Episode 22: Restart (Machine)
Three. Eleven. Seven. Nine. Six.
Over and over again, Monica rolled the pair of purple dice restlessly across the cabin floor, noting the resultant sums without much interest. All around her, the Celestials bunched together, uncertain what to do in the face of the large barricade of men and weaponry set up on the outside dock. Since the arrival of reinforcements, the attackers had called a cease-fire of sorts as they conversed in frantic tones amongst each other. Until they decided what to do, Monica planned on waiting the scene out. But if they fired...she would fire.
Two. Twelve. Eight. Five. Seven.
"What are they doing?" one Celestial finally asked.
"I don't know."
"The ocean is restless. Something is amiss." Frowning, the other Celestials closed their eyes and tried to connect with whatever their companion had sensed. Then, as one, they reeled.
"The high-end system has been shut down!"
"Who could possibly...?"
"I recognize that pattern. It is Nona."
Three. Four. Clatter. The dice fell uncounted from her fingers. "Nona?" she asked. "Isn't that Daisuke's mom?"
They nodded. She snorted. "Jeez...can't trust anybody these days." Risking a glance outside through the cabin porthole, she watched as the lights all over the city flicked off. Seeing the city go dark like that made her shiver. She couldn't imagine a life without power, a life without lights. And Judoh had nearly met that same fate a year ago? How scary. But on the bright side, this unforeseen disaster would probably distract whoever was waiting outside to kill them...
The men running around, sure enough, looked up in fear at the darkened skyline. Instantly hands pulled out phones, numbers were dialed, friends supposedly were contacted for information about the electricity failure. Then, as one, they removed the devices from against their ears and frowned. None of their phones worked either? Monica wondered.
The Celestials staggered collectively again, and Monica sighed. "What now?"
"The new blood tanks!"
"Why have they been opened?"
"You can tell?" she asked incredulously.
They shot her a glance which plainly expressed their surprise at her inanity. "Of course," one replied, a bit befuddled. "New blood calls to new blood. Great quantities flowing forth...we feel it coursing through us, as well. You humans really are simple."
"Well, excuse me!" she huffed; outside, the men in the blockade seemed to have reached a consensus and drew their weapons. Monica swore so ferociously that even some of the Celestials, ignorant of the meaning of the terms and the innate wrongness of such vulgarities when placed in a small girl's mouth, stepped back in shock anyway. Then, as the first bullets pinged against the sides of the boat, they began to hold an impromptu conference of their own.
"But we must close the tanks!"
"Could they have caused the power failure?"
"The new blood is flowing through the water refinery!"
"But that's...we must stop that!" One of the Celestials approached Monica in a state that in a less dignified being she would have called 'panic.' "This ship...it can still move, can it not?"
"The others are waiting for us here," she pointed out flatly. "We have a gun. We're fine."
"But the ship still runs?"
"Yes, of course it runs!" she snapped. "We wouldn't be hiding out in a broken boat! We came in the thing only a couple of days ago! What is your point??"
But some of the Celestials had already left the cabin, and the first few major explosions rocked the side of the yacht: somebody with Red Tabs had shown up. Grenades and worse would likely be next. They weren't concerned with forcing Monica and her companions into the open anymore. They'd decided to just sink the entire vessel.
As the girl pondered these unpleasant truths, the boat revved unexpectedly, knocking Monica clear off her feet and sending the dice skittering across the floor. The Celestials bore the turbulence stoically, faces unusually stern for such a flighty bunch. Daisuke hadn't described the ones he'd met as being quite so dippy, Monica groused to herself. It figured she'd get stuck with the dregs of the species.
Tearing through the waves at the speed for which it had been chosen by the rescue team, the battered but still fully functional Vita yacht soon approached the larger Celestial one, now located just outside a large factoryesque building near the shore. Huge tubes connected the sitting ship to the water plant. The Celestials muttered and frowned and shook their heads in disapproval: upon seeing the situation, their prospects seemed suddenly bleaker. Monica groaned too, but for quite a different reason. They'd escaped from the lawless only to run smack into the law. Police cars surrounded the entire area.
"To the approaching unidentified vehicle," someone on shore hollered into a bullhorn. "Please stop your boat. I repeat, in the name of the law, stop your..."
The yacht stopped. Monica let out another agitated groan and scooped up the fallen dice, tucking them into the purse around her neck. So this was it. In the middle of a conflict she barely understood, after days of running around and thousands of unforeseen complications, she was going to be picked up for another attempt at boarding the Celestial vessel and tried as an illegal alien. Most likely, she would get into even more trouble for associating with the Celestials themselves. She didn't trust her guests to tell the story cohesively.
Dragging her small body up the short flight of stairs to the deck, she stopped at the door. All seventeen Celestials stood on deck, radiating power and authority; the police squad on shore stared up in awe and terror. Some fell to their knees. "F-forgive us..." one stammered. "You are unhurt?"
"We are." One Celestial stepped forward to act as spokesman. "But the true difficulty lies there, on board our ship."
"We dared not see what you were doing to the plant—we saw some of your kind and thought this was sanctioned—what is going on?" She saw a new kind of fear settle onto the officers below. "What's going to happen to us?"
"We must board and discover what has occurred. From there we will take the appropriate action. Withdraw. This is our difficulty, not yours. But..." The Celestial's shoulders sagged. "Remain standing by for further instruction."
"Y-yes, sir. I mean Lord. I mean Master. I mean--"
"Please, depart."
"Of course!"
One of the Celestials closest to where Monica stood turned to her as a small group linked hands, closed their eyes. "We shall return shortly."
She stared unabashed up at the tall man, flung her words almost like a challenge. "I'm going with you."
"There is no reason for you to..."
She pointed. One of the large windows on the vessel, while too high up to look into properly, had shattered. "J did that. That's his style." There was no doubt in her voice.
"We cannot take you." As if to prove his point, the group behind him vanished. "Most of us cannot even travel by the new blood as it is, and definitely not with a passenger."
But—but—Monica couldn't even think straight for frustration. She could very clearly remember a time, not so long ago, when she had sat in the East Wind and listened to a radio report, which in turn sparked a very ambitious but nonetheless clear-cut plan. Where had that plan gone now?
Several tiny figures came into view on the deck of the Celestial ship; squinting, she recognized a pair. "Jeez!" she scolded Daisuke and Kyoko as they came out onto the deck of the Celestial vessel, flanked by Celestials carrying the inert bodies of Nona, Shun, Giovanni, and Clair. "What did you people do?"
o0o0o0o0o0o
The cluster of white-robed figures lifted their amulets high in the darkened room; before them, the golden dynamos slowly glowed and began again, restoring light to their surroundings. Already the cables had been removed, the new blood tanks closed off once more. When next the citizens of Magnagalia turned on their faucets and showers, everyday water would pour forth. All had very simply, very cleanly been made well again.
Yet even the blindly optimistic group had to concede that some difficulties needed to be confronted. Though they still could not quite grasp, nor desired to grasp, the full implications and motives behind the aggressor's actions, they could not and would not ignore their duty to the people affected. The new blood was their prize, their blessing, and they had a responsibility to those who had been unwittingly sainted. Though it might take weeks or even months to comb the society and find all those who might need assistance acclimating, they would serve the people the way their original leader had intended. Her son was a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime freak accident. But the evil had been wiped clean and the fluke smoothed back into the shadows.
Once more, the city was safe.
o0o0o0o0o0o
Sitting on the deck of the Vita yacht, the winds of travel whipping back her frazzled blue hair, Usagi tied the bandage tight around the diamond tattoos on her adoptive brother's arm. "I did not think you would be hit at all," she informed him, smiling shyly. "But I am glad the wound was minor. You should have let the Celestials look at it. They were able to heal Giovanni."
"I let myself be hit. I must bear the consequence. Usagi." Boma touched her cheek tenderly, though his holographic mask remained impassive as ever. "You are a Celestial as well. Are you certain you do not wish to go with them? We can still turn around and return."
"Some of the affected from Magnagalia are with them now. I do not wish to remember anything about that city." Her eyes glowed with genuine warmth. "I want to start again in Judoh. With you."
"You two are disgusting," Monica sneered on her way to the cabins, camera full of film just waiting to be developed held tightly in her hands. "Can you be any more sappy? Jeez!"
"She cannot help it. The beast master's imprinting instinct remains despite the Celestial disconnect," Boma pointed out, but his protest fell on deaf ears as the girl descended.
She passed Shun on the stairs, brief as they were. "Don't listen to the couple," she warned him as he emerged into the bright sunlight. "It's sick."
"Boma is like a brother to me," Usagi protested. "We are not a couple."
"That's what they all say, and it makes it sicker," Monica replied, her voice drifting up. Shun shook his head slightly and, crossing the deck, ducked into the captain's quarters.
"I lied to Daisuke earlier," he admitted, closing the door behind him to talk to J in private. "I told him we had destroyed the controller."
"I remember the event. I let the inaccuracy slide due to the emergency situation under which we were operating. Do you wish for it to be destroyed now?" J drew the small device out from his coat pocket.
"You'd give it back to me?" Shun asked, almost wryly. "After everything I've made you do with it?"
"A machine does not hold a grudge. That is a purely human instinct."
"That must be pleasant." Shun wandered over to the control panel for the yacht, watched the dials with absent disinterest. "Mother is spending most of her time with Daisuke."
"A lifetime of avoiding sad or troubling thoughts, coupled with particular stress in your presence due to both your and her past actions. Thus, her behavior is an understandable impulse on her part." J adjusted a knob. "Jealousy is also something only humans feel."
He did not respond to the implication or attempt to deny it; it was true, and he was tired of creating new truths for himself. "What's it like to not feel anything? Like a Celestial?" Shun adjusted his glasses. "What would it have been like for all of us if Leorza had succeeded?"
"That cannot be estimated. But the probability is very high that it would not, as he surmised, bring happiness to the entire planet. He himself was an example of why. For those in whom the new blood was weak, a great chance exists that they would have found themselves alone and, in their loneliness, vent through destruction or domination. The gullible citizens would fall easily." J frowned beneath his brimmed hat. "As for your first question, I cannot answer it. Machines do not know what feeling is like, and what cannot be comprehended cannot be analyzed."
"Hence why everyone who knows how to comprehend spends all their time running away." Shun accepted the control device from its puppet and tapped it on his palm thoughtfully. "We're not so different from the Celestials, are we? The normal humans?" Having this conversation with anyone else would have been absurd and embarrassing, but somehow he felt totally at ease conversing with J. Perhaps because he was a machine...because he could not take offense or suspect...but a world full of only machines would also be somehow empty.
"Some are not. But a real man faces the problems in his life head-on and takes them as they come, never letting them drag him down."
"I wonder that you've ever found someone you believe qualifies for your definition of manliness," Shun mused critically. "It seems almost unattainable."
"That is a fallacy. You yourself, Shun Aurora, are a real man." J turned the wheel slightly. "You have suffered, and you have fallen, but you are still standing. That is the true mark of a man."
Stunned, Shun backed to the door; there was nothing he could say after such a statement. "Thank—thank you, J." He had never bothered to thank the machine for anything before.
"A man also does not expect gratitude," replied the android, staring straight ahead. Then he turned his head as Shun left and smiled. "But, when it is offered, he is grateful in turn."
Shun shut the door and turned around; he could feel a smile spreading across his face, no matter how much he told himself not to be too pleased, that the compliment had no real sentiment behind it. He could not help it. For the first time in months, maybe even years, he was content.
"Heya, Bro. What's up?" Daisuke sauntered out of the kitchen, then noticed the device in Shun's hands and frowned. "I thought you..."
"J called me a man, Daisuke." He threw the device as far as he could and watched it splash down. It did not reappear.
"So the hair didn't fool him?" Daisuke grinned to show he knew what the older man had meant despite his jibe. "Congrats, Bro."
"Thank you." The brothers stood at the railing together, watching the sea. Slowly, hesitantly, Shun reached out to wrap his arm around Daisuke's shoulders. His hand touched down, and he breathed out slowly: why had he always thought such things so difficult? He could do this...really, he could. He could start again. People believed in him, and thus he could believe in himself. It would be hard, it would be strange, but he was resolved to really try this time.
Daisuke slung a returning arm around Shun wordlessly. Real men did not need words to express themselves.
o0o0o0o0o0o
Lying on the bed adjacent to the master bedroom, arms crossed underneath his head, Clair stared at the ceiling pensively. Feeling his lower lip with his tongue, he could tell the hole was already beginning to close from disuse. Most likely, he would have to get it re-pierced. What a pain.
He rolled onto his side and stared through the open doorway to where Giovanni lay resting on the large bed. Though the Celestials had managed, thanks to their ever-stressed "connection" to the natural world, to stem the flow of blood from the man's temple, the bodyguard was still weak from the blood lost and would need to be taken care of until he fully recuperated. Thus, the don found himself serving, and the servant became dependent on his master. Clair poured his energies into the task with zeal; it helped distract him from the new burden in the cargo hold, traveling to its already-prepared final resting place in an unmarked coffin.
He had tried without success to scratch the word "Vampire" into the wooden surface with a knife from the kitchen, but Nona had found him at the task and relieved him of the object with barely the "V" in place. He still didn't quite understand why she had insisted on joining them on their return trip to Judoh when her people were remaining in Magnagalia to help deal with those affected by the new blood's brief venture through the water pipes. A faction, it was rumored, were also daring to go beyond their area of comfort and aid the police in stemming the violence that had erupted in the city in the wake of the syndicate leader's mysterious death. An escaped convict from years ago, already altered to have a black wolf's face and crimson eyes, had been blamed for the crime due to his presence on the scene and his possession of a sword at the time; but he had vanished after fending off attackers, taking with him Baroness's most trusted servant, known only as "Wolf's Prize." "Wolf" himself had apparently taken the bait—and, what was more, gotten away with it. No one in the city had seen him since.
The group had left Magnagalia two days earlier, disappearing at dawn so as to avoid being discovered for the illegal immigrants that they technically were. Clair had only fully woken halfway through the first day, his system having eventually rejected the new blood. He supposed, in some ironic twist, he had his father to thank for that. Weren't his genes ill-suited for the modification as well? It only went to prove that everything his father had chased was an impossible dream...that, even with the promises the new blood offered, the human race could never all be happy, with their limitless desires erased.
Thinking of his father now, even with his behavior towards the coffin, Clair felt strangely at peace. Lorenzo Leonelli had, after all, passed away over a year ago. Why should his son continue to mourn? This new element, this Leorza, was not the man who had raised Clair. The two extremes had detached somewhere during his bout with the new blood and could not yet recombine in his mind, but the warping was somewhat of a blessing. "Leorza" became something to be detested, an unspoken betrayal that had nearly broken the young don in two. Yet Leorza had also, finally, freed Clair from the cage into which Lorenzo Leonelli had thrust him. No longer did Clair feel like he had to live up to anything. He was just himself. And that would have to be enough.
He had known that for years...had feared it, even. But only now did he perceive his own limitations as not a weight dragging him down but rather something lifting him towards the sky. For now, freed from others' expectations, he could call his actions wholly his own. Clair had always been an intensely personal and possessive individual. He enjoyed the new freedom, but vowed not to become too intoxicated with it the way he had early in his reign as Vampire where he had overexerted his new powers and paid the price. Vampire had to think about the family first, not his own personal strength. Because the family was his. His own, that he would not let anyone steal from him. His greatest, most liberating responsibility.
One part of that responsibility groaned, waking in the next room, and Clair swung his own body out of bed to see if the man needed anything. "Hey, Giovanni."
"Vampire," the bodyguard acknowledged, blinking and wincing. "Damn, it's bright..."
Clair shut off the lights and drew the curtains around the bed. "Better?" he asked awkwardly, unaccustomed to his new role but determined to perform it with aplomb. Even if, as he planned to enforce, no one else would ever hear about it.
The man grunted. "Yeah...dammit, I hate this." He grinned. "I feel like such a baby."
"And you need your sleep, Mr. Baby," Clair reminded him. "If you don't need anything, keep napping."
"Don't you dare start calling me that."
"Do you want a pacifier, Mr. Baby?" Lifting an eyebrow, Clair held up a grenade from the backpack of weapons and supplies still lying where Nona had dropped it upon depositing the unconscious Giovanni on the bed two days before. "Because if you don't, you better stop babbling. I don't put up with baby talk."
"Aw, man. You put more in there?" Giovanni shut his eyes. "Jeez."
"'My beloved son, always be prepared for everything.'" Halfway through the quote, Clair's face fell. No matter how casual, how personal he forced himself to be, there were some lines he was not yet ready to cross and should not have tried to defy.
Giovanni sensed the breach as well. "Vampire..."
"I'm fine, Giovanni," Clair insisted, and he meant it. One way or another, he would carry on. "You don't...need anything?"
"Just a new head. Damn." The cuss was provoked by the advent of Shun Aurora, come to deliver news from the deck.
"J says we'll be back in Judoh by tomorrow evening, though then what we're going to do is..." Breaking off, he frowned. "What is that sound?"
'That sound' was coming from Giovanni's jacket, slung on a chair next to the pack. Pulling out the man's cell phone, Clair's eyebrows rose again as he glanced at the number before passing the phone over to its owner. "Mauro."
"So we've started getting reception...hey. What's up?" He put the receiver to his right ear. "Yeah, yeah, we're all okay...we even saved the kid...what? He's still in one piece, don't have a heart attack, he's doing great...what? Oh. Sure." He handed the phone back to Clair. "It's for you."
Clair accepted it. "It's me." He listened to the frantic voice on the other end and frowned authoritatively. "I don't have to tell you that. What? Oh, good. What is it?...I see." He laughed. "That's brilliant, Mauro. No, I don't mind the losses. We can make them back up. Are you ready? All right." He cleared his throat. When he began speaking again, Shun and Giovanni exchanged a very confused, very concerned glance.
"Hello, Mr. Chief of Detectives Edmundo. This is Vampire, of Company Vita. By now I'm sure you're tired of combing the streets looking for our beloved dictator, so I'll let you in on a little secret since we're such good friends. I've got him. That's right, from the very beginning. I think this city's been too lenient on him. He doesn't even deserve to comb through the trash; he is trash, and should thus be thrown away. So if you don't dig up some dirt and make sure that my man gets the Senate position in next month's elections, Dictator Aurora will die. Horribly. The people will not stand for such crimes against themselves, even if the government believes in dealing lightly with traitors. The people do not forgive. And I'm just their loyal spokesman." Grinning sadistically, he switched the phone off.
Both Shun and Giovanni stared at him as he set the phone in his lap; he met their stares blankly, then couldn't maintain the poker face and started snickering again. "Mauro has a plan for excusing all our absences. And it's going to be a lot of fun." He smiled at Shun. "For everyone. Now, first we tie you to a chair, Dictator Aurora, and then we pretend to have a power failure so that your little brother..."