"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken bird that cannot fly."
-Langston Hughes
Keitaro took a deep breath, as he heard the sound of foot steps approaching, then straightened himself up tall.
"Go away, there's no food, or medical supplies here?" came a female voice. It wasn't Naru's, but he recognised the owner.
Mei. Naru's younger step sister.
"Mei, it's me, Keitaro!"
"Kei--!?! KEITARO!?! No, it can't be!!" The door was suddenly yanked open faster than Keitaro's eyes could register, and in the doorway, stood Mei…
…armed with a double-barrel shotgun.
"Waaaggghh!" Keitaro cried out, stumbling backwards as he realised it was level with his sternum. "Watch were you're pointing that thing!!!"
"Keitaro!?!" Mei looked up at him with a dumb struck expression on her face. "But… How?"
"It's complicated, and I don't have the time," Keitaro said quickly as he looked about nervously. "Can we talk inside, away from the public?"
"Okay," Mei replied, stepping aside, allowing him to enter. Keitaro quickly rushed inside, and Mei closed the door behind him.
"Thanks for letting me inside, Mei, and I'm also glad you're still here, and…" he trailed off as he remembered what exactly Mei was carrying. "Hey, aren't you a little young to handle something like that?"
"Are you gonna try and take it away from me, Keitaro?" She said with a half smile, as she jabbed him in the stomach with the twin barrels.
"I SAID BE CAREFUL WITH THAT!!!"
"Humph," Mei said pushing past him, "You're still the wimp I remember." She walked down the hallway, and Keitaro followed. "So, what exactly are you doing here, anyway?"
"Mei," Keitaro said quickly, as they entered the kitchen, "I need to know, has Naru been here?"
Mei was silent for a few moments. Then said, "Yes."
"HOT DOG!!!" Keitaro shouted, and quickly covered his mouth. "Where is she?"
"It's okay, you can shout all you like, and my mother is out trying to get some food."
"Where's Naru!?!"
"No longer here," Mei replied looking out the window. "She came here after the plague killed all of the guys, to be with what was left of her family. Her mother, and myself."
"Your father…?" Mei closed her eyes and shook her head. "I—I'm sorry, Mei," Keitaro said softly.
"No, it's okay," Mei replied in an equally soft voice. "I've gotten over it. But how the hell did you survive? I thought the plague killed off all the men?"
"I don't know, Okay," Keitaro stated, "I was in a coma for a month, and when I woke up, everybody was dead!" He paused, and then asked, "Naru!" He cried out, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "Where's Naru!?!"
"Hey, calm down, okay!" Mei warned, pointing the gun at his crotch.
"HEY NOT THERE!!!!" He shrieked, covering up.
"Heh, calm down, you wimp," she said with a chuckle. "Naru left when…"
Suddenly, something smashed through the window, and ricochet off the walls. It landed in the centre of the kitchen spinning around, and bellowing smoke.
"What the hell!?!" Keitaro cried out. An acrid smell began to fill his nose, and his eyes began to water. Tear Gas. He shoved his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a hanky. Thrusting it into his nose, and covering his eyes with his free hand, and squinted and tried to look around.
The front door suddenly splintered inwards, and three figures clad in what looked like police riot gear stormed into the house, carrying stun guns.
Mei had covered her nose with her shirt when the smoke bomb burst through the window. When the commando's entered the kitchen, she acted. The shotgun was still in her hands, and instinctively, she raised it to her shoulder, and fired both barrels, one after the other at the leading commando's.
The two leading commando's obviously had some sort of Kevlar body armour. Although it saved their lives, at close range it would've hurt like hell, and those two probably wouldn't be doing much for at least a few hours. They instantly doubled over, groaning loudly, and fell to the floor, dropping their weapons.
The third commando was stunned, and she hesitated, her vision flicked back and forth between her two comrades, writhing on the floor, clutching their stomachs and crying out in pain.
It was the distraction Mei was looking for.
"YAAAAAAAAAHHH!!" With a battle cry she leapt into the air, the empty shotgun raised above her head like a club, much like Motoko, when she moved in for the kill.
The commando fired her gun and the two stingers of the stun gun flew through the air, but Mei twisted through the air in a back flip with much skill, and swinging the butt of the gun around, brought it as hard as she could across the woman's gas mask.
The blow tore it from her face, and she sailed head first into the kitchen wall, where she was knocked out cold. Or so Keitaro hoped so. He was relived to see her chest rising and falling.
"Woah!" Keitaro muttered through his hanky.
"Who the hell are these guys, Keitaro!?!" Mei cried out, turning to face him.
"What makes you think I know!" Keitaro shouted back.
Suddenly, Mei cried out in pain, and jerked about, as she fell to the floor. Standing behind her, was a fourth commando, and the two stingers of her stun gun were sticking into Mei's back.
The woman suddenly looked up from the girl, to Keitaro. The two looked at each other for a second, before she dived for one of the stun guns on the ground by her wounded comrades.
Keitaro jumped backwards, and scrambled out of the room. He raced to the door leading out into the backyard, and flung it open.
"FREEZE!!!" He stopped dead in his tracks. The backyard held five female soldiers, aiming handguns at him.
Just then, he felt something hard press into his back, "Please," a muffled female voice said from behind, "Just come along quietly. There's no need for violence."
"Who the hell are you people!?!" Keitaro cried out.
"We're with the government," the commando said, "And we have to get you to safety."
"But I need to find some one dear to me," Keitaro cried out.
"Later, kid," the commando replied, as she pulled his hands behind his back, and began to cuff them. "First things first. We get you some place safe, then we'll see what we can do about your friend."
The other female troopers moved in from all sides, with their sidearm's pointed at Keitaro. When he was cuffed, they holstered their weapons, and grabbing him, spun him around, and marched back through the house towards the entrance.
"Wait!" Keitaro cried out, as he was led past Mei, still laying on the floor, out cold, "You can't just leave her like that. Hey!!!" They just marched right past her, not even bothering to look at her.
As they came out the front, a trooper placed a black bag over his head.
"Hey, what the hell!?!" Keitaro cried out, and started to struggle.
"It's for your own protection, kid," someone said, "We don't want others to know who you are." They then hustled him out the front door, and into a waiting transport truck.
"This is group Beta," one soldier said into a walkie-talkie, "We have the package wrapped up and secured. Over."
"Excellent, work sergeant," another female voice said on the other side. "I want the package on the next train to Tokyo. Commandeer a train car, and make sure no civilians see what you're transporting. Over!"
"Understood, Major," she replied. "Over and out." She holstered her walkie-talkie, and watched as the truck pulled out and drove off down the road.
"S-sir?" The woman turned around, to see one of the wounded commandos's, leaning against a fellow soldier, clutching her stomach. "What about the civilians?" She pointed back at the front door.
"Give them a weeks supply of food, and a replacement door, for all the trouble we've caused them," she said with a smile. "We're the good guys after all, soldier."
***
Keitaro kept his head down the whole time. All he could see was the black of the bag that they'd covered his face with. He'd been seated up the far end of the transport, away from the exit flap, so as to keep him as hidden as possible from the public.
At first, he had no idea where they were taking him, but as they drove further on, he was aware of the truck slowing down. Then, came the sounds of many voices. Then, a train whistle blew, and he realised he was at the rail yards.
"Can I at least know where you plan on taking me?" Keitaro asked, as the truck rolled to a stop.
"Tokyo," someone said, "And from now on, I suggest, for your own sake, that you stay quite, until we are on board. Got it?" Someone poked him in the ribs with something cold, and hard. A gun most likely.
"Y-yes mamam!" he squeaked. He could here the shuffling of boots, as the soldiers all piled out, and then, he was taken out. He could feel their bodies close to his, as if they were trying to hide him from others.
He was hurried along, nearly tripping on hidden objects that littered the ground, and taken to an unknown spot.
"Okay, right leg up!" Keitaro was stunned, and he was pushed forward, and someone raised his leg, as he was lead up a short set of metal stairs, then pushed through a door. Some people filed in after him, and shut the door.
"Sit down," a different voice instructed, and he was pushed down into a plastic covered seat. He then heard another loud whistle. A train, he was on a train. Well Duh! They took him to the rail yard; of cause he was going to catch a train.
"Can I have this taken off now, please?" Keitaro asked pointing at the hood over his face.
A hand was at the base of the bag, and it was very quickly yanked off. Keitaro blinked at the sudden rush of bright light, and he blinked a few times.
"Here," someone said, pushing something hard into his hands, "Your glasses." He put them on, something very hard to do while wearing cuffs, and looked about.
He was on, what looked like an old subway train car. There were six female soldiers all sitting around the car at various places, like windows, and exits. They all carried stun guns, and handguns.
And they were all starring at Keitaro.
This made him feel very uncomfortable. He twiddled his thumbs nervously, looked down at the floor, and then looked out a window.
"I would advise against doing that," the closest of the soldiers said.
"Huh?" Keitaro said turning to face her. "Why?"
"You're the only living male in the entire city here, kid" she said, looking out the same window. "There's about six of us, lightly armed, and we're you're only protection. There's roughly about two hundred females out there, and if they knew you were in here, there's nothing we could do to protect you."
"Oh," Keitaro said, quickly turning away, and looking back down at his shoes. "Hey, if you're trying to hide me, why in such an open car?"
"We have our orders, to get you on the next train to Tokyo ASAP. This was all we could get on the spur of the moment."
Two more awkward hours passed, before the whistle of the train blew, and with steady grunts, and the train slowly began to roll froward, and shunted out of the city.
His guards seemed somewhat relieved as this began to happen, and so did Keitaro.
Still, as the city sights began to fade from view, Keitaro couldn't help but sink into depression. He still had no idea where Naru was, and Mei never got a chance to tell him. It was positive she knew where her sister was, and if these weekend warriors had bothered just waiting a few more minutes, he would've found out where she was.
He looked for every opportunity to escape from his captors. But as time dragged on and day dawn turned into Dusk, he began to think weather or not escaping from these guys was such a good idea.
But he had to find Naru. It's what started him on this journey. However, they did state that they would let him find Naru later on. Had they? All they had said, was 'Later Kid.'
That was it. Nothing more. Those words didn't fill him with confidence. Should he escape? Could he escape? So many questions, and not enough answers.
He thought about it all through the night, and into the early hours of the morning.
The sun was just starting to come up, showing some rays of sun light over the hills, when the train began to slow down. The sleeping soldiers were all roused from their sleeps, and rubbed their eyes, and yawned.
"Are we there already?" Someone asked.
"Can't be," the lead trooper said glancing at her watch, "It's too early. Something must be wrong." The train's speed slowed down, and then rolled to a gentle stop.
"Corporal," the lead trooper snapped, "Go see what's wrong." The soldier nodded, and left, through the car door. Keitaro yawned loudly, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
"Are we there yet?" He asked in a sleepy voice.
"Please, be quite," the lead trooper snapped at him. "And put that bag back over his head."
"Hey, don't I get--!" His words were muffled as the bag came back down over his head, and he was pushed down on the seat, to hide him from outside.
After some time, the soldier came back. "Nothing too serious, sir," she said, "The engineer is just having some minor trouble with the train. It hasn't been used in over 20 years, and the should have it fixed in at least an hour."
"Fine," the lead trooper said, "But make sure that nobody comes in here."
"Uuhhhh, excuse me?" Keitaro said from behind the hood. "Ummm, I gotta use the bathroom."
"What!?!" The woman cried out. "Now?"
"I just gotta take a whiz, that's all."
She thought about it, and then asked, "What's going on out side?" A soldier pulled down a window, and looked outside, in both directions.
"Some of the passengers are coming off the train to stretch their legs, sir."
"We can't risk it."
"Well, would you rather I go in here?" Keitaro pointed at the ground between his feet. The woman looked at the ground, then back up at his face.
"You've got three minutes," she said with reluctance. "Find a nice secluded spot, and for God sake, don't attract any attention." She pointed to all the girls, "Go with him, and make sure he stays hidden."
"Won't that just attract attention?" Keitaro asked.
"And I can't risk sending you out there all alone." The woman replied. "Or risk you getting away."
They all nodded, and pulling up his hood over his head, they cautiously lead him outside. There were quite a lot of women outside, lying on the grass, looking up at the skies. As the clouds built up, churning across the landscape like dark ink in water, the air changed, the wind bringing that scent of rain.
He wasn't given much time to look around; he was quickly hustled into the surrounding trees, away from prying eyes. The forest made a dangerous dip down, a sharp embankment, and far away from the train, which is why they chose it. The grass had obviously been rained on, and was wet and slippery. There were rocks everywhere that were worse, and Keitaro nearly slipped on one of them, only to be saved by one of his guards. They took him quite far from the train, and down the embankment, and then stopped him.
In the distance, Keitaro could see that that the forest disappeared down the embankment, towards a gurgling water sound. Was he near the river?
"There!" One girl said, pointing to a large tree that was as thick as the train car he'd been riding inside. "Make it snappy." He marched up to the tree, and undid his fly. The six soldiers then suddenly turned about face, and had their backs to him, forming a cordon around him.
Keitaro sighed and did his business. It was embarrassing. Surrounded by girls while taking a pee. There were the sounds of birds chirping, but the sound he was making was far more dominate.
"Finished?" One of the girls asked, turning around once the noise he'd been making had trickled off.
"Hey," he cried out, as he covered up, "A little privacy, here?"
She giggled softly, and then whispered something to the girl next to her, who snickered in reply.
Keitaro's face wrinkled into a huge sulk as he zipped up his fly. "Ready," he muttered. The girls all moved apart, and turned around. As they did so, something moved in the bushes, and something shot up.
The soldiers all spun around, their guns drawn. There, was a girl with long brown hair, in her mid 20's. She stood there in utter shock, staring straight at Keitaro. Someone must have spotted the group leaving the train, and followed out of curiosity.
"Oh, my, God." She whispered. "A man!"
"Shit!" One of the soldiers, swore, and pushed Keitaro behind her, as she side stepped to stand in front of him, blocking his view from the girl.
That was a big mistake.
She obviously forgot her own strength, and pushed Keitaro a little too hard. He stumbled backwards, and put on foot on a slippery rock. It was stationery for just half a second, but it suddenly shot out from underneath him, and he fell backwards crying out in alarm.
The soldiers all turned around to see Keitaro rolling head over heals down the steep embankment.
"Khia," someone shouted, "You idiot!!!" Keitaro tumbled over and over, just barely missing trees. Finally, his tumbling was halted when he slammed spine first into a tree.
"Arrrggghhh," he cried out, rubbing his back. Or at least he tried to. He then realised he still had the cuffs on his wrist.
"Down here!" He looked back up, and saw the bushes and leaves rustling. The soldiers were coming after him. It was then, that he realised he was free. Adrenaline cleared his mind, and he scrambled to his feet, and plunged back down the hill, running as fast as he could.
The gurgling sound became louder, drawing him forward, and suddenly he came out of the foliage and felt his feet sink into soft earth and saw the dark currents of a river. Nothing else. Just a 10-foot wide river.
"There he is!" He spun around to see one of the soldiers looking and pointing directly at him. An adrenalin surge hit him and time seemed to freeze, the soldier moving in slow motion. Keitaro turned and jumped. All around him, sound seemed to vanish, as he started to curl up into a ball.
He saw the blue surface of the lake, as it seemed to move in slow motion, and then rush straight towards him and shatter, as he plunged into liquid darkness.
Cool water that hadn't had time to be warmed by the morning sun washed over Keitaro. He dove deep, down into a chill current, wafting waterweeds and natural debris. Sunlight filtered down, through tannin-tinted waters as he kicked out, aligning himself, following the flow downstream. The handcuffs attached to his wrist almost undid him. Unable to breaststroke, Keitaro had to resort to an awkwardly modified dog paddle and if it hadn't been for the current, he probably wouldn't have made it at all. The cold that stabbed at him through his clothes, threatened to drag him down, the pain encumbered every stroke, but he kept going, past the clutching fractal fingers of sunken logs and trees, the skittering flashes of darting fish. For as long as Keitaro's breath held.
He finally surfaced, gasping, about thirty meters downstream. There were distant shouts, but he was only up long enough to gasp a new lungful of air, then dove again. He'd been expecting a volley of gunfire. None came, but Keitaro wasn't going to tempt fate.
After another thirty meters he came up again and paused just long enough to tread water while testing the strength of his cuffs. He was shaking wildly; the adrenaline rush and a flood of everything from sheer terror to pure exultation making his muscles fight each other. He could still make out the soldiers still upstream, nothing more than blurry objects, starting to vanish from sight around a bend in the river.
Well, know Keitaro had escaped from his captors, by chance of a shear miracle. Free once more to look for Naru, the one woman he truly cared about. But now, he would be chased. They wouldn't sit still forever. They would organise some sort of search party. But the undergrowth along the banks was thick enough that they must've been struggling through it and by then the current had him.
Keitaro kicked along with it and with every second the smoke from the diesel train shrank further and further until it was lost around the curve in the river.
***
"WHAT!?!" A fist slammed down on the table, making the radio set jump. "What do you mean you lost him!?!"
"Exactly what it means, Major," the voice on the other line said, meekly, "He was spotted by a civilian, there was some confusion, and he was separated from his bodyguards."
"And you let him get away?"
"He ran from us, sir," the lady on the other line said in defence. "And we weren't exactly equipped with the vehicles necessary to look for him."
"What was his last location?"
"50 miles outside of Tokyo, Major," the voice, replied. "I've already radioed ahead, and sent some helicopters out to look for him."
"Good," the Major snarled. "Oh, and sergeant, you'd better locate him quick, for your own sake."
There was a long pause, before, "Yes sir. Over and out."
The Major threw the hand mike at the desk, and growled in frustration. "Idiots," she snarled.
"Problems, Major Kiska?" The Major turned to see a woman with her blond hair done up in a bonnet, and wearing a lab coat and spectacles.
"Oh, Shut up, Dr. Mela," she snapped back at her. "I'm under a lot of stress at this particular point in time, I don't need wise ass civvies giving me a hard time."
"Well, now you know how it feels, Major," Mela answered, walking into the room. "You have your own problems, and so do I. Maybe now you'll come to appreciate the miracles we women are managing to pull off."
"It's easy for you to say," Major Kiska groaned, burying her face into her right hand. "I have my orders from Tokyo, and these are marked with the highest priority. Failure is not an option."
"What are you saying?" Dr. Mela asked, one eyebrow raised.
"It's what I'm saying, Doctor." Major Kiska said. "What's left of the government made their message to me clear. They want Keitaro's head, or mine."
"What!?!" Mela was completely taken back. "T-they can't be serious, can they?"
"They can, and I see their logic, too." Major Kiska said, as she stared of into space. "The whole world has changed, now, Dr. The rules of the survival games have been torn up, and re-written."
"I don't understand." Dr. Mela said. "There are other males still alive out there. And we're finding more survivors with every passing week."
"One male every two weeks is not something to jump for joy over Doctor. That'll soon stop, in fact, I think it has already." Major Kiska replied. "Then, we'll have to repopulate the country."
"So?" Mela said with a shrug. "So will every other country around the world. What's the big worry?"
"Numbers," Major Kiska answered. "Who ever has the most males, will repopulate the fastest."
"We don't need the boys for that, Major," Mela said with a snorting laugh. "We have artificial insemination capabilities."
"But that requires one ingredient." The Major said, pointing a finger at her. "Sperm. And how long before our supplies run out? That's when we need the boys, Dr." She paused for effect. "And so will other countries."
"And?"
"And," Major Kiska replied, "The more males we have, the more leverage and political power we gain in the world."
"You don't mean…?" Dr. Mela trailed off, as Major Kiska nodded.
"Exactly." She said.
"Oh, great!" Dr. Mela cried out, as she threw up her hands. "All the men die, but at least we get a whole new Cold War started. This is insane!" She thumped the wall in frustration. "Damn, it's Dr. Strangelove with a vengeance."
"Now you understand why I must do what it is I'm doing?"
"No," Dr. Mela snapped, "All I see is a recipe for a Third World War. International race's for supremacy have lead to nothing but destruction, Major, it's bound to happen all over again."
"Ahhh, but that was with the men in charge." She smiled. "We women will be different."
"We may be women, Major," Dr. Mela said, "But we're still damn human. And all humans are greedy. They will always want more."
"You worry too much, Doctor." Major Kiska said. "The future will prove you wrong."
"But history, will prove me right!" Dr. Kiska snapped back. "Give it time, Major, give it time, and you will see." Then, she turned about, and stormed out.
***
The river followed the soft land. Over the millennia it'd carved its way through the sedimentary forest, through the soft loam of the rolling countryside, following the path of least resistance. Where it did meet it, it flowed around, describing a serpentine path across the landscape. There was a spur of land that was of some harder stuff: A deposit of some tougher geological outcropping the river had worked its way around.
Keitaro Urashima dragged himself through sodden marsh and waterweed that sucked at his legs before he reached something like solid ground. It was a rock, a slab the size of a car. Keitaro just collapsed onto it, utterly exhausted, and lay there in the hot sunlight, coughing. His muscles felt like overcooked pasta.
In any movie involving river travel, there's a waterfall. Doesn't matter if it's in the middle of Japan, there's a waterfall. It's one of those Hollywood rules.
Real life wasn't that melodramatic. The worst Keitaro had to deal with were rapids. They weren't white water, but they'd been bad enough. The river had seemed like a good idea. He'd managed to snag a waterlogged piece of wood that'd made an acceptable float to hang onto while the current carried him along. That'd worked… for a while. He'd been able to watch the passing landscape – hills, water meadows and lush forests – and try and figure out where the hell he was. Heading east, that was as best he could tell. If his captors had been taking him south, then by heading east he could hit anything from the shores of the North Pacific on down. He'd passed a couple of smaller tributaries flowing into the river and that was good: it'd be something else to slow his pursuers down.
Provided they were following by foot. If they followed by air, then that was a completely different story.
About eight kilometres downstream the riverbanks had gotten much closer and steeper, the river much faster and much deeper, all surprisingly quickly. Before He'd really known it, the still water turned turbulent enough to make things very difficult and Keitaro's makeshift float wasn't helping very much. Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem, but with his clothes all water logged, and dragging him down it took everything I had just to stay afloat. When he finally drifted into that eddy at the bend in the river, Keitaro was more than ready to crawl out and collapse.
Sprawled on that sun-warmed rock he lost track of time. Exhausted, he just closed my eyes and let the world spin around him while he caught his breathe and slowly warmed again. It was when Keitaro found himself starting to drift off that he work with a start. He couldn't wait around. He didn't know how long he had, but they'd be after him, Keitaro didn't have any doubt about that.
Keitaro scrambled to the top of the riverbank and then struggled through tangled bush and scrub up the small rise to the crest of the hill on the river bend. It wasn't high, but offered a bit of a view. Facing east, with the river at his back, he could see hills rising all around. The river was in a small valley, stretching northeast to south, the sides green with forest and meadows. How far had he come? Perhaps ten kilometers? How far did he have to go? Keitaro didn't have the faintest idea. Perhaps from the valley edge he'd see some sign of civilization.
It was near noon on a clear and sunny day. A breeze rippled the grasses in hillside meadows. Choruses of hidden insects rasped, birds twittered and swooped. Keitaro was hungry, freezing wet, handcuffed and completely lost.
He sighed loudly, and then headed off east, towards the hills.
And from up there on the lip of the valley Keitaro saw nothing but more nothing. More meadows dotted with bright spring flowers, more woods and swatches of forest: evergreen pines and oaks and beech and birch covering gentle hills. No houses, roads or even thread of smoke. Down behind him, the dark river flowed along in its little valley.
The land wasn't flat coastline plains; nor was it geography twisted and knurled by geology like paper crumpled up. It was scrub and meadows and forest clinging to rolling hills. Geography that'd been scoured and ground millennia ago by unimaginably huge sheets of ice that'd strolled south and incidentally rearranged the face of the planet.
He stood there in his soaked, water logged clothes and felt utterly vulnerable and more than a little concerned as he looked around from horizon to horizon. There were options. He could head back upstream where he'd be certain to meet his captors and that would at least ensure he wouldn't starve or freeze out in the wilderness. Or he could head east and hope to hit civilization… of some kind.
Somewhere. Or He could go northeast, following the river, which was probably a tributary into the Pacific Ocean. There'd be towns or cities there, coastal traffic heading southwards. After weighing things, he deemed it a safer bet than simply aiming east.
So, North East it was.
Keitaro started half jogging a few hundred meters, then walking. It was a pace he should have been able to keep up for hours. It was the way he'd started jogging back at the Hinata Apartments. But that had been without a few water soaked clothes weighing him down. With the handcuffs on Keitarto couldn't swing his arms in time properly; the metal around his wrists moved at opposites to his motion and started chafing - uncomfortably at first, then painfully. Keitaro spent an hour or so trying to get the cuffs off by hammering at the chain links with a rock to try and break it. After half an hour all he ended up with was a pile of broken rocks and a bruised thumb. Whoever had designed them hadn't been an idiot. He'd need proper tools to get the things off.
Giving up on that - at least until he had a better idea - Keitaro kept going. He filled time by humming, simple little cadences while he travelled. The Proclaimers kept him amused for a while, then the Great Escape theme, and then a host of other little ditties remembered from a world ago.
There were animals around, though Keitaro didn't have close encounters with anything more threatening than a pair of squirrels that chattered furiously at him from a tree trunk as he passed. Deer grazed the meadows. And a family of foxes that watched him from the safety of bushes that were far away from him. Keitaro took the opportunity to drink at the river before swimming across and pushing on.
And on and on.
Cresting one hill to see another, and then yet another stretching away before you can be demoralizing to say the least.
And if he'd been uncomfortable during the day, that night he really hated his wet clothes.
When the sun sank behind the hills to the west, the temperature sank with it. Stars came out. Multitudes upon multitudes of them smeared across the heavens in a great pale wash. The crescent of the moon climbed above the horizon: a sliver of light that could hide behind the fingernail of my pinky. And it was dark. A pale glow came from the sky, from the stars and moon, but otherwise there was nothing. No lamps or fires visible, just dark and darkness. Meadows and open spaces were vague stretches of faint luminescence under the sky, trees and woods were swatches of impenetrable blackness.
Keitaro was reduced to fumbling his way across ground he couldn't see, stumbling over stones and roots and fallen branches. And it was getting colder.
Shivering and mostly blind Keitaro hunted for shelter. Crawling under a low tree, he broke and tore leafy branches and laid them out in a makeshift mattress. It poked and scratched and the leaves leaked sap, but it was insulation against the cold ground. Not much, but a bit.
Keitaro huddled and shivered and felt bugs biting and yearned for a warm bed, tasting a banquet of hot meals in his mind, and began to wonder weather escaping was such the brilliant idea it had first been. Some time later on the howl of a wolf rose in the distance. The howl that answered it was a lot closer.
Keitaro really didn't get a lot of sleep.
***
Somewhere in the broad, empty reaches of the ocean, not far off the coast of Japan, a long, lean shark shape drew very near the surface of the sea. But it was vaster than any shark, vaster than any whale – and neither sharks nor whales evolved with conning towers on their backs.
This conning tower never broke the surface. No satellite, no airplane that chanced to be peering down on that particular stretch of sea, could have found a name or nation to attach to the submarine. All cats are grey in the dark. All submarines look very much alike, seen underwater from above.
A radio mast rose. Ever so briefly, it ploughed a tiny white wake in warm, blue-green water. Then it slid down again, down into silence, down into anonymity. The submarine dove deep.
***
Keitaro don't think he'd ever been so glad to see a dawn before.
Birdsong greeted the brightening of the sky. A mackerel sky glowed pink as the sun stroked the high clouds from beyond the horizon, lower formations still grey shadow. Keitaro moved to rub his face and groaned: he was stiff and sore and covered in dew and freezing. There was nothing for him there, so as soon as he could see he started off again, limping and hobbling at first as he forced protesting muscles to just perform the simple act of walking.
When the sun rose high enough for him to get some direct sunlight that was pure bliss. In that moment he could see why so many human cultures had worshipped the sun. The warmth, the light, the sheer feeling of relief after the chill and fear of the night... that was something you have to experience to understand. That was also a moment that helped solidify his belief that those back-to-nature fanatics were a bunch of blithering cretins who should try experiencing real nature for a while.
Keitaro was getting more than his fill of it.
For another day he walked. Through bush and scrub, pushing through the tangles of trees and undergrowth that clustered into woods and forests, across broad hillside meadows alive with grass and spectacular wildflowers and darting insects. Keitaro saw deer down at the river's edge, cropping placidly at water plants.
And his stomach reminded him it could do with some food.
He found berries of several kinds. Most of them were so bitter when he carefully tested them on his tongue that he had to spit them out. Keitaro did find some berries that were palatable, but only a small handful. They weren't very filling. Finding more would mean spending time and energy hunting them down. He could spend hours covering just a small area looking. There were mushrooms that he broke apart and touched a bit to his tongue, and then spat at the bitter taste. He decided to press on, hoping He'd find more edibles enroute.
As the day went on Keitaro moved further downstream. If there'd been a road or a track it'd have been easy going. Pushing through the undergrowth both slowed him down and scratched the hell out of his face. The only consolation was that if it was that tough for him, it'd be just as hard for his pursuers. In vehicles, they couldn't get through that sort of undergrowth and on foot they couldn't keep up the pace he could.
But they probably had food.
He kept going, following that river.
Midday came and went. The sun wasn't as harsh as it'd been the previous day. In fact, Keitaro realized the clouds were building up. The wind was blowing in from the south, the patches of blue in the sky growing fewer and fewer as clouds scudded by overhead. Every so often the sun was lost behind cloud, the world suddenly becoming cooler. The storm that he'd left behind was catching up with him. That wasn't such a concern: Keitaro was getting enough exercise to keep himself quite warm.
As the hours went by the wind died and when it picked up again it'd changed direction, turning into a brisk and cool westerly. Trees rocked back and forth, their massed movements sounding like surf on a shingle beach. The cloud cover got heavier, turning the afternoon gloomy. It looked like rain might be lurking around, but it was only when Keitaro crested a hill that gave him a view that he cursed out loud.
To the west and north the horizons were black with towering thunderheads.
Perfect.
Keitaro tried to make better time, but didn't hold much hope. He didn't know where he was going, so hurrying just meant he was going nowhere faster. He just tried to pick up the pace. More hours and scenery passed while he watched the world change with a sort of resigned fascination. As the clouds built up, churning across the landscape like dark ink in water, the air changed, the wind bringing that scent of rain. Late afternoon light washed over forests and met the banks of clouds to produce glorious and unnatural colours. Purple haze shrouded the horizon; patches of sun-gold grasses turned incandescent as spears of light reached through gaps in the bruise-coloured thunderheads that banked and built, roiling in incredibly slow motion. Not really slow, just on a monumental scale. Slanting columns of darkness connected the clouds to the land, following them along. In those columns and clouds along the horizon were flickers of light. Not regular, but like staccato flashbulbs under the bulk of the growing storm.
It was going to be a bad one.
Sunlight was waxing and waning as clouds built. Gloom was interrupted by sparse moments of golden light as the building storm shifted restlessly, the setting sun finding fewer and fewer chinks in the overcast. Keitaro realized it was going to get dark prematurely that evening as he crossed a small meadow, aiming for a dense-looking forest where he might have been able to find some sort of shelter. Then, in the middle of a field, he paused. He thought he'd seen something, to the south against the black of the storm. There was something there: a small grey pillar rising up from the trees against the oncoming wall of rain and thunder. It looked like… it couldn't be.
Keitaro swore it was. That was why he went northeast. Thunderheads were spilling overhead, backlit by the setting sun. In the deepening gloom lighting strobed amongst the hills, then thunder grumbled. The haze below the clouds marched toward him, but the outriders of the storm were already there. Fat raindrops pattered against dusty ground, against grass and leaves.
Keitaro sighed, and then set off in the direction of the smoke, slowly raising form the tree tops. As the sunset on his second day of freedom, the storm broke.
The clouds closed in like a lid dropped over the world. He couldn't see a damn thing. Rain hammered down out of the darkness in sheet after sheet. It poured off leaves and branches. It gathered in rivulets that merged and turned into small streams crisscrossing the ground. Gusts of wind drove the rain almost horizontally at times, nearly solid walls of water hailing in from the gloom. The indistinct shapes of trees bowed to and fro, shaking with the wind. Every so often a lightning strike would fill the world with a flare of light that froze flash-frames of wind-whipped trees and left afterimages floating in his vision for seconds afterwards. Thunder rumbled with an intensity Keitaro could feel.
Keitaro groped on through the darkness, slipping on mud and grass that seemed as slick as oil. Water ran in streams through his hair, down his face, and fogged up his glasses. That downpour was nothing like some warm spring shower, rather it was a deluge that felt ice cold. Keitaro held his backpack up before him, not in a futile attempt to stay dry, but just to try and block the barrage of condensing atmosphere droplets the size of peas that came in like bullets out of the dark, bursting across his face.
Ground that'd been dusty dry that morning turned to cold viscous ooze that that constantly threatened to make his shoes slip out from under him. In that storm, in the wind and rain and darkness Keitaro could have stumbled past an entire town and missed it completely. Shivering and shaking, he just kept moving in the same direction, the direction the smoke was coming from.
When he ran into the log blocking his path he first thought it was a fallen tree. When he tried to go around Keitaro found it was attached to a post and there was another, then another. They were just rows of crudely cut rails stacked atop one another, but there wasn't much doubt it was a fence. Beyond… He squinted into the teeth of the storm and could make out the shapes of cows materialized from the sleeting rain. A clanking of cattle bells was audible over the noise of wind and rustling trees as the animals shied away from me. A farm. It was a farm. That meant food, warmth, and shelter.
With a renewed sense of purpose Keitaro followed the fence.
It wasn't too far. He found a corner of the fence and a crude gate. The ground there was churned by milling animal hooves, the rain pooling and turning it to sludge. Through sheets of rain a faint light shone.
There was a farmhouse. A small two-story building and through the cracks in a shuttered window a light glowed: just a small lamp or candle.
Out in the storm Keitaro stared at it and dripped and shivered and yearned.
Yes, there'd be food, there'd be shelter, but there'd also be women.
Standing there in the pouring rain, Keitaro began to wounder weather this was such a good idea. Lightning flashed, rippling across the sky. Suppose the soldiers had been here? Suppose they thought they could turn him in? Or, more likely, they'd keep him for themselves.
So he stared longingly at the light in the window, weighing his choices. No, he'd come too far to risk it.
There was a barn. It reminded Keitaro of those hey loft barns he'd seen in movie from the US about a family trying to survive the depression of the 1930's, but it was a relief just to get out of the driving storm. So, ducking his head down, ran across to the barn, and struggled to open it's big, double wooden doors.
Inside, it was divided into four stalls with a hayloft. Rain drummed on the roof and dribbled through cracks and holes to patter on the dirt floor. A pair of horses in the right hand stalls grunted and shifted uneasily when he entered, milling and moving away from him. The left-hand-most stall was filled with hay: animal feed or roofing material or something.
A few hours. Just a few hours out of rain and wind, and then he'd move on. That's what Keitaro told himself as he climbed the ladder to the hayloft. Once up there, he moved into the far back, laid the pack aside and collapsed onto the hay. The straw itched, it jabbed and scratched at his face, but after what he'd been through Keitaro hardly noticed. It was soft, and after he'd half-burrowed into it, it kept the wind off and actually started to feel warm. A flash of lightning lit the sky outside, stripes of light glaring through the cracks between the ill-fitting planks in the walls.
Hiding from the law in a hayloft barn. That's where bandits, and Wild West outlaws went to die. Keitaro thought back to those old western movies and while he huddled there the night sky was lit in another flash, just for a split second, and that was the last Keitaro remembered of that night.
MEANWHILE: IN A DISTANT SKY…
As night time settled over a different part of the Asian continent, the local wildlife settled in for their long sleep. The few nocturnal animals were starting to emerge from their hiding places, and began to hunt and scavenge for food, that would last them through to the next day.
The peaceful night air is now alive with the sound of crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and owls hooting.
A single buzzing noise suddenly begins to rise over the sound of all the other racket of the night. Low and unimportant at first, but it get inexorably louder.
As the buzzing sound begins to drown out the normal noises of the night, a black shape begins to register against the almost dark black starry sky. In the glow of the moonlight, a twin piston engine cargo plane flies low over the landscape, in the direction of Japan.
It zooms in low, and flies off, leaving the natural noises to once more, make themselves heard.
THE NEXT MORNING…
The first thing Keitaro was aware of was the warm sensation of sunlight streaming through and spilling across his closed eyes. He sighed happily, and rolled over, dragging some sheets with him.
He snuggled into the pillow, and wrapped the sheets around him as he let himself sink into the soft mattress.
Soft mattress!?!
His eyes shot open fast than spinning slots. He saw a small bedside table with a pot plant on it. He blinked a few more times, before shooting upright.
He was no longer in the hayloft, but in a bed, in a room… inside a house.
"Well, hello there." Keitaro froze, then his head slowly turned to the left, from where the voice had come from. It was a young girl, perhaps just a little older than he was with light brown hair, that was very short, much like Kitsune's. She wore a long sleaved shirt with blue denim jeans, and small woollen slippers.
"W-who are you!?" He stammered out. "Where am I, and how the hell did I get here!?!"
"Whoa," she said, holding out an arm, as if to comfort him, "Slow down, there, Keitaro."
"Hey, how did you know my name?" She reached into her pocket, and placed a small book on another bedside table.
"It was on your prep book ID"
"Oh," Keitaro said, taking it and sliding it into his pocket. However, he didn't have any pockets. He wasn't even wearing his jeans. "Waauugghh!!" He cried out, as he realised his jeans weren't the only thing that was missing. "What did you do with my underpants!?!"
"They were wet and beginning to smell, Keitaro," she replied, blushing, and turning away slightly. "I hope you don't mind, but I put them in the wash."
"Uhh, thanks, I think," Keitaro replied, scratching his head. "Hey, how did I end up here?"
"You must've fallen asleep in our barn," the woman said, "I found you up there early this morning, you were out like a light."
"Barn?" Keitaro muttered. Then, he remembered everything. "Oh yeah, that's right. I hope you don't mind."
"I don't," she said with a smile, and moved her chair closer to him. "In fact, I'm really glad you came, Keitaro."
"Oh, r-really?" Keitaro swallowed the lump in his throat, and then asked, "And can I ask who you are?"
"Heh," she giggled, and blushed again. "I'm Liu Han."
"Nice to meet you, Ms. Han," Keitaro said nervously.
Liu giggled. "It's alright, Keitaro," she said, patting his closest leg through the sheets, "I'm not going to bit."
"It's not the bitting I'm worried about," Keitaro said, inching some more away from her, "It's… something else."
"Oh, trust me, Keitaro," Liu replied, "I'm not that kind of girl."
"I know," Keitaro muttered, "It's just that…" The words Haruka had told him began to play through his mind.
"Don't trust anybody you don't already know."
"I'm not sure…" Keitaro paused in mid sentence. Would it be wise telling this girl that he didn't trust her? What if he upset her? Offended her? She was being nice to him, but was it just to lull him into a false sense of security, in order for something much more nastier?
"Not sure about what?" She asked with a warm smile, "Not sure about weather you can trust me?"
"No! NO! That's not w-what I mean!!!" Keitaro franticly waved his arms about trying to dissolve that meaning. "I, I just…! Ugh!" He sagged as a sweat droplet rolled down his head. "It's true, Ms. Han," he moaned, "It was the last thing my Aunt told me before I left. Don't trust anybody I don't know."
"Well, Keitaro," she said, reaching out and taking hold of his hand, "She's not here, is she." She began rubbing her thumb over his hand, causing Keitaro to calm down. "And if you're worried about me turning you over to the soldiers, you needn't worry about that."
"Huh?" Keitaro was surprised. "How do you know about that?"
"They were here about three days ago, looking for you. We were promised a huge reward if I reported your whereabouts to them."
"Oh," Keitaro said, and suddenly said, "We?"
"Oh, I live here with my grandmother," she said looking at the door. "She's downstairs, making you some breakfast. It should be ready very soon."
*Wow,* Keitaro thought to himself, *She's such a nice girl, and so kind to strangers. I wish…*
"Oh my God," Keitaro suddenly cried out, "Naru!!"
"Huh?" Liu said, a worried expression on her face. "Who's Naru?"
"A… girl, I was looking for," Keitaro muttered, shaking his head. "It was the whole reason I started out from my home, to find her." He drew up his legs, and let his head rest on his knees. "I went to Kyoto, to find her. It was the only place I knew where to look. But the soldiers somehow knew I would be there. They were waiting for me, and ambushed me, before I could find out where she was."
Liu simply nodded, her face was expressionless.
"And now, I can't go back, for they'll be watching her house like a hawk now, and I'll never find her."
"It's okay, Keitaro, really," Liu said in a soothing voice, as she patted his shoulder. "I'm sure you'll find her. I bet there are other leads for you to go on."
"You think so?" He asked, lifting his head a little.
"Of cause," she said, "But you can't go out right away and start looking, I mean, the soldiers are still prowling the country side, and you've been running around in wet clothes in a storm. I think you should rest a few days before starting out."
"Gee, thankyou Ms. Han," Keitaro said with a smile.
"Please, Keitaro," she said, cupping her hands around his closest hand, "Call me Liu."
"Thankyou, Liu," he said.
"Now, why don't you rest here, and I'll go and see if your breakfast is ready yet?" She pushed his head back, pushing him back down onto the bed.
"Okay, Liu," he said, as she covered him back up with the sheets. "You know, you really don't have to go through all this trouble just for me."
"Oh," Liu said blushing, "I… I'm just like my grandmother, always fussing over this and that. It's just the way I am. Now, you just rest up there, and I'll be back soon."
She then gently closed the door behind her, keeping her eyes on him until the door was closed. Once closed, her sweet features vanished, and her face twisted into a horrible scowl.
*Damn it,* she thought to herself. *He already has a girlfriend. Of all the rotten, in your face, luck. I finally find a man, a pretty cute one at that, and he's already taken.* A sly smile spread across her face, as she suckled evilly to herself. *Very well then, I guess I'm going to have to turn on all my best charms, and make Keitaro forget all about her. Buy the this time next week, he won't even remember her name, and he'll be all mine.*
She tiptoed down the stairs, giggling like a maniac.
***