Part 1: In Medias Res
Kobe, Japan
January 2nd, 2016
''What's it like?''
''Eh?''
Kouzuki Yuko's blue eyes peered at Azanael intently. ''What does being fifty feel like?''
''Er...'' How does one explain this to a five year old?
The quinqugenarian was spared by the intervention of the girl's mother. ''Yuko-chan, you've got curry on your chin,'' Michiko admonished. ''And you,'' she added, turning to the child's other parent, ''what have I told you about working at the table?''
''Sorry,'' Tsubael muttered, still eating with one hand and typing on her Thinkpad with the other. ''Client's been after me for the better part of a week about this bug. I'm pretty sure the problem's in the Synapsys middleware, but they're not returning - ''
''Tsubael.''
''Hm..?''
''Have you forgotten what day it is?''
''No,'' the petite Arume assured her, still typing. ''I just need to get one more compile in before I give up.'' There was a frustrated sigh. ''Why do they even want i786 compatibility in the first place..?''
''Don't mind them.'' Kawashima Akane ran a hand through her unruly black hair. ''It's not normally this bad.''
''I see.'' Azanael returned to her rice and curry, finishing the mix absently. ''What about yourself? Anything interesting happen while I was away?''
''Business as usual, more or less... Oh, you remember Funatsumaru Hiroko? From our school?''
''I think so...'' The pilot recalled a rotund girl with compact glasses and an upbeat personality. ''Her family owned a fishing company, didn't they?''
Akane nodded. ''She called earlier. Apparently her sister's family is moving into these parts - she was wondering if Noriko could work here.''
''Noriko...'' Azanael's only distinct memories of Hiroko's niece were of a squalling toddler, years and years ago. ''She's in high school now?''
''Both of them,'' Akane corrected. ''Her and Nia.''
''Ah.'' Born during that summer I spent in the brig. Was it really so many years ago?
The chef indicated the bowls in the center of the round table. ''Want some more?''
''Thanks, but I'm full already.''
''That didn't take long.'' The boyish woman eyed Azanael speculatively. ''Now I know how you stay trim despite sitting in a cockpit all day.''
''Hey..!''
''I'm joking, I'm joking... But you'd better still have room for the cake - I worked extra hard on that!''
''Maybe in a little while,'' Azanael replied apologetically, sliding her chair back. ''Let me help you with these first.''
Akane followed suit as the pilot began gathering dishes. ''You don't have to - ''
''I don't mind.'' Tableware mustered, the elder of the two led the way into the apartment's compact kitchen. ''Really.''
''As you like.'' There was a muted clatter as the dishes were deposited in the sink. ''I'll wash, you rinse.''
''All right.''
Neither spoke as the sink was filled. ''So,'' Akane began at last, taking a sponge in hand, ''what do you think?''
''Hm..?''
''Of hiring Noriko.''
Azanael shrugged. ''It's up to you... I mean, I don't really know what the priorities of running a restaurant are these days.''
''Doesn't matter. The place breaks even as-is, but it's your capital that makes expansion possible. As my most reliable investor, you're entitled to have your opinion considered.''
''Oh... Uh, no objection.''
''Thanks.'' Akane gave one bowl a final scrub and passed it over. ''Maybe it doesn't look like it, but we really appreciate your efforts.''
''Mm.''
''I'm serious. Even with all four of us working, financial security isn't something we can take for granted.''
''I know - eh..?'' A muffled electronic chirping had sprung up in the breast pocket of the Arume's flight suit, an insistent noise demanding a response. ''Sorry,'' Azanael muttered, quickly wiping her hands on the ready towel and extracting an aging Nokia. ''I thought I'd turned it off.'' Bip! ''Hello?''
The voice which came through was female, but with a falsely masculine tone. ''Have you ever had a dream, Azanael, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would - ''
Akane snatched the handset from its owner. ''Elaqebil,'' she growled, deftly manipulating it with soapy fingers, ''this is not a good time.''
''Kawashima? Oh, hey! So you two got together after all?''
''Drop dead,'' the feisty woman retorted, raising an elbow to block Azanael's attempt at reclaiming the phone. ''Do you actually need something?''
''I do. Can you put Azanael back on?''
Akane returned the device grudgingly. ''All right,'' Azanael sighed. ''What is it?''
''I need you to fly six people from Kobe to Magadan, and fast.''
The pilot winced. A flight that far north, even in her courier jet, would keep her out until the middle of the night. ''Elaqebil, I'm not working today.''
''Sorry, but you have to take this one - there's nobody else available. We've got mobilization orders and I'll formally deputize you if that's what it comes to. There's a master commander and a group commander here who aren't going to be happy if they're late... Look, if you help us out, I'll make sure you get overtime credit for it, all right?''
Azanael couldn't have cared less about overtime, but no helping it: if impatient officers were involved, she'd have to report as demanded. ''I'll be there as soon as I can,'' she said resignedly. ''See you at the airport, I guess.''
''We'll be waiting. 'Bye for now.''
Akane tiredly shook her head. ''Guess I should put the cake back in the fridge and warm up the jeep, huh?''
''Don't trouble yourself.'' The Arume quickly checked her flight suit for errant stains and, finding none, made for the smaller of the two bedrooms. ''Just as well I didn't unpack yet.''
''You're coming back, aren't you?''
''I hope so.''
''It's probably just another kaijin outbreak or something, right?'' Akane drifted towards the angled stairs to the ground floor. ''Let the others know where we're going, okay?''
The persistent whisper of self-doubt had set in before Azanael closed the humble wooden door behind her. It hovered like an indecisive crow over a dying squirrel as she walked towards Akane's well-worn jeep, gravel faintly crunching under fading charcoal-tone boots. Nightfall had brought a chill with it, though not to nearly to the degree the Arume had experienced in her first few winters on this planet and not enough to make her want to put on an extra layer. The one perk of the damage we did to the climate, she told herself with a twinge of bitterness: it wasn't what she could call a worthwhile sacrifice.
Akane's voice drifted around the corner. ''Coming?''
''Yes...'' As the pilot made her way along the side of the two-story combination eatery and residence, its lower floor dark and devoid of activity, to where the antiquated Ford sat quietly rumbling, she attuned her senses to the weather. The air was still and the cloud cover low, shining a sickly yellow where the lights of urban Kobe glowed to the east - what was left of Kobe, rather, plus the tentacles of new growth creeping inland.
''Oy..!''
The remaining distance to the jeep was traversed quickly. ''Everything okay?'' Akane inquired, a practiced hand engaging the clutch. ''You spaced out.''
''Too fond of the night air,'' Azanael replied sheepishly. ''Sorry.''
''Mm.'' The jeep pulled out onto the main road, thankfully clear of other traffic. ''You know,'' she mused, ''I'm thinking about repainting the place.''
''Eh?'' There was nothing wrong with the place's current appearance, Azanael thought. White with brown trim suited it just fine.
''Just to get some variety, you know? Suppose there are better uses for the money, though...''
Money. To think they had made it so far, to the point where this accidental family's greatest concern was funding instead of mere survival. On the face of it, things were good: Azanael was still a pilot, Akane and Micchi had realized their ambitions to cook and write, and even Tsubael had settled into her niche... And yet, whenever she stared into the mirror, Azanael could never shake the feeling that the face she saw was not a content one.
Maybe I'm just paranoid.
''About time,'' Elaqebil said under her breath, moving her well-rounded frame aside.
''Got stuck in traffic,'' Azanael explained shortly, heading straight for the Artech-Lockmart jet as the hangar door banged shut behind her. The aircraft's white paint had an almost wet sheen under the blue-tinged white lights, weakly buzzing in their skeletal ceiling brackets. That meant the maintenance team had given the machine some care in her absence, saving her time. ''This everyone?''
''Yes.''
The pilot evaluated her six passengers, working from prior experience to determine the probable mood going forward. Three of them, including the master commander, were unknown to her and would have to be observed for future reference. Then there was Elaqebil herself: thorough technocrat of the forime management bureaucracy by day and hopelessly addicted consumer of forime pop culture - especially movies - by night. Her antics over the phone meant she'd just watched or read something new, and if Azanael wasn't careful she'd be talking about it for hours... Or perhaps about her reasons for dyeing her flowing hair green, which might well be worse.
The second familiar face was a group commander named Renaril, a slim woman with a ponytail who was presently going through the contents of a manila folder. She was a semi-regular with this particular air service, polite but uncommunicative. Rumor was that the young officer's career hopes had been frustrated by confinement to a stagnant, mundane administrative job, but she had always struck Azanael as being more lonely than ambitious. If left alone, she would cause no problems.
And lastly, there was the lone male in the entourage. Yoshimura Seiichi had never been especially high in Azanael's estimation: everything about him rubbed her the wrong way, from his perverted smartass attitude to the way he bleached his shaggy hair. He nevertheless thought of himself as a kindred spirit, though the Arume's frank opinion was that going from star of the Japanese resistance to a puppet government's office-bound pencil pusher - while allowed to retain his trademark trench coat and heavy boots, no less - was a less terrible fate than spending years scraping along on the fringes until being grudgingly hired into a peripheral employment. Hopefully Elaqebil would keep him in line.
''Sorry to - '' Azanael caught herself still speaking colloquial Arumic and was about to switch to Japanese when she remembered that Yoshimura knew her tongue. ''I'm very sorry to have kept you waiting,'' she went on, changing to the formal dialect as she pulled down the folding stairs into the fuselage. ''Please take your seats and we'll be departing as soon as possible.''
''I knew I could count on you.'' Elaqebil gave Azanael a pat on the shoulder as the others disembarked one mercifully tranquil journey later. ''We'll be able to catch the regular shuttle on the return trip, so don't worry about us.''
Azanael nodded, not pulling her eyes away from the jet's many blinking readouts. ''If you don't mind, I'd like to get back...''
''I know.'' The shorter Arume leaned around the back of Azanael's seat and quickly slipped something into her pocket. ''I'll make sure the department credits you for it... Oh,'' she added, obviously an afterthought, ''and happy birthday.''
And then she was gone. Azanael didn't need to look at her 'present' to know what it was: a packet of nanomachine capsules. Nanomachines which, when exposed to the DNA of an Arume and then introduced into a female body, induced pregnancy. Like every other Arume living, she owed her own existence to this technology. The unasked-for gift, however, merely reminded her that Elaqebil, whatever virtues she possessed aside, just didn't know when to cut loose from a lost cause. Kawashima's strong and healthy, was the unspoken message. This is a chance to do your part for our future!
''Give it up,'' the pilot muttered, pulling the control yoke to the right. Magadan had nothing worth staying for: the sooner she was cleared to leave this subarctic gulag gateway, the better. ''This is Alpha-Alpha-Foxtrot-Golf-Four-Zero-Three requesting clearance...''
''I know it's annoying,'' Akane opined as she and Azanael crept back into the apartment hours later, ''but it is her job. Besides, you always say she's harmless.''
''Meh...'' Azanael wasn't feeling very talkative: she, feeling guilty for making her Terran friend drive her back and forth three times in one day, had been focused on the details of the jeep's operation. Some day, she'd promised herself, she would make the time to learn it properly.
''Looks like the others are asleep,'' the cook reported. ''Want to swipe a slice of your hard-earned confection?''
''I won't sleep if I eat now,'' Azanael replied regretfully. ''I think I'd just like to go to bed.''
''A bed is fine, too.'' Akane led the way to the second bedroom and eased the door open. ''I've still got a spare toothbrush somewhere around here...''
As she fumbled about in the semi-dark, Azanael leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Elaqebil can keep her overtime credit, she thought with a touch of resentment. All I wanted was to spend my birthday with the family I still have.
Akane was already in bed when Azanael returned from the bathroom, stretched out on the right side of the mattress in violet pajamas. ''All set?''
''Yes.''
''Your turn now.'' The chef covered her eyes.
''You don't have to do that,'' the Arume murmured, emptying her suit pockets and unzipping the garment. ''We're not interested in each other, so why worry?''
''Habit, I guess.'' Akane removed her hand while the pilot shrugged out of the suit and folded it. ''Have we really been doing this for fifteen years?''
''Yes.'' Azanael slipped under the covers, savoring the warmth. ''And thanks to you, the nightmares are just a memory now.''
''You're welcome.'' Akane yawned. ''Don't be surprised if I'm up early.''
Someone else was also thinking about a birthday, in a gloomy Hong Kong warehouse a world away. That is to say she was supposed to be sorting through a large stack of ratty papers by the glare of a halogen construction floodlight, but kept breaking away from the inane documents to glance wistfully at a plastic hologram photo which leaned against the ArmaLite magazine she used as a paperweight. She had made a wish, and it had not been granted.
Tap-clank-tap-clank-tap-clank-tap-clank...
The woman coiled like a spring and waited to see who approached, relaxing when the shape of a large man solidified out of the shadows. ''Should put a piece of rubber on the bottom of that,'' she suggested. ''You're not at all subtle.''
''Wasn't trying to be.'' The man tap-clank'ed his way over to a flat plastic crate and sat down, his left leg and the aluminum brace strapped to it stretched out before him. ''I finished with the desk,'' he said, the lamp highlighting the numerous scars on his face and arms. ''The maniac had a frag grenade rigged to the top drawer.''
''Find anything?''
''Nothing useful. If there's any paper trail left from his dealings with Tiller, it'll be in the stuff we pulled out of the safe... I did turn up a bunch of cash - counterfeit, I wouldn't doubt - four sandwich bags of some powdered narcotic and this.'' He produced a large revolver and laid it on the folding table beside the woman. ''JP Sauer Single Action Army. Got some rust spots, but nothing that can't be cleaned up.''
The woman gave it a short look and went back to her papers. ''Made in West Germany? It should be in a museum.''
''Should it?'' The man contemplated the warehouse ceiling. ''This is how we stay in business, after all. Nation-states come and go, but war is forever.''
''Mm.''
''You've got that picture out again. This was the big day?''
''Yeah...''
''Just keep your chin up,'' the man advised, ''and look forward to next time.''