Fushigi Yuugi: Mysterious Worlds
Chapter 3:
Korry Tria walked into the small Parathaian spaceship's common room with a frown. The short-haired blonde lady poured herself some coffee and took a sip; it was tepid. She frowned even more.
Thanion Thomasjohn was there, too, lounging around reading some of the recent infodisks. He took a big gulp of his coffee and called out to his colleague, "Hey, look at this, Korry! My brother's gone up in the polls."
"Great, just great," she said. "Than, you know that fan that our prisoner had? You know how I was wondering if it was some kind of weapon?"
"Yeah?"
"So I was doing some tests on it. Turns out it can be used as a weapon."
The tall, fair-haired man looked at her strangely. "How, by throwing it?" he said jokingly.
"No, actually, if I hadn't been there, you and Keane would've been fried."
"What do you mean, fried?"
Korry recounted her findings with utter seriousness. "The fan is somehow connected to the kid's brainwaves. Whenever he says a key phrase, it unlocks some kind of latent pyrokinetic power in him. Do you understand? That fan lets him control fire."
"A human flamethrower? Yikes," said Thanion, looking concerned. He took another sip of his coffee. "You said the Delani kid's pyrokinetic power is latent?"
"As far as I can tell, yes. He doesn't give off any of the signs of full operancy."
"But how is that possible? No one can access or control that kind of latent ability. Our scientists are barely starting to understand how the metapowers work in the first place. Are the Delanis so far ahead of us?" Now, Thanion looked really worried.
Korry shook her head. "All the investigations have shown that they're no farther advanced than we are. Not with the metapowers, anyway. Besides, if they really were that advanced, do you really think they'd waste the powers on some kid who doesn't even know standard procedures? I mean, he didn't even check the intersection when he passed it! He ran right past me!"
"And the Delanis wouldn't just give away the fact that they had such control. They'd wait until they could take us by surprise," realized Thanion, "and do us some major damage, instead of sending one clueless kid to save a doomed spaceship. Unless he's some kind of trap, a human bomb or something, that we're meant to take back to our scientists so he can kill them all."
"Already checked. He's clear; so's the fan. If they were going to blow up, they'd have done so already. The kid doesn't have any other metapowers, and the fan doesn't have any other tricks."
Thanion frowned, and drank the rest of his coffee. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"You know I am."
"Bloody hell." Thanion crushed his empty coffee cup with one hand and threw it clear across the room, where it landed directly in the trash disposal's receptacle. This was no mean feat; after all, the coffee cup had been ceramic. "It makes sense, though. I mean, he acted as if we had the Emperor stashed away somewhere, when everyone knows that no Parathaian task force has ever gotten closer than 500 klicks to Kemet City. But if he isn't from Raiver Delan, then who sent him? Our government has nothing like this in the works." He started to look angry. "Is there some third party that no one's told us about? Other than the aliens, I mean? How could there be another major player that no one's heard from yet?"
Suddenly a dark-skinned man, Keane Parnell, appeared in the doorway. "Captain speaking," he said. "Dess patched me into your whole conversation. Scary stuff. Just who is this kid we picked up?"
A strange disembodied voice seemed to float down from above. "He can't be working alone. That fan would have needed some serious technology in order to be created, hey. Whoever's backing him is definitely major; it's just that we have no idea who they are. I've been sending everything we know directly to Padarath City, test results and everything; maybe they have some kind of clue about where he might have come from."
"Good idea, Dess," said the Captain. "I think we're in over our heads here." Korry and Thanion nodded agreement.
The next few minutes were very stressful as the Parathaians waited for word from Padarath City. Finally Dess spoke up. "I just got the reply. They agreed with our interpretation and they launched a full-scale investigation. People, they found nothing in the databanks about anything like what we've got here. As far as they know, there are no other groups on this planet that have the resources to accomplish this. So there are only three possible explanations."
Keane nodded. "Either the aliens are more advanced and a lot closer to infiltrating us than we thought, or he was sent, somehow, by the Moon."
"Or the government of Parathay has no idea what's going on in the world around it, and we're basically screwed," finished Korry.
Thanion scowled. "None of those options are particularly reassuring, guys."
"There's another thing," said Dess. "Keane, this basically concerns you. Padarath City wants as much info as they can get, as fast as they can get it. They can't wait until we get this guy back to them for a full interrogation, so they want you to question him now. You're the next best thing to a team of interrogators, hey."
Keane didn't look pleased. "Great," he said. "Just great."
"I've started to wake him up already," announced Dess. "Give him a few minutes before coming down to his room, Keane; give yourself a few minutes."
"Thanks," Keane replied, trying to be polite. He sat down on one of the common room chairs with a sour expression on his face, mentally preparing himself for the questioning he'd have to do. Korry felt sorry for him. She wondered how hard it had been for him, growing up with his particular talent. It must have been awful, having all kinds of scientists wanting to test him and experiment on him as his powers developed. Though she was a little envious of his abilities, she was happy enough with her own special talents, and she at least hadn't had to go through that kind of hell as she grew up.
Keane rested his head in his hands. Finally, he couldn't put it off any longer, and got up. "Guess I'm ready now," he said reluctantly. He strode off down a corridor towards the room where their prisoner waited. Korry and Thanion watched their Captain depart the common room, and silently wished him well.
Tasuki remembered the last time he had woken up in unfamiliar circumstances; then, his head had hurt. This time, both his head and his neck hurt. He lay still with both his eyes shut for a long time, hoping that something at least would stop hurting.
He couldn't stand waiting any longer, so he opened his eyes. He was forced to shut them immediately afterwards, as the brilliant white light that filled the room seemed to stab directly into his brain. But it wasn't long before he opened them again.
Tasuki couldn't keep himself from staring once his eyes got used to the light. He was lying on a small bed, on top of soft sheets. The bed was in a small cubic room a very small room, that didn't extend much more than two paces beyond the bed. There were a few shelves, completely empty, carved into the opposite wall. And there were no doors.
The red-haired bandit sat up a little too quickly and winced. He looked around the whole room; there were no exits. There was no way out. He stood, and tried to search the room, but all the walls were absolutely seamless, and were made of no material he had ever encountered before. It was white, and cool to the touch, a little like porcelain. But who would ever build a room out of porcelain? Tasuki thought. Just in case it was made of fragile porcelain, he tried to punch a hole through one wall, but only succeeded in hurting his hand.
Completely at a loss, he sat down on the bed again. "What kind of room has no doors?" he muttered hopelessly. "And is full of light, with no lamps or windows anywhere?" Even the air smelled strange and flat, as if it was stale. Surrounded by strangeness, with nothing familiar around him, Tasuki almost felt like crying.
Where are Chichiri and Boushin? he wondered suddenly. Was Chichiri caught, too? Or did he get away in time? Is Boushin in a room just like this one, all alone and scared? Is he wondering why we never came for him?
Tasuki vowed, with new determination in his heart, that he would do everything in his power to free the young Emperor from the people who had kidnapped him. He propelled himself to his feet, ready to begin searching anew for anything he could possibly have missed.
And then, one of the walls disappeared, the one by the foot of the bed. Tasuki stopped moving utterly and stared, absolutely flabbergasted. Beyond where the wall had been, a man in a black uniform stood. He had fairly dark skin and closely cropped black hair. Tasuki thought he recognized him from before, from the metal corridor where he had gone in search of Boushin.
"Who are you?" asked the uniformed man abruptly. In response, Tasuki charged forward in fury. He smacked headfirst into an invisible barrier and reeled backwards, stunned.
The wall's not gone, it's just see-through, he realized a little too late, rubbing his bruised nose.
Beyond the wall, the uniformed man rolled his eyes. "Who are you?" he repeated, sounding annoyed. "Who sent you here?"
Tasuki replied with a question of his own. "Where's the Emperor?" he snarled. "You said you knew where he was!"
The man just repeated forcefully, "Who are you?" He sounded even more annoyed.
Tasuki furiously issued an ultimatum. "I won't tell you anything until you tell me where he is!"
The dark-skinned man frowned. "The Emperor is in Kemet City, right where he's always been."
"Where he's always... What the hell do you mean?" Tasuki asked, shocked.
"The Emperor Covenant of Raiver Delan is in his capital city, Kemet, where he's been for the past forty years."
"But... but... What about Emperor Boushin of Konan Country?" Tasuki asked numbly. "A little boy? With a bucket hat? You don't know where he is?"
At this, the uniformed man flinched, and started speaking rapidly to an unseen person. Tasuki couldn't hear a word of what he was saying. The red-haired bandit didn't care, though. He sat back down on the bed, in complete and utter despair.
Beyond the wall, which had suddenly become a soundproof barrier, Keane was speaking furiously. "Konan Country. Any mention of that in the records? Try the older records. Maybe it's the old name of some place in Raiver Delan. Lots of old settlements there, they must have changed names sometimes. And the reference to hats - that might have some relevance to "
"Keane," Dess's disembodied voice interrupted, "I know how to do my job. Now you get back to him and continue yours."
Keane shook his head as if to clear it. He said, "Sorry," with a sheepish expression on his face. "I just got a blast of total despair from him. Wasn't prepared for that. Strong emotions do strange things to me, that's all." He toggled the sound back on, and continued with the interrogation.
"Now tell me. Who are you?"
Tasuki sat dejectedly on the bed. If they don't have Boushin after all... he thought. He had a mental picture of the little Emperor, running lost through shadowed corridors, alone and scared. Maybe Chichiri found him, the redhead thought, with a glimmer of hope. Maybe they're both safe, and wondering where I am. He certainly hoped so. Unless Chichiri was caught, too...
He looked up slowly, and asked the uniformed man, "Did you get Chichiri too? He's a monk, has blue hair..."
Keane knew because of his Talent that the redhead wouldn't tell him a thing unless he answered. This kid's force of will is incredible, he thought, impressed. He said simply and truthfully, "We found no one else." The kid seemed to brighten up at this news, and stopped projecting despair. Keane continued the questioning, as he sensed that now he might get some answers.
"Who are you?" he asked again. This time, there was an answer.
"I'm Tasuki."
Keane frowned. He sensed that he wasn't being told the whole truth. "That's not your real name," he said.
The redhead projected shock. He recovered and replied, "It's who I am."
"Not good enough. Give me your real name."
The kid stared at Keane incredulously. The uniformed Captain could sense that he was confused and angry, and was probably just starting to deal with the shock of his strange situation. Keane didn't think that knowing the kid's real name would help the Parathaians' cause at all, but if he backed down on this issue, he'd never get the kid to answer anything important at all.
Suddenly the redhead burst out in anger, "Why the hell should I tell you anything?" He sprang up from his position on the bed, radiating fury in all directions, and went up to the invisible wall. "What'll you do to me if I don't talk?" he snapped. Keane just stood there silently. He wished that they could have drugged the kid to get him to cooperate, but drugs screw up peoples' emotional states, and Keane wouldn't have been able to get any accurate readings.
The kid pressed his fists against the invisible wall, as if trying to push it over. With an angry expression on his face, he said, "Who are you? What do you want from me?"
Keane finally said with the force of authority, "Listen. If you don't tell me everything I want to know now, we'll be forced to bring you home for a full interrogation, where you will tell the interrogators everything they ask, as well as absolutely everything else you know. The experience will not be pleasant. Do you want to cooperate with me now, or have the knowledge ripped out of you later?" He was reasonably certain that the threat implied by his statement would make the redheaded kid think twice about defying him. He could sense the kid's developing confusion, indecisiveness, and even fear.
Keane thought, Now let's give him a good reason to cooperate, then said, "And besides, the sooner you answer my questions, the sooner we'll be able to help you." This only deepened the redhead's confusion.
Keane continued speaking. "Look, you want to find your friend, Chichiri, is that his name? As well as your Emperor. The sooner you tell me everything I want to know, the sooner we can think about trying to find them. Does that sound reasonable to you?"
In response to this, the redhead lowered his fists, and slowly sat back down on the bed. "My real name, it's Kou Shun'u," he said tiredly, "but people call me Tasuki."
"There's more," said Keane.
"Or Genrou," the redhead added reluctantly.
Keane smiled. Finally, the whole truth, he thought. Now I can really get started. He asked, "Who sent you here?"
Tasuki's truthful response took Keane by surprise. "No one. Well, maybe the book. Or you could say Boushin, I mean the Emperor, did it, but it wasn't his fault."
"Explain yourself. What book? How?"
The redhead sighed, and started telling his tale. "We Chichiri, the Emperor, and I were in Konan's Great Library, and we found a book..."
Thanion and Korry, having effectively nothing else to do, had stayed in the common room. Dess had kept the intercom open, and they had heard every word that had passed between their Captain and the red-haired prisoner. Dess had also relayed the long conversation, and Keane's final statements, to Padarath City.
Keane walked into the common room. He looked absolutely worn out. He flopped into the first chair he came to. Thanion silently handed him a fresh coffee; Keane just held it as he stared off into space.
Dess was the first to break the silence. "Three and a half hours until we enter Parathaian airspace, hey. Soon we can just hand him over to someone else, and then he'll be their problem."
Korry shook her head slowly. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable," she muttered. "That whole story, about the Mikos and the Seishi..."
"Demons and dragons and all kinds of magic," said Thanion. "Divine powers, divine beasts... It's like a fantasy novel or something."
"And every bloody word," said Keane, slowly and with total certainty, "was absolutely, utterly true."
Dess interjected sourly, "At least, he thought so. Maybe he had a memory implant or something; false memories show up as truth if the person thinks they really happened, don't they?"
Keane replied in a tired voice, "I dissected his story to the best of my ability. Everything scanned. Everything fit logically. False memories never quite fit logically. He was telling the truth, Dess."
"But it can't be the truth! It's absolutely impossible. Magic doesn't exist, hey. There's no such thing as dragons or divine whatevers, and wishes never come true."
"Not in this world," Thanion said quietly.
Dess continued, not having heard Thanion's statement. "I mean, there's got to be another explanation. A logical explanation. The truthful explanation. This can't be real."
"All you have to do," said Korry, "is accept the impossible. You have to accept that somewhere out there, there's another world where magic exists and wishes can come true. Then, his whole story is logical, sensible, and believable."
"But the impossible is still the impossible!" exclaimed Dess. "There has to be another explanation."
"I'm not saying there isn't one," replied Korry. "It's just that this story explains everything. It could be real, but there could be another, better explanation, that's all."
Keane sighed. "I wonder how the government types back in Padarath City are taking this. They ask for a simple interrogation of a prisoner of war, and get a fairy tale instead." He started drinking his coffee. "It was going fairly well until he mentioned that Miaka character. I mean, the first part, about the Great Library and the strange book with the alien on the cover, it was marginally believable, but after I asked him about Miaka..."
Thanion sat silently, staring into space as if he were thinking hard about something. He didn't move at all.
Korry added, "Remember when he finally realized we'd taken his fan away?"
Keane winced. "Please don't remind me; that was painful. I've never felt such rage before. It took me ten awful minutes just to calm him down again."
"I'm starting to get the first replies from Padarath City," announced Dess suddenly. "They don't know what to think. But mainly, they're saying that if you think it's the truth, Keane, they're at least willing to accept the possibility that it really is. At least, that's what most of the communications say. The rest think you've finally gone nuts."
"Wonderful. Just wonderful," said Keane sarcastically.
Another long, awkward silence began. Coffee was drunk quietly, and all four Parathaians aboard the small spacecraft seemed lost in thought. Then Thanion spoke up. "I was just wondering..." His voice trailed off into silence.
"Wondering about what, Than?" asked Korry.
"Nothing, forget it," he said. "It was a silly thought anyway."
"No, really," said Dess. "If you have something to say, then go ahead. It's not as if anyone else is providing sparkling conversation around here, hey."
"Well..." started Thanion. "Do you remember that old legend?"
"The one about the Champion of Parathay?" asked Korry.
"Yeah, the one that says a Champion from another world will save Parathay in its time of greatest need, with the help of a team of fighters with great powers."
"What about it?" asked Keane.
"Well, have any of you ever thought that it could possibly apply to us?"
Absolute silence reigned supreme.
Dess spoke up first. "Okay, Keane may be a little nuts, but Thanion, you're just bonkers. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard."
"Us, the legendary warriors?" stated Korry. "I don't think so."
"Aren't you jumping to conclusions, Than?" asked Keane.
"No, no, I mean it," said the tall blond man earnestly. "I've been thinking, and if what that Tasuki guy said is really true, then he must come from another world, right? Just like in the legend. And we all have, well, powers. That's why we work together, right? We've all got some special talent or something, that sets us apart. Korry's gymnastics stuff, my resonance shattering, Keane's telempathy, and Dess... well, that's obvious. Controlling an entire ship with your mind alone sure sounds like a great power to me. And there's no denying that this is Parathay's time of greatest need, what with the Delanis getting bolder every day, and those blasted aliens attacking all the time."
Korry looked very thoughtful. "So I guess that brings us to four, then."
"Four what?" asked Dess.
"Four possible explanations for this whole situation. An alien plot, or interference from the moon, or a screwed-up government, or an ancient legend finally coming true."
"You actually believe Than?" Dess said incredulously.
"We shouldn't rule anything out, not yet," said Korry. "As far as we know, he could be right."
"Keane?" asked Dess. "What do you think?"
The Captain frowned. "I'm not sure. But it's definitely a possibility. A remote one, but still potentially valid."
"I give up," said Dess in disgust. "You're all nuts. I'm just going to go and steer the ship now, okay? Call me when this epidemic of temporary insanity is cured, hey."
The three people in the common room sat still and silent for a long while. As their small spaceship hurtled through the starry void, towards their home planet that they shared with their Delani enemies, they wondered if maybe, just maybe, Thanion's idea was the truth; if Tasuki, a red-haired kid with an incredible story, was really the Champion who would save their beloved nation of Parathay, and if they were the chosen Team that would fight by his side.
