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"My... name?" I echoed, staring dumbly at him, as if he'd just slapped me, although I could already feel the chill prickle of gooseflesh creeping over my arms.
He squeezed my fingers. "You were just a baby and Satoshi only twelve when it happened, but he remembers the base at Tottori and the attack on your family."
"My family?" I pulled away, not ready to believe what he was saying. "When Mazawa told me that a firestorm destroyed the army base, I assumed it had been attacked by outside forces."
"The only enemy was already living among them," Tetsuo said, screwing his features into a sour grimace. "Mazawa was behind it, only something went terribly wrong. Before anyone knew what hit them, explosions ripped through the main buildings and fire completely engulfed the base. From what Satoshi told me, it's a miracle the two of you survived. The bodies of many of the victims were never recovered, including those of Mazawa and your parents."
"So, Yomichi is my—my father?" Father. The word felt foreign on my tongue.
Tetsuo went on, saying something that might have been about ID chips, not that I registered any of it. I was hearing too much for the first time. This crucial knowledge of myself, a family history that should have been as familiar to me as the color of my eyes or texture of my own skin, hoarded by Satoshi all these years.
Thoughts buzzed in my head, competing with the dull roar that began rising inside my ears as I tried and failed to grasp not only what I felt was a betrayal on my brother's part but also the sheer enormity of the horror behind Mazawa's summons. His weren't innocuously polite questions about my family at our first meeting: they'd been a test to discover how much—or in my case, how damned little—I knew about myself.
You look so much Reiko. You could be her ghost.
Reiko. Was that my mother’s name? If it was, Satoshi had never mentioned her. Not once. No, those memories of our past were always too painful for him to recount. Painful my ass! Bastard! If I ever saw him again, I'd scream myself blue, punch him in the throat!
"— I think there was more in the communique," Tetsuo’s voice intruded.
"More he decided not to share with me!" I leapt from my seat.
Tetsuo reached for me. "I'm sure he only wanted to protect you."
"He should have told me! They were my parents, too! He had no right to keep me in the dark this long." I rounded on him. "Mazawa knew! And he knew I didn't know! Sending me here to kill my own father, it's sick!"
"I don’t dispute you, Renata," Tetsuo said, with characteristic infuriating calm. He rocked back on his cushion. "But if you had known, what would you have done differently, Renata?"
"Well, I— I— you know I would have—" I spluttered.
"Refused Mazawa? Run? Come to the Shinu for help? You did all those things. Despite choosing to do them for different reasons, all roads still have led you here."
"Right where Mazawa wanted me all along," I said sourly.
Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the silent, misshapen hulks of treetops beyond the fuyu-kyu’s perch.
"Not Mazawa, destiny." He turned to the window. "Yours waits somewhere inside the Sea of Silence. I don't know what the Idoron is, only that for you, there is no going back." Cushions groaned as he rose. "In the morning, I'll show you how you might find Yomichi, but for now, you should get some rest."
Even though I knew I'd be awake all night, trying to get my head around everything I’d learned, I didn't argue.
I followed him through one of the thick, ecru curtains and down a dimly-lit passage to a room that contained two sleeping berths, as well as incontrovertible proof that Tetsuo's love of the sky extended into the realm of sleep. Pallets on wooden frames suspended from ceiling cables took up most of the room's space, creaking as they swayed slightly. After I clambered into the one that hung beside a small, round window, he bid me goodnight and left for his own quarters, closing the door behind him.
Still dressed, I curled in a ball, hugging my knees to keep my limbs from shaking. When tears burned my eyes, I bit my wrist to quell the sobs that threatened to follow like rain following the thunder. I could not shed them for a man I'd never known, nor would I give Mazawa the satisfaction.
I leaned over, resting one side of my face against the window. The cool glass felt good against my hot cheek, staunching tears but ineffectual against the bonfire of rage the night had kindled within me. Bastard! He'd sent me here to murder my father, offering unconditional immunity, then Satoshi's life in exchange for patricide. Both raw deals—more like no deals—that no reward, no reprieve, no reason to continue living ever could have amended....and gods, idiot that I was, I'd almost done it!
I imagined doing exactly as he'd asked, only to learn the truth about the man I'd assassinated much later, and Mazawa taking immense delight in sharing that essential tidbit, a great fat toad savoring the last struggles of a dying fly. History avenged, the long-coveted prize won by turning blood against unsuspecting blood, child against parent: the last twist of the knife.
Rain beaded the window and more lightning flashed, casting patterns on the wall opposite my bed. I don't know how long I sat, watching the interplay of fleeting light and shadows. Shapes, reminiscent of trees or vines, branching out like the veins in an arm or hand.
Branching like veins, spilling like blood...
My thoughts turned to the Idoron. A cure for time...powerful enough to destroy the holodomes and all life, far beyond the borders of Japan. Weapon or cure? I still couldn’t decide. Any way I turned it in my mind, I found dead ends instead of answers.
My back felt stiff from my cramped position. Slowly, I uncurled and stretched out on the bed. I laced my fingers behind my head and stared at the ceiling until my eyelids grew heavy. Maybe tomorrow I would find answers, provided Yomichi would be willing to give them to a complete stranger.
If I manage to find him at all...
Lightning died and the thunder grumbled away, replaced by the low drone of hovercraft and brief splashes of yellow light across the window. No one stopped at Tetsuo’s fuyu-kyu.
I closed my eyes. Nozomi was probably still out there somewhere, dangling like a hummingbird in a cocoon of spider silk. Maybe Motosu's no-longer-mad-man would find her, just as he had Tetsuo...
Nozomi... poorest excuse for an assassin I've ever seen...