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The ship skidded to a halt on an uneven stretch of shoreline. Kei threw off his harness and raced off the bridge. I was wrestling out of mine when the monitor suddenly began to beep. On its screen, a shape flashed, one that was not in the water but moving in the forest beyond the stretch of shoreline we'd visited only a few hours earlier.
While the skycraft's display wasn't as colorful as the GPS unit on the TerraCycle, it didn't take a genius to recognize the whitish form was a triangle.
Speechless, I watched it flicker and flash, until the next sweep of green failed to raise an alarm.
A triangle...
I raced off the bridge, pausing only to grab my naginata from the common room. By the time I cleared the rampway, Kei was already waist-deep in Shojiko's roiling waves.
"Come back! That's not Hiro! I just saw him!"
Torn from my lips by lashings of bitter rain and wind, my cries were flung into insensible darkness. A wall of black water rose, crested, crashed over his head.
Then he was gone.
I retreated beneath the wing, shaken to the core by my latest discovery. Hiro, the woman outside Sawagi, and the dozens—dozens—that had burst into bloom like a field of poison flowers near the Otakoga village—
The triangles didn't represent soldiers at all—
They were symbols for Kufugaki!
Why the hell would Mazawa need to track Kufugaki? Once the implant had been triggered, the fatal damage had already been done. Why would he care where his enemies went, as long as they died? It didn't make sense.
Unless he has some way of controlling them...
I thought about the female Kufugaki soldier, the strange light I'd seen in her eyes, the red gleam that vanished moments before she died. Contacts? Some kind of ocular implant? The logistics involved seemed tricky, unless of course, those were instilled before the person was infected. The victims all wouldn't have to have something like that, either. If one Kufugaki sensed a food source nearby, the others would follow like so many ravenous wild dogs.
Kei resurfaced coughing, interrupting my thoughts. I ran down the long stretch of rocky beach to meet him as he waded out on shaky legs, clutching the sodden yellow tunic. He sank to his knees in the shoals, wailing, "I couldn’t find him! The water was too weedy...so dark, I couldn't see. So many times, I dove, but this—caught on a floating branch—this was all I found." He buried his face in the tunic.
I squatted beside him. "He's on land, Kei. He's alive."
"Alive?" Dazed, uncertain if what he'd just heard was real, his hands worried the tunic into a twisted mess.
"I saw him on the monitor. I tried to tell you."
His head shot up. He dropped the tunic. "Where?"
"Near the spot where we found the canoe. He must've followed us."
"If we hurry, maybe we can catch him," Kei said, struggling to his feet. "But no weapons, Renata. I want him captured alive."
"And then what? Keep him sedated in cold storage until we find—that is, if we find—Yomichi? Even if we do, and his Idoron is everything you seem to think it's cracked up to be, what assurance do we have that Motosu's Madman will give us a helping hand? He hasn't been in hiding all this time because he's a people person!" I wrenched his arm, trying to pull him back. "Besides, you said the storm was too dangerous for flying!"
"Over Saiko, it was," he said, exasperatedly. "But if you're right, we won't have to go far, and we'll stay low this time, alright, Renata? Unless you have a better idea. We'll fly low, so if anything happens, we can always land in the water, alright? Alright?" He threw me off and stomped up the beach.
"No, it's not alright! How can we capture him safely?" Upon us now, much sooner than expected, was the conversation I'd been dreading. "He's a Kufugaki now. If the disease spreads as quickly as you've indicated, there's a chance he might not know you at all. Going after him with no weapons, all because you're so desperate to believe that some shred of your son still exists inside Hiro—what Hiro is now—it's—it's suicide!"
Kei stopped, but didn't look at me. In a voice heavy as stone, he said, "I don't expect you to understand, Renata. You've never had a child."
"No, but I sure as hell know Kufugaki!" I stormed ahead and pushed him roughly back, hoping to shove some sense into him. "He's not your son anymore! Hiro will put up a fight and when he does, I can't—I won't promise you that—”
He threw his hands in the air. "Fine! Bring your damned naginata! But I'm warning you, take one swing at him and—"
"Threaten me all you want, Kei. I can hold my own against the both of you without breaking a sweat!"
"First, we have to find him. Let's go, Renata!" Sighing, he pushed past me.
The air shimmered along the skycraft, creating strange haloes as it sifted down through the shafts of the searchlights. Not anticipating another rough and tumble flight, I glared at them.
"Lousy night for a swim."
She came out of nowhere: a woman in a grey flight suit. Materializing from the essence of night and the storm itself, she strode before us, blocking our path.
The strange shimmer should've been my first clue, but I'd been so angry with Kei, I'd looked without seeing.
Now, like a curtain ripped from its rod, masking dropped, revealing a battle cruiser twice the size of the Silver Serpent. A group of men and women in black ponchos emerged from its enormous hold and surrounded us, the laser sights on their weapons peppering us with pinpricks of red.
If he'd been surprised, Kei didn't show it in the least. "Stand down," he said. "We're here on official holodome business."
"Shut up, Soldier Boy. I'm the one giving the orders here." She leveled the barrel of her laser pistol at the center of his chest. "Hands to the sky. I'm in no mood for heroics."
Though a little thicker around the middle than she'd been three months ago, I recognized Tetsuo's niece, Juno, immediately. The intricate abstract tattoo on her neck—a gift from Satoshi—was a dead giveaway (though, judging by the swell of her belly, maybe not the only present he'd given her during her short stay).
"That has to be her. He said she'd be carrying that." One of the men pointed to my naginata.
"Who said?" I started to him, only to find his laser sight trained on me. Did He mean Satoshi?
"I know who she is, Ito!" Juno pushed the barrel of his laser rifle away and advanced on Kei, pistol at the ready. "But Tetsuo didn't say anything about you, cutie."
Summoning every ounce of his unflappable composure, Kei said, "I am Special Liaison Kei. This woman is assisting me—"
"With what? A midnight dip or your laundry?"
Laughter rippled through the group.
"A search and rescue mission. My son, Hiro, became separated from us earlier."
"Lost, is he? Some specialist you are," she scoffed.
"I am here on direct orders from Doctor Mazawa of New Edo," he replied evenly.
"Not anymore." Juno tapped him lightly on the cheek with her pistol, then backed away to look over at me. "Where's Satoshi? Tetsuo seemed to think he'd be with you."
But I couldn't tell her that. "I haven't heard from him in days and haven't been able to contact him, either. Seems someone conveniently destroyed my wristlet before I left New Edo." I glared at Kei.
"No surprise there." Juno huffed. "Still, you've been leading us on quite a merry chase. I swear, only a Darkfell would send out a distress call, then not wait for help to arrive."
"A distress—Renata, how could you? Who are these people?" Kei muttered under his breath.
"Oh, did you hear that? We're people, now that we have the upper hand," Juno said, raising a few more derisive snorts and cackles from her clansmen.
"Just do what she says and you'll be fine. I don't know about you, Kei, but I would like to get out of the rain sometime tonight."
"I'm not leaving without my son! You have to let me go!"
"You'll go wherever I tell you to go," Juno said.
"I don’t take orders from—"
"Shinu? Women? Well, first time for everything, sweetie. Renata, you come with me. Michi, Emon, Nozomi: tie him up and toss him in the hold. If he gives you any lip, shut him up—whatever it takes. We'll rendezvous back at camp."
A tall man and two women descended on Kei. After wrestling him to the ground, they disarmed him and bound his arms behind his back.
Juno turned to a man with a long scar on his face. "Hey, Ito, think you can fly this rust bucket?"
He laughed. "I've flown worse."
Kei lunged at him. "You're not taking my ship, you lousy freebooter!"
The crack of a gun butt against the side of his head instantly stalled his progress. Grunting, Kei dropped to his knees on the rocky shore.
"Freebooter is such an ugly term. We prefer Shinu," one of the women said.
"Hey, wait a minute." An older man broke through the group and stepped to Kei, the barrel of his laser rifle hovering inches from his chest. "Hey, Juno, I've seen this guy before. I told you about him, remember? He came to the Aozora in April, promising supplies and medicines in exchange for Saisei volunteers. 'Volunteers,' that's what he called them, can you believe it? The rations poisoned half of our clan and we never saw our women and children again!" Leaning over Kei, he growled, "So, tell me, Specialist—or whatever your bullshit title is—what kind of volunteers does Mazawa think he'll find out here in the middle of No Man's Land?"
Blood trickling from a gash over one eye, Kei replied icily, "None that concern you."
The man backhanded him, hard, the heavy rings on his fingers splitting Kei's lips in several places. Then he turned to me. "Where were you headed before he captured you?"
"Enough talk," Juno said. "Ito, take his ship. I'll take them to Tetsuo."