanket is their clan plaid. Your clan plaid is like your mon."
"Six pages!" Toshiro repeated, surprised. He had met a good many people in the future, but most of them only in passing; he wouldn't have expected six pages' worth of people to remember him. "Hiro-chan, where are we?"
"The Samurai Jack Hospital in Kyoto. In the future many places are named after you."
"They are?"
"Shows good judgment on their part," Hiroko said cheerfully. The baby whimpered, then began to cry. Once she had her breast free, Toshiro handed him back so she could feed him. They heard rattling out in the hall, the sound of armored samurai approaching; used as they were to the sound of armor, neither of them paid much attention until the Mad Jack family came in. The loud squalling of Kiku's baby roused Tetsuko.
"Father!" she cried joyfully. She snatched the shoe box from the windowsill and scrambled up onto his bed. "Look! We folded a thousand cranes so you'd get well!"
"And it worked, I feel much better," Toshiro said. There were indeed quite a few cranes in the shoe box (though nowhere near a thousand). The fully armored Mad Jack held the indignantly yowling baby, whose face had turned nearly as red as his eyes, and handed him to Kiku when she was ready to feed him. Welcome quiet returned.
"He has good healthy lungs," Toshiro observed, moving his feet. "Please, sit down, Kiku-san." She sat down on the foot of the bed.
"He's loud," said Kozuke, who was also armored, a little miniature of his father. "He poops a lot, too. He's really not much fun. All he does is eat and sleep and cry and poop."
"When he gets bigger he'll be more fun," Kiku said. "As I recall, you also did a good deal of eating and sleeping and crying and pooping."
"Yes indeed," Mad Jack said. "I was afield, but whenever I'd call home, I'd hear you in the background. You were at least as loud as Daisuke."
Toshiro smiled at Kozuke. "You look as if you're going afield now."
Kozuke looked unhappy. "I'd like to but everybody says I'm too little. But I could fight if they'd give me the chance!"
"You could not," Tetsuko scoffed. "All you have is training swords! You don't even have arrows!"
"That's enough," Toshiro said. "Every samurai has to start somewhere. Right, Kozu-chan? How do you like your armor?"
"It gets hot," Kozuke admitted. "Is that why you didn't wear it?"
"No, I didn't wear it because I foolishly left in a great hurry, for fear that Aku would get away from me. And I paid for it, too. I bear a good many scars that I wouldn't bear if I'd been properly armored. Not to mention freezing through four winters. Don't repeat my mistake. Wear your armor."
"Yes, sir," Kozuke said.
"And don't do what I did and run out without your wakizashi. You should always have that with you, even if you haven't got your katana."
"I've got them both." Kozuke looked thoughtful. "I never thought Samurai Jack made mistakes!"
Toshiro laughed. "Samurai Jack made more mistakes than you could count!"
Kozuke thought that over. Tetsuko snuggled under Toshiro's good arm. Hiroko rearranged her clothes and began burping the baby. Except for the monotonous beeping, the room was quiet and tranquil for a few moments. Then Agatha arrived, and, as usual when members of clan MacNeal were around, tranquil stillness abruptly came to an end. She swooped down on Toshiro and kissed him and fluffed his pillow and tucked him in and fussed over him, made much of both babies, took Daisuke and burped him in a familiar, aunt-like way, handed him back, and caught Mad Jack up in a hug, saying, "How's yer back, laddie?"
"Much better," he said, although he wiggled away quickly. "You're a little late."
"Traffic!" Agatha said. "Backed up for six blocks, all the way from the ground to the highest air lane. I did hear on the news that Jack's condition is upgraded from 'critical' to 'serious,' so maybe it'll clear out a bit now."
"What's my condition have to do with traffic?" Toshiro asked.
"Have ye looked out yer window, dear lad?"
"No, not yet," he said, looking over as Kozuke helpfully opened the curtain, and his jaw dropped. People were elbow-to-elbow on the lawn, and there were many banners held up. All of them said things like GET WELL SAMURAI JACK and WE LOVE YOU JACK and GET WELL SOON. Most of the signs were in Japanese, but quite a few were in English, Chinese, Arabic, Swahili, and a good many other languages he couldn't read.
"That reminds me, the hospital would like you to issue a statement about all the gifts and flowers," Kiku said. "They're running out of storage space. If you don't feel well enough to write it, we will, and you can sign it."
"Gifts and flowers?" Toshiro repeated. "From whom?"
"From everybody!" Kiku smiled at him. "What did you expect?"
"I didn't expect this!" Toshiro said. "I don't even know all those people!"
"They know you." Agatha kissed his forehead. He gazed out the window, shaking his head in disbelief. Agatha continued, "Now that I've finally arrived, who'd like to go for ice cream?"
"I would, I would, I would!" Kozuke said, beginning to bounce. Tetsuko hesitated.
"Go ahead, I'm not going anywhere," Toshiro said.
She wavered.
"Could you bring us back some?" Hiroko prompted, and at that, Tetsuko slid off the bed and went out with the other two.
"Hiro-san," Toshiro said, "please write something to the effect that I am humbly grateful for all the kindness but that I really do not need anything, so the people should please send the gifts to the needy." He looked out the window again, still having difficulty believing all this although he was seeing it plainly, and then looked back as Mad Jack sat down stiffly beside the bed. "Are you all right? I thought I was the only one who was hurt."
"You were the only one who was seriously hurt. I popped a muscle in my back," Mad Jack replied. "Everyone else had nothing worse than scrapes and bruises."
"I was worried about the children," Kiku said, fishing in the diaper bag, "but they seem to be doing all right. I guess children are more resilient than we give them credit for."
"You can be proud of your son, he's very brave," Hiroko said.
"Yes," Toshiro added, "I expect he'll be a fine samurai when he grows up."
"If I let him grow up," Mad Jack said, taking the folder Kiku withdrew from the bag.
Toshiro grunted in inquiry.
"He reveres you. He has the storybooks, the videos, the posters, the toys, on and on and on and on. It's annoying."
"I'm sorry," Toshiro said politely, although privately he thought that was pretty funny. "What happened? The last thing I recall is being attacked by those wild dogs." He listened with interest as the other three filled him in, was relieved that Mad Jack had remembered to help Alric, and humbly thanked Mad Jack for saving his life.
"Hmmph!" Mad Jack said, and went on. "After we all got back to civilization and everyone was taken care of, it was clear something would have to be done about all that, so I took the Rising Sun--they're our best troops--and we went out to reconnoiter."
"He went against medical advice, I might add," Kiku put in.
"Don't start, woman. What was I to do, tell those freaks to please wait until my back stopped hurting?--Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted, we went out to reconnoiter, and what we found was, not to exaggerate, shocking. That's why we wanted to get the children out, we didn't want them to see the pictures.
"For centuries the Mountains of Madness have been uninhabited, or so everybody thought. No one really wanted to go close enough to look. As we found out, the mountains are inhabited. They're inhabited by inbred, depraved worshippers of Zankoku and the other Old Ones, and the things that go on...well, look for yourself." Mad Jack opened the folder for Toshiro.
Toshiro felt the blood drain out of his face as he looked at the first picture. The others were even worse. Cannibalism, depraved practices, vile rituals that one would not have imagined in one's worst nightmares. When he finished he closed the folder and Kiku stashed it safely away. "It outrages me," he said, "that such things go on in Japan."
"Worse than that," Mad Jack said. "We alerted the Council of Nations, in case we needed help--after all the fighting we're just recovering from, our military budget this year is about twelve yen--and it occurred to the Chinese that maybe they ought to check their own wild, forbidden areas, just in case. And when they reported back on what they found, everybody else started checking. Jack-san, these unnatural cults are all over the world. The gods alone know all the things they've done, but the Chinese Foreign Minister mentioned, and I agree with her, that, since they're cannibals, they probably could tell you quite a lot about many unsolved disappearances over the centuries. We captured one cultist alive, and shot him full of truth serum. A lot of what he said sounded like gibberish, you'd have to question more of them to understand it thoroughly, but it does seem clear that they want to assist these Old Ones to drag the world off to some place for some purpose, and it also seems clear that the rest of us wouldn't be at all happy if they succeeded. Conditions would probably be worse than under Aku.
"Now that you have seen those pictures, I am sure you won't laugh when I tell you my crack troops were frightened by what we saw."
"No indeed," Toshiro said. "Even the pictures are quite frightening enough."
"And so the Japanese people would like your help. The human race would like your help." Mad Jack flushed, made several false starts, finally forced it out. "I'd like your help."
"I? What can I do?"
"When you and I can fight..." Mad Jack fidgeted. "We'd like you to join the effort. If they scared the Rising Sun, we--well, quite frankly we fear the regulars would cut and run when they saw the worst. Not to mention if they encountered one of the Old Ones. Having Samurai Jack along would boost the morale, and when we get into the thick of it, there's no doubt the morale will need boosting."
No! I gave these people four years of my life! They've had enough! Toshiro thought, and almost said, but he swallowed the instinctive refusal and tried to consider the idea objectively. Finally he said, "What are my alternatives? Does the time portal still work?"
"Oh, yes. You can go home now if you like," Kiku said, watching him compassionately, "and no one would think the less of you if you did."
He drank water and thought it over. "You're armored now for morale purposes?" he said to Mad Jack.
"Yes. It would take several weeks to plan a campaign. While we plan, I thought I'd better start trying to inspire our samurai. You've plenty of time to think it over." Mad Jack smiled faintly. "Kozuke-chan overheard me on the phone with Major-General Yamada of the Rising Sun, he wanted to fight with us. I had him armored as a sort of consolation prize."
"Are the warriors of the Rising Sun genuine samurai?" Toshiro asked. "I thought there were few left in this time."
"My late Kozuke, Kuro-Jack, and yourself were the only three I ever met," Kiku said. "One heard stories of others, but if they live, no one knows where to find them."
"Aku suppressed the old ways, so there was hardly anyone to teach samurai," Mad Jack said. The unspoken hint hung in the air.
"I can't be in two places at once," Toshiro said. "My father retired. I am supposed to rule at home. Hiro-san! Have you seen the pictures?"
"Yes, my lord."
"What's your opinion?"
"I will accede to whatever wise decision my lord takes."
"Thank you. Now, what's your opinion?"
"I think," Hiroko said, "that human beings, past, present, or future, have a duty to put an end to these abominations."
"Since the time portal works," Toshiro said, pondering, "we can talk it over with the rest of the family. Hiro-san, take the pictures, go home, explain what happened, show them to my parents, your parents; show them to your brother. See what they all think. Then report back.--There's no reason it can't be used in such a manner, is there?"
"No," Kiku said, "although the scientists do advise limited use when going backwards for fear that it's possible to alter the past. For example, Kuro-Jack goes back, gets hungry, tries to shoot a rabbit, accidentally shoots your grandfather. Then you don't exist, Kuro-Jack doesn't exist, no one destroys Aku..." She shrugged. "On the other hand, it can be argued that since you and he do exist, since Aku has been destroyed, that the rabbit incident could never happen. One can go both ways on it, endlessly."
"We'll be cautious," Toshiro said. "Hiro-san, once you have accomplished your task, report straight back. And you'd better leave as soon as Tetsu gets back."
************************************
While he waited to hear from the family, Toshiro ate, slept, moved around his room regaining his strength a day at a time, issued a statement of gratitude to the public and a request to donate gifts to the needy, was interviewed twice, missed his wife and children, and worked through the visitor list. He would never have thought all those people whom he had met in passing would come to visit him. Some of them had come great distances at considerable expense.
He was visited by an innkeeper, along with the man's daughter, Olivia, whom he'd once helped out. He had nearly forgotten the incident, a minor sidetrack in the search for Aku, but they hadn't. Both of them were overcome with tears at seeing Toshiro's condition; they pulled themselves together long enough to assure his family of free lifetime lodging before they left. (Recalling the inn, Toshiro had no intention of ever taking advantage of the offer.) He was visited by a shoe salesman who had been kind enough to try to fit him with a free pair when his shoes had been destroyed, and he was visited by the family who had finally replaced his shoes. He was visited by three warriors whom he'd managed to free from an evil spirit in a well. He was visited by the talking dogs whom he'd met when he first arrived in the future. The Triseraquins sent pounds of fish for sushi. Clan MacNeal was constantly in and out. People who had been unwilling gladiators in the Dome of Doom came to see him, some from other countries. Xtor came to check on him at least once a day. The visitors came, and came, and came, and, to his frank amazement, all of them told him how he had changed their lives for the better. He even received visits from reformed bounty hunters. On his sixth day in the hospital, he had worked down the list to "Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel Clench," and when they came in Toshiro stared rudely. He would not have recognized them. Zeke was cleaned up, and Josie was no longer falling out of her dress, no longer overpainted. She looked perfectly respectable.
"Everything we have, we owe to you," she explained. "If you're hanging from a trestle, you have a lot of time to think while you wait for someone to come along and rescue you. We realized we'd wasted our lives. We remarried, we saw a counselor so we'd get along better, and we found honest work. We run a dude ranch. That's where people come to play cowboy."
"You have children?" Zeke asked.
"Two," Toshiro said absently, still trying to get used to the change in the pair.
"Bring 'em! They'll love it. You'll love it. It's on us, of course. And while you're there, could you do a public service announcement for us? We have a therapeutic riding program for handicapped children; we don't charge the families, we absorb the entire cost, so we can always use donations."
Speechless, Toshiro nodded, and, for a long time after they'd gone, he sat staring thoughtfully at the door. He was still thinking matters over when he was well enough to go home, and so he was careful to make no commitments before he stepped through the time portal, only promising that he would return with his decision in six weeks, that being the additional interval the doctors had recommended for full recovery.
Six weeks later, under bright May sunshine, the Queen of Japan stood in front of the time portal at high noon, with her baby in her arms and her other son in her side, accompanied by the General of the Japanese Army and a Rising Sun honor guard. They all watched expectantly as Tetsuko came through, followed by Hiroko, who held the baby. Then there came a hundred fifty armed and armored samurai, and, the people of the future noticed with rising hope, they all had attendants who all held luggage.
"These are some of our warriors," Hiroko said. "They saw the pictures, they heard the story, and they wanted to help. They'll help train and help fight." She paused for greetings and bows. "This is my brother, Minamoto no Ashikaga no Hiroyuki. Kozu-chan! Hiroyuki-kun's your uncle. Or something like that."
"Thank you all, we can use all the help we can get," Kiku said, even as she tried to peer unobtrusively past the crowd that blocked her view of the portal. "Is--is anyone else coming?"
"There's one more," Hiroko said. "He was having trouble getting his horse to step through the portal."
When he came through, he came on foot, and the horns on his helmet gleamed in the sunlight, and his lacquered black armor shone, and the arrows in his quiver rattled in the breeze, and the men of the Rising Sun who were close enough to see his face began to applaud, and the others took it up, and he waited patiently, bowing slightly, until the applause died.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Samurai Jack, "let's see if we can't get that mess cleaned up."
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Toshiro stirred. Some bird was sounding off, a bird with a remarkably irritating call...
Beep.
Beep.
He tried to ignore it. He was terribly tired, too tired to want to bother getting up and closing the window. He felt that he could easily sleep for a week. His left hand ached and felt prickly. He must have slept on his arm wrong; the hand had been sensitive to cold, and certain kinds of pressure, ever since the Imakandi snake had bitten him.
Beep.
His futon felt oddly spongy, too soft. He shifted position, threw out his right arm.
There was nobody beside him. Maybe Hiroko had left the room to escape the rhythmic, annoying, high-pitched chirping. Toshiro rolled over to the right and pulled his pillow over his head. His pillow was too soft too, certainly not filled with rusks. It felt rather like those pillows people used in the future, the ones filled with foam or feathers.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Oh, hell," Toshiro murmured. He'd have to get up and close the window. He moved the pillow and started to sit up. His head whirled and he flopped right back down. Cautiously lifting his head, he looked around. He was in a hospital bed, with the rails up on both sides. His bandaged left hand, swollen fingertips peeping out, was propped on a pillow. His left arm was bruised and swollen nearly to his shoulder. His throat was scratchy and there was a dry, foul taste in his mouth. An IV tube ran into the inner bed of his right elbow. Two little paper circles were taped to his chest. The wires running out of the circles led to a machine that was emitting those annoying beeps. Toshiro was completely disoriented. There were no hospitals in his own time, none of this equipment had been invented yet; had he dreamed defeating Aku, dreamed going home, dreamed having a daughter?
Maybe if he shut off that noise he could think. He studied the machine, but didn't find an OFF switch. His swords were on the night table beside him, but, weak and shaky as he was, he wasn't sure he could swing hard enough to silence the machine--
Swords. He had only had one when he had been thrown into the future--
His mind cleared, he remembered, he struggled up to a sitting position, clinging to the bed railing for support. He had to try to find his wife and daughter.
A toilet flushed. A door at the side of the room opened, and Hiroko came out. In a chest carrier she bore a little bundle wrapped in a bright red plaid blanket, a bundle that moved slightly. "Toshi-chan!" she exclaimed in delight, and hurried over and kissed him passionately. He was quite sure his breath stank. Hiroko didn't seem to mind. "Toshi-chan! You're awake! Really awake!" She kissed him again, and drew the baby out of the carrier. "Meet your son."
"My son?" Toshiro pushed the button that raised the bed.
"Look at that! I didn't know it did that," Hiroko said. He leaned back and she carefully settled the baby into the crook of his good arm.
"Where's Tetsu?"
"Over there taking her nap. We've stayed right with you." Hiroko pointed. Toshiro leaned to the left a little, so he could see past the foot of his bed. There was a futon spread out on the floor, in which Tetsuko slept.
"Is she all right?" he asked. "Are you all right?"
"Everyone's fine, nobody was hurt except you. We've been very concerned about you."
"When did you have the baby?"
"Four days ago."
"Did you have any trouble?"
"None at all. It didn't even hurt."
Toshiro started to reply and his voice caught and broke in his dry throat.
"Here, have some water," Hiroko said, picking up a pitcher at the far side of the table. She held the glass for him while he drank. "Better?" He nodded and drank some more. "They stuck a magic needle in my back, like acupuncture, but there was only one needle, and I went numb. I could feel the baby coming out but it didn't hurt."
"There are a few good things about the future," Toshiro said, looking at the baby. He had the wide Tokugawa eyes but otherwise seemed to take after Hiroko. His little rosebud mouth moved and he made tiny sounds.
"Katsushiro," Hiroko said with mock formality, "I present you to the shogun."
"Four days," Toshiro repeated. "I don't remember a thing."
"You woke up now and again, and sometimes you'd talk, but it didn't make much sense. The people in that box on the wall--" Hiroko indicated the television. "--talked about your condition every day, at noon and at six. You're well-liked here, Toshi-chan."
The baby stirred. Toshiro nuzzled the downy head, enjoying the sweet baby scent. "Katsu-chan, Katsu-chan," he said softly. He noticed a shoe box on the windowsill.
"We all expected you to die. On the third day, a man came. He's a very small man, almost like a dwarf. His name is Xtor and he said you were his friend--"
"Xtor!"
"He's a scientist, whatever that is, but anyway, he said he'd been working on a universal poison antidote, and offered it. He warned us he hadn't tried it on any human beings yet, but you had nothing to lose, you were on the verge of death, so I told him to go ahead and try it. He put the medicine in one of those magic needles and used the needle to put it in your arm. You were still alive that night, so he gave you some more medicine, and you've been doing better ever since. He left last night to go make more medicine, in case you relapsed. He'll be back sometime today. Kiku-san will be here to see you, too." Hiroko smiled. "She'll bring her baby for you to see."
"I'll be happy to see Xtor again," Toshiro said. "And as soon as I have, we'll go home."
"I don't think you're well enough." Hiroko smiled again. "But you probably will be by the time you finish the list."
"List?"
"We have a six-page list of people who say they know you and want to visit you. The only ones we've had in so far were Xtor-san and people from clan MacNeal." Hiroko smiled again. "Colin-san said you were an honorary member of clan MacNeal, and now the rest of us are too. Katsu's blanket is their clan plaid. Your clan plaid is like your mon."
"Six pages!" Toshiro repeated, surprised. He had met a good many people in the future, but most of them only in passing; he wouldn't have expected six pages' worth of people to remember him. "Hiro-chan, where are we?"
"The Samurai Jack Hospital in Kyoto. In the future many places are named after you."
"They are?"
"Shows good judgment on their part," Hiroko said cheerfully. The baby whimpered, then began to cry. Once she had her breast free, Toshiro handed him back so she could feed him. They heard rattling out in the hall, the sound of armored samurai approaching; used as they were to the sound of armor, neither of them paid much attention until the Mad Jack family came in. The loud squalling of Kiku's baby roused Tetsuko.
"Father!" she cried joyfully. She snatched the shoe box from the windowsill and scrambled up onto his bed. "Look! We folded a thousand cranes so you'd get well!"
"And it worked, I feel much better," Toshiro said. There were indeed quite a few cranes in the shoe box (though nowhere near a thousand). The fully armored Mad Jack held the indignantly yowling baby, whose face had turned nearly as red as his eyes, and handed him to Kiku when she was ready to feed him. Welcome quiet returned.
"He has good healthy lungs," Toshiro observed, moving his feet. "Please, sit down, Kiku-san." She sat down on the foot of the bed.
"He's loud," said Kozuke, who was also armored, a little miniature of his father. "He poops a lot, too. He's really not much fun. All he does is eat and sleep and cry and poop."
"When he gets bigger he'll be more fun," Kiku said. "As I recall, you also did a good deal of eating and sleeping and crying and pooping."
"Yes indeed," Mad Jack said. "I was afield, but whenever I'd call home, I'd hear you in the background. You were at least as loud as Daisuke."
Toshiro smiled at Kozuke. "You look as if you're going afield now."
Kozuke looked unhappy. "I'd like to but everybody says I'm too little. But I could fight if they'd give me the chance!"
"You could not," Tetsuko scoffed. "All you have is training swords! You don't even have arrows!"
"That's enough," Toshiro said. "Every samurai has to start somewhere. Right, Kozu-chan? How do you like your armor?"
"It gets hot," Kozuke admitted. "Is that why you didn't wear it?"
"No, I didn't wear it because I foolishly left in a great hurry, for fear that Aku would get away from me. And I paid for it, too. I bear a good many scars that I wouldn't bear if I'd been properly armored. Not to mention freezing through four winters. Don't repeat my mistake. Wear your armor."
"Yes, sir," Kozuke said.
"And don't do what I did and run out without your wakizashi. You should always have that with you, even if you haven't got your katana."
"I've got them both." Kozuke looked thoughtful. "I never thought Samurai Jack made mistakes!"
Toshiro laughed. "Samurai Jack made more mistakes than you could count!"
Kozuke thought that over. Tetsuko snuggled under Toshiro's good arm. Hiroko rearranged her clothes and began burping the baby. Except for the monotonous beeping, the room was quiet and tranquil for a few moments. Then Agatha arrived, and, as usual when members of clan MacNeal were around, tranquil stillness abruptly came to an end. She swooped down on Toshiro and kissed him and fluffed his pillow and tucked him in and fussed over him, made much of both babies, took Daisuke and burped him in a familiar, aunt-like way, handed him back, and caught Mad Jack up in a hug, saying, "How's yer back, laddie?"
"Much better," he said, although he wiggled away quickly. "You're a little late."
"Traffic!" Agatha said. "Backed up for six blocks, all the way from the ground to the highest air lane. I did hear on the news that Jack's condition is upgraded from 'critical' to 'serious,' so maybe it'll clear out a bit now."
"What's my condition have to do with traffic?" Toshiro asked.
"Have ye looked out yer window, dear lad?"
"No, not yet," he said, looking over as Kozuke helpfully opened the curtain, and his jaw dropped. People were elbow-to-elbow on the lawn, and there were many banners held up. All of them said things like GET WELL SAMURAI JACK and WE LOVE YOU JACK and GET WELL SOON. Most of the signs were in Japanese, but quite a few were in English, Chinese, Arabic, Swahili, and a good many other languages he couldn't read.
"That reminds me, the hospital would like you to issue a statement about all the gifts and flowers," Kiku said. "They're running out of storage space. If you don't feel well enough to write it, we will, and you can sign it."
"Gifts and flowers?" Toshiro repeated. "From whom?"
"From everybody!" Kiku smiled at him. "What did you expect?"
"I didn't expect this!" Toshiro said. "I don't even know all those people!"
"They know you." Agatha kissed his forehead. He gazed out the window, shaking his head in disbelief. Agatha continued, "Now that I've finally arrived, who'd like to go for ice cream?"
"I would, I would, I would!" Kozuke said, beginning to bounce. Tetsuko hesitated.
"Go ahead, I'm not going anywhere," Toshiro said.
She wavered.
"Could you bring us back some?" Hiroko prompted, and at that, Tetsuko slid off the bed and went out with the other two.
"Hiro-san," Toshiro said, "please write something to the effect that I am humbly grateful for all the kindness but that I really do not need anything, so the people should please send the gifts to the needy." He looked out the window again, still having difficulty believing all this although he was seeing it plainly, and then looked back as Mad Jack sat down stiffly beside the bed. "Are you all right? I thought I was the only one who was hurt."
"You were the only one who was seriously hurt. I popped a muscle in my back," Mad Jack replied. "Everyone else had nothing worse than scrapes and bruises."
"I was worried about the children," Kiku said, fishing in the diaper bag, "but they seem to be doing all right. I guess children are more resilient than we give them credit for."
"You can be proud of your son, he's very brave," Hiroko said.
"Yes," Toshiro added, "I expect he'll be a fine samurai when he grows up."
"If I let him grow up," Mad Jack said, taking the folder Kiku withdrew from the bag.
Toshiro grunted in inquiry.
"He reveres you. He has the storybooks, the videos, the posters, the toys, on and on and on and on. It's annoying."
"I'm sorry," Toshiro said politely, although privately he thought that was pretty funny. "What happened? The last thing I recall is being attacked by those wild dogs." He listened with interest as the other three filled him in, was relieved that Mad Jack had remembered to help Alric, and humbly thanked Mad Jack for saving his life.
"Hmmph!" Mad Jack said, and went on. "After we all got back to civilization and everyone was taken care of, it was clear something would have to be done about all that, so I took the Rising Sun--they're our best troops--and we went out to reconnoiter."
"He went against medical advice, I might add," Kiku put in.
"Don't start, woman. What was I to do, tell those freaks to please wait until my back stopped hurting?--Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted, we went out to reconnoiter, and what we found was, not to exaggerate, shocking. That's why we wanted to get the children out, we didn't want them to see the pictures.
"For centuries the Mountains of Madness have been uninhabited, or so everybody thought. No one really wanted to go close enough to look. As we found out, the mountains are inhabited. They're inhabited by inbred, depraved worshippers of Zankoku and the other Old Ones, and the things that go on...well, look for yourself." Mad Jack opened the folder for Toshiro.
Toshiro felt the blood drain out of his face as he looked at the first picture. The others were even worse. Cannibalism, depraved practices, vile rituals that one would not have imagined in one's worst nightmares. When he finished he closed the folder and Kiku stashed it safely away. "It outrages me," he said, "that such things go on in Japan."
"Worse than that," Mad Jack said. "We alerted the Council of Nations, in case we needed help--after all the fighting we're just recovering from, our military budget this year is about twelve yen--and it occurred to the Chinese that maybe they ought to check their own wild, forbidden areas, just in case. And when they reported back on what they found, everybody else started checking. Jack-san, these unnatural cults are all over the world. The gods alone know all the things they've done, but the Chinese Foreign Minister mentioned, and I agree with her, that, since they're cannibals, they probably could tell you quite a lot about many unsolved disappearances over the centuries. We captured one cultist alive, and shot him full of truth serum. A lot of what he said sounded like gibberish, you'd have to question more of them to understand it thoroughly, but it does seem clear that they want to assist these Old Ones to drag the world off to some place for some purpose, and it also seems clear that the rest of us wouldn't be at all happy if they succeeded. Conditions would probably be worse than under Aku.
"Now that you have seen those pictures, I am sure you won't laugh when I tell you my crack troops were frightened by what we saw."
"No indeed," Toshiro said. "Even the pictures are quite frightening enough."
"And so the Japanese people would like your help. The human race would like your help." Mad Jack flushed, made several false starts, finally forced it out. "I'd like your help."
"I? What can I do?"
"When you and I can fight..." Mad Jack fidgeted. "We'd like you to join the effort. If they scared the Rising Sun, we--well, quite frankly we fear the regulars would cut and run when they saw the worst. Not to mention if they encountered one of the Old Ones. Having Samurai Jack along would boost the morale, and when we get into the thick of it, there's no doubt the morale will need boosting."
No! I gave these people four years of my life! They've had enough! Toshiro thought, and almost said, but he swallowed the instinctive refusal and tried to consider the idea objectively. Finally he said, "What are my alternatives? Does the time portal still work?"
"Oh, yes. You can go home now if you like," Kiku said, watching him compassionately, "and no one would think the less of you if you did."
He drank water and thought it over. "You're armored now for morale purposes?" he said to Mad Jack.
"Yes. It would take several weeks to plan a campaign. While we plan, I thought I'd better start trying to inspire our samurai. You've plenty of time to think it over." Mad Jack smiled faintly. "Kozuke-chan overheard me on the phone with Major-General Yamada of the Rising Sun, he wanted to fight with us. I had him armored as a sort of consolation prize."
"Are the warriors of the Rising Sun genuine samurai?" Toshiro asked. "I thought there were few left in this time."
"My late Kozuke, Kuro-Jack, and yourself were the only three I ever met," Kiku said. "One heard stories of others, but if they live, no one knows where to find them."
"Aku suppressed the old ways, so there was hardly anyone to teach samurai," Mad Jack said. The unspoken hint hung in the air.
"I can't be in two places at once," Toshiro said. "My father retired. I am supposed to rule at home. Hiro-san! Have you seen the pictures?"
"Yes, my lord."
"What's your opinion?"
"I will accede to whatever wise decision my lord takes."
"Thank you. Now, what's your opinion?"
"I think," Hiroko said, "that human beings, past, present, or future, have a duty to put an end to these abominations."
"Since the time portal works," Toshiro said, pondering, "we can talk it over with the rest of the family. Hiro-san, take the pictures, go home, explain what happened, show them to my parents, your parents; show them to your brother. See what they all think. Then report back.--There's no reason it can't be used in such a manner, is there?"
"No," Kiku said, "although the scientists do advise limited use when going backwards for fear that it's possible to alter the past. For example, Kuro-Jack goes back, gets hungry, tries to shoot a rabbit, accidentally shoots your grandfather. Then you don't exist, Kuro-Jack doesn't exist, no one destroys Aku..." She shrugged. "On the other hand, it can be argued that since you and he do exist, since Aku has been destroyed, that the rabbit incident could never happen. One can go both ways on it, endlessly."
"We'll be cautious," Toshiro said. "Hiro-san, once you have accomplished your task, report straight back. And you'd better leave as soon as Tetsu gets back."
************************************
While he waited to hear from the family, Toshiro ate, slept, moved around his room regaining his strength a day at a time, issued a statement of gratitude to the public and a request to donate gifts to the needy, was interviewed twice, missed his wife and children, and worked through the visitor list. He would never have thought all those people whom he had met in passing would come to visit him. Some of them had come great distances at considerable expense.
He was visited by an innkeeper, along with the man's daughter, Olivia, whom he'd once helped out. He had nearly forgotten the incident, a minor sidetrack in the search for Aku, but they hadn't. Both of them were overcome with tears at seeing Toshiro's condition; they pulled themselves together long enough to assure his family of free lifetime lodging before they left. (Recalling the inn, Toshiro had no intention of ever taking advantage of the offer.) He was visited by a shoe salesman who had been kind enough to try to fit him with a free pair when his shoes had been destroyed, and he was visited by the family who had finally replaced his shoes. He was visited by three warriors whom he'd managed to free from an evil spirit in a well. He was visited by the talking dogs whom he'd met when he first arrived in the future. The Triseraquins sent pounds of fish for sushi. Clan MacNeal was constantly in and out. People who had been unwilling gladiators in the Dome of Doom came to see him, some from other countries. Xtor came to check on him at least once a day. The visitors came, and came, and came, and, to his frank amazement, all of them told him how he had changed their lives for the better. He even received visits from reformed bounty hunters. On his sixth day in the hospital, he had worked down the list to "Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel Clench," and when they came in Toshiro stared rudely. He would not have recognized them. Zeke was cleaned up, and Josie was no longer falling out of her dress, no longer overpainted. She looked perfectly respectable.
"Everything we have, we owe to you," she explained. "If you're hanging from a trestle, you have a lot of time to think while you wait for someone to come along and rescue you. We realized we'd wasted our lives. We remarried, we saw a counselor so we'd get along better, and we found honest work. We run a dude ranch. That's where people come to play cowboy."
"You have children?" Zeke asked.
"Two," Toshiro said absently, still trying to get used to the change in the pair.
"Bring 'em! They'll love it. You'll love it. It's on us, of course. And while you're there, could you do a public service announcement for us? We have a therapeutic riding program for handicapped children; we don't charge the families, we absorb the entire cost, so we can always use donations."
Speechless, Toshiro nodded, and, for a long time after they'd gone, he sat staring thoughtfully at the door. He was still thinking matters over when he was well enough to go home, and so he was careful to make no commitments before he stepped through the time portal, only promising that he would return with his decision in six weeks, that being the additional interval the doctors had recommended for full recovery.
Six weeks later, under bright May sunshine, the Queen of Japan stood in front of the time portal at high noon, with her baby in her arms and her other son in her side, accompanied by the General of the Japanese Army and a Rising Sun honor guard. They all watched expectantly as Tetsuko came through, followed by Hiroko, who held the baby. Then there came a hundred fifty armed and armored samurai, and, the people of the future noticed with rising hope, they all had attendants who all held luggage.
"These are some of our warriors," Hiroko said. "They saw the pictures, they heard the story, and they wanted to help. They'll help train and help fight." She paused for greetings and bows. "This is my brother, Minamoto no Ashikaga no Hiroyuki. Kozu-chan! Hiroyuki-kun's your uncle. Or something like that."
"Thank you all, we can use all the help we can get," Kiku said, even as she tried to peer unobtrusively past the crowd that blocked her view of the portal. "Is--is anyone else coming?"
"There's one more," Hiroko said. "He was having trouble getting his horse to step through the portal."
When he came through, he came on foot, and the horns on his helmet gleamed in the sunlight, and his lacquered black armor shone, and the arrows in his quiver rattled in the breeze, and the men of the Rising Sun who were close enough to see his face began to applaud, and the others took it up, and he waited patiently, bowing slightly, until the applause died.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Samurai Jack, "let's see if we can't get that mess cleaned up."
