Part 3: All in a Lifetime

Naha, Okinawa

March 6th, 2016

''Why'd you come out here?'' The speaker's voice no longer had the contemptuous, impatient tone which Shouta remembered so well. Instead it just sounded weary. ''If you're hoping I have some kind of miracle cure for your friend or that I'll apologize for obeying orders, you're wasting your time. I've put our old affair well behind me.''

''Kenzou-kun doesn't need your help,'' Shouta replied quietly, his glasses flashing in the afternoon sun. ''And if you thought I just wanted to dig up the past, why did you agree to meet me?''

Razael took a half-hearted slurp from the coffee cup on the table, her sky-colored eyes gazing out over the flat expanse of the East China Sea below the cafe as a stiff breeze tugged at strawlike hair. ''...It's not like I had anything better to do,'' she said grudgingly. ''What do you want?''

''Only to hear your story.''

''Eh..?''

''It's true,'' Shouta mused, guessing at the Arume's unspoken thoughts. ''Maybe I should hate you for turning my best friend into a woman and - and everything else. Maybe I should be angry that you were allowed to walk free when it all ended... But when I think about what happened seven years ago, I always come back to the same conclusion.'' He ran a hand over his close-cut black hair. ''The Arume are here to stay. If we don't try to understand them, even a little, these things will just keep happening to us... I suppose this sounds silly to you.''

''I've seen worse ideas on the papers I grade,'' Razael answered wryly. ''I don't see how trying to understand me would do you any good, Yanami Shouta.''

''It doesn't, really.'' The young man shrugged. ''Call it personal curiosity and, well... I guess it'll be practice for me, if nothing else. I'm studying journalism, you see. Collecting stories. Maybe someday I'll be able to help others understand.''

''I do see.'' Slurp! ''Journalism, huh? And now your old nemesis spends her days teaching genetics... A lot has changed since I last saw you.''

Shouta nodded his agreement. ''Why teaching?''

''It was my first career... And the worst Mariel could inflict on me without the council vetoing her decision, probably.'' Razael set the cup down. ''Though I suppose she was being lenient in her own way, sending me here.''

''Lenient?''

''She knows I like this environment.'' The woman made a broad sweeping motion with her hand. ''Sea and sun. It settles my nerves.''

''Oh...''

''So? Where do you want me to start?''

Shouta blinked. ''You'll do it? You don't mind talking about yourself?''

''I just said as much.'' A hint of the old impatience surfaced. ''Hurry up. I can't stand people who avoid the point.''

The prospective interviewer wasted no more time. ''Start from the beginning, please.''

''The beginning?'' Razael thought for a few moments. ''I was born in Austria in 1975 to a pair of agricultural engineers of no particular distinction. My childhood and adolescence were entirely ordinary. I attended technical school at... Innsbruck, you would call it, until 1999. My preliminary qualification thesis was on the state of pre-invasion forime cloning technology - something do with sheep, as I recall. After leaving school, I worked as an assistant instructor for three years, received my final qualification and was given the post of project leader for a series of experiments relating to Arume-forime gene compatibility, during which I met you.'' The scientist sat back in her chair. ''That's my life.''

''Ah...''

''Do you understand me now?''

Shouta didn't quite succeed in masking his disappointment. ''...No.''

''I didn't think so.'' Slurp! ''Want some advice?''

''Please.''

''Find a sympathetic anthropologist. It seems to me that you need cultural context, not biography, and I'm hardly the best source for that.''

''I think I understand.'' Shouta fumbled for words. ''Er...''

''Spit it out,'' Razael sighed. ''I'm already here, so you might as well ask whatever you planned to.''

''Well... To start, what does the word 'Arume' actually mean?''

''Ah.'' This appeared to be a more comfortable topic for the alien. ''The word itself is archaic now, but in an extinct branch of our language it was a feminine adjective derived from the word for 'water'... Translating it as 'daughters of the sea' is perhaps a little too poetic, but it approximates the connotation.''

''The sea,'' Shouta echoed. ''Because of your eyes?''

''Not directly,'' Razael corrected. ''Some like to think of it that way as a rebuttal to being called 'sky eyes' by forime, but its origin is rather less... aesthetic.''

''Its origin?''

''I assume you don't know the story of how we came to exist.'' The Arume's brow wrinkled for a moment. ''I may as well tell you the basic facts - if you really want to understand us, you'll have to learn this sooner or later.''

''I'd appreciate it,'' Shouta replied earnestly. ''If it won't cause trouble for you, I mean.''

''It's not restricted information, though it isn't widely circulated... A long time ago,'' Razael began, ''our world looked much like this one. It was inhabited by a species genetically indistinguishable from your own, but which reached its industrial revolution far earlier. By that era, however, our predecessors were already experiencing the biological crisis which ultimately brought us here... Their science was unable to produce a viable, long-term cure for the problem - in time they came to realize that a partial solution could be made with nanotechnology, but application on the scale required prompted fears of what forime would call... 'gray goo', if I remember rightly. You know this expression?''

''Yes.''

''The scientists understood that the new method of artificial reproduction they had devised would only save, in effect, half their race, but they deemed it better than total extinction... And so the women who would become the first Arume were screened, selected and banished.''

''Banished..?''

''To a complex specially constructed far out to sea, where they were to live until it was certain that the nanomachines were safe. Apparently this complex was rigged with thermonuclear explosives as a crude form of emergency insurance... The initial group was a few hundred candidates in size.'' Razael finished her coffee before resuming the narrative. ''As things turned out, the architects' fears of failure were mercifully exaggerated. The experiment succeeded, though not before the gene pool had been drastically shrunk thanks to factions fighting over the last few men. Over the next few hundred years, those genetic lineages which survived were incorporated into the Arume or went extinct... I believe you know how we progressed from there.''

''Yes...''

''When those first candidates were released from confinement, their appearance alienated even their friends and families. They were regarded by many as a race born anew between the wind and waves, and thus they were called the ocean's daughters... 'Arume'. Does that answer your question?''

Shouta nodded emphatically. ''It must have been a frightening time to be alive.''

''It probably was.''

''Even still...'' Shouta's voice trailed away as he turned his head to watch a pair of men in military gear walking along the shore: patrols on the lookout for kaijin, the universally feared seaborne bioweapons. ''Why did it have to come to this? Why invasion and conquest, why so much destruction?''

''That's not something I can give a simple answer for.''

''I see.''

There was an uncomfortable silence.

''Yanami Shouta.''

''Yes..?''

''What if I told you it was going to happen all over again?''

Some Other Planet

The Same Day

Chief Inspector Harold Zhenyuan of the Hong Kong Police was not having a good day. He had risen in the morning to discover that his bald spot was getting bigger, spent his breakfast hour administering last rites to his faithful toaster of twenty-one years and came to work just in time to fend off some loon who claimed to have been abducted by 'Nordic alien women looking for a cyclops'. Now he was working from an undisclosed - and dark and damp - location, meeting an informant named Lai. Zhenyuan didn't much like Lai: he was one of those people whose face at thirty was so generic it could convincingly pass for anything ten years in either direction.

''...As soon as the call came in,'' Lai was saying, ''Huey packed a suitcase, collared his top men and a bunch of thugs and flew home.''

''And he didn't tell you why.''

''Not me, not any of the syndicate people I work around. Just up and left California without a word.'' Lai dug a wrinkled pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. ''You mind if I..?''

Zhenyuan did mind. ''Not in here,'' he said firmly.

''Okay.'' The pack vanished. ''So what did the kingpin get in such a fuss over? Is this still part of our northern industries insider case? Somebody smuggling factory-new ordnance through the city?''

''It seems to be.''

''Aha.'' Lai snapped his fingers. ''A tip about who killed his brother, the middleman. How about that?''

''Perhaps,'' said Zhenyuan noncommittally. ''But Huey Zhui wasn't on very good terms with his brother, was he?''

''That's true,'' Lai conceded. ''Didn't let the news spoil his New Year's party, did he? He wouldn't go racing off to avenge Sam now unless there was something in it for himself. Did the missing goods suddenly turn up?''

''No,'' Zhenyuan sighed. ''There's been no sign of them. Not on the streets, not leaving the SAR... Not even in the likely hideouts in the old city. Whoever knocked over Sam Zhui and cleaned out his base isn't in a hurry to move the spoils.''

''And the loot was what, again?''

''Norinco CQ rifles,'' the Chief Inspector explained grimly. ''Two hundred of them.''

''Which Huey wanted, I'll bet. So he came back here, and... what then?''

''Yesterday,'' said the elder policeman, ''Sam's killers made a repeat performance. We found twenty-eight corpses, neatly packed into an industrial refrigerator.''

''Killers? More than one?''

''At least two, and they were good.'' Zhenyuan produced a sheet of lined paper covered in an untidy scrawl. ''Have a look at this - it's a summary by Jerry Huang, from the forensics department.''

''Oh?'' Lai let out a whistle. ''A Tommygun, even... Did these guys rob a museum?''

''We're looking into that possibility.''

''Any leads on where Sam was going to send the weapons?''

''Not yet. If you've heard or seen anything - ''

''...I'd have put it into my full report,'' Lai interrupted. ''Anything - wait...''

''What is it?''

''Maybe nothing, but... Does the phrase 'ArmaLites and rose boxes' mean anything to you?''

''Not immediately. Where did you hear that?''

''Huey mentioned it when he was talking to one of his lieutenants about Sam's plans, maybe a week and a half ago. I thought it was just a joke, but maybe not.''

''Hm...'' Zhenyuan retrieved the paper. ''I'll look into it. Until your next orders come in, you're to lie low. Understand?''

''As always, sir.''

It was an ugly situation, and it wasn't looking as if it would soon get prettier. Any more trouble on top of this, and Zhenyuan was sure he'd either go mad or have a heart attack. Smugglers and gang infighting came with the territory, but two hundred missing weapons - particularly military grade weapons - was a question mark in need of a very stiff eraser. The icing on the cake, he thought as he left the meeting place, will be if we find that man is behind it all.