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"We’re going to need a diversion," Jo whispered, watching the lead hovercraft approach the opening.
"You'll hear me knocking," Tetsuo chuckled.
"Buster and I are working on something that should keep the soldiers quite occupied," Satoshi said. "The only hitch is that if it works, we won't be able to reach you and Renata for a while."
"We'll have to risk it," Jo replied. "Kim, Kentaro—you guys clear?"
When they affirmed, he turned to me. "Renata, if this goes south, I want you to promise me that you'll get out of here."
"Not until Mazawa's dead and not without you!"
"No, Renata. No heroics. Whatever happens, don't wait for me. I mean it." He patted his suit. "Once I hit this detonator, this whole place will blow in less than a minute."
Less than a minute. I stared at him, horrified. So much for no heroics! "Jo, you can't—"
"Just trust me, Renata." He leaned in, until his hood was touching mine. "Promise me."
I gazed back into his eyes. Wide and dark, they held not a trace of madness. Because what he'd just proposed, beyond madness, teetered on the precipice of sheer fucking insanity. I looked away to the opening that loomed ahead. "We should hurry. The other workers had already left their transport."
"Promise me, Renata."
But I couldn't, and because he wasn't going to let it go, I decided to settle on something promise-like. I looked up at him again. "Fine."
We pulled up next to the workers on the service launch, our hovercart alighting to a grumble that shook the building’s walls. From there, we followed the four of them up a curving, glass-walled gallery.
Soon, I found myself looking down over the top of the repliterrium's cloudy panels. Metal catwalks hemmed it on all sides and precarious access ladders ascended to its peak, where trusses studded with diffusing gro-lamps affected Aokigahara's anemic, almost-non-sunlight.
Other workers joined us on our journey, appearing from archways that lined the gallery's opposite side: men and women whose long, disposable gowns matched their filmy blue hair coverings and comical booties, as well as two other men who looked like they'd slept in their white lab coats. Gamete Cryo-Storage, ICS Injection and Natal Augmentation Suites— the section names from which they'd emerged put an end to the question of why so many of Mazawa's soldiers looked the same.
The gallery opened an expanse of slick, white tiles and intricately carved columns. At its end sat a large lift with a dark, wood paneled interior. As we neared it, the repliterrium workers broke away from the main group and gathered to one side. Jo and I followed suit. Those who didn’t look like snowmen threw disdainful looks at us as they bustled past, but no one spoke.
We didn't have to wait long for the lift to return and I was relieved when none of the other workers removed their hoods, once we boarded. Seconds later, after an impromptu spot decontamination, we emerged from its thick, white cloud into a dimly lit foyer where one of Mazawa's guards ushered us upstairs into an enclosed viewing area. After directing us to one of the rows of narrow risers it contained, she exited through another door at its opposite end. When the other three guards from Mazawa’s retinue entered through the same access, I noticed that she was not among them, but caught a glimpse of an Evacu-Sleigh, a long hovercraft designed to ferry trapped persons to safety during fires or earthquakes. Its presence had to mean that we were at the very top of the Spire Lab!
The viewing area looked down on a large, spare room. Drains peppered its white floor tiles, while banks of gleaming instruments and strange apparatuses lined similarly tiled walls. Near its center, beneath a blinding spotlight, Eki lay strapped to a pneumatic stretcher. Still bleeding, blood pooling on the pristine floor beneath him, the only indications he was still alive at all were the vital signs that flashed across a black monitor near his head.
Clad in an all-inclusive PPE—one similar to the suits Jo and I were wearing—a technician anxiously hovered beside a silver tray table that contained only two objects: a vial of bitter green liquid and an antiquated glass syringe fitted with a long steel needle.
A door opened. Mazawa, wearing only a simple green surgical gown, cap and mask, lumbered into the room. He’d traded his dark glasses for a pair of magnifying goggles and wisps of white hair stuck out in peaks on either side of his scarred head, giving him an owlish appearance. Never without his rarified air, he’d strapped his portable oxygen cannister to his back. After conferring in hushed tones with the tech, he turned to us, arms wide, affecting the same pose as the one in his oversized, courtyard hologram.
"I've called you here today to—"
The walls of the building shuddered, setting the spotlight wildly swaying. Lights flickered and equipment alarms whined. The workers began shifting and muttering uneasily amongst themselves, despite admonishments for silence from the guards. Then, someone rapped on the operating room's door, each knock echoing like a pistol blast in the room.
"What? What is it?" Mazawa spat at his unseen knocker.
"Fighting, Doctor! A revolt at the main gate!"
"You dare interrupt me for that? If the refugees are restless, my army will put them down," Mazawa wheezed.
"But, Doctor!" The man mumbled something about a 'possible breach.'
"Here? They won't get far. Alert Security," Mazawa scoffed. "Now, get out!"
After he left, Mazawa resumed his former pose. "You are about to witness a scientific marvel! The culmination of decades of exhaustive biopharmaceutical research!" Plucking the syringe from the tray, he waved it aloft. "I hold in my hand the next wave of medicinal science, a single discovery that will herald the dawn of a new age! A perfect age, in which the blight of genetic inferiority that currently plagues our country will be forever expunged!"
A man in a grey uniform burst through the door. "Doctor, please!" he gasped, words muffled by the hand-held mask over his mouth and nose.
Hand still raised, Mazawa sighed impatiently. "What now, Daiki?"
"Doctor, I can't raise Security! No, please! Let me speak," he gasped, as he struggled against the female guard who was now trying to pull him from the room. "There's been a—a—a malfunction! First, the console and now, my wristlet!"
Communications jammed! Satoshi and Buster pulled it off.
Smirking beneath his tinted visor, Jo shifted his stance from one foot to another.
Mazawa dropped his arms but the tightness of his hand on the syringe barrel suggested a fervent desire to bury its business end somewhere in the vicinity of Daiki's forehead.
"Impossible! You: call them," he barked at the woman, who looked down her long nose at the guard.
She fiddled with her wristlet for a moment, then she shook her head. "I have no signal, either, Doctor Mazawa. Perhaps they are testing the system."
"Testing be damned! I will not abide further interruptions! Daiki, go down there and order them to stop whatever they’re doing this instant. Yurina, if anyone else tries to access that door, you have my permission to shoot them."
She bowed stiffly, then left, taking Daiki with her.
Mazawa strode over to Eki and raised the syringe again. "Troops, I give you my life's work, my greatest triumph! I give you the Idoron!"
In the booth, all but two people clapped.
As Mazawa leaned over Eki and inserted a needle into the side of his neck, Jo and I edged closer to the window. There's no way it'll work, it can't possibly work, I told myself, watching in revulsion while Mazawa pushed the terrible serum, its unnatural green a shade verging on phosphorescence, milliliter by excruciatingly slow milliliter, into Eki's bloodstream. Jo edged to the front, until his hood was mere inches from the glass.
Instillation accomplished, Mazawa tossed the syringe on the tray. Assuming his favorite pose again, he boomed, "Behold! The Idoron!"
Eki's heart monitor continued its tired, beet-wheep...beet-wheep...
Workers jostled past me, vying for a chance to witness history, each asking Jo and others at the front, "What’s happening? Did you see? Did it work?"
The monitor answered with an even slower, Beet...wheep...beeeee!
Flatline.
From where I stood, I could feel Jo's sigh of relief.
Mazawa stared down at Eki, then glared at his tech who was busily wringing his gloved hands. If looks could kill, the poor guy was surely next up on his list of test subjects.
"I don't understand," he stammered. "I made it to your precise specifications, Doctor, I swear!"
The monitor screamed to life again, Eki's heartbeat rising from dead standstill to fibrillation pitch in an instant, erupting in erratic, jagged waveforms across the screen. Still strapped to the stretcher, Eki's body began to twitch, each involuntary spasm mimicking the herky-jerky hitch of a Kufugaki. Ropy projections sprang from his ragged shoulder stumps, vine-like protuberances of muscle and sinew that writhed like snakes as they attempted to twist themselves into usable limbs.
Screaming, the tech staggered back, shielding himself with raised arms. While Mazawa stood, transfixed, owlish eyes glinting and the hint of a scar's edge rising above his mask, Jo balled his hands into fists.
Eki's spasms intensified. His veins darkened and began to swell, spidering over every inch of visible skin like lethal black lace.
Clapping his hands, Mazawa boomed, "Behold! The soldier of the future, the Unstoppable Man—my most perfect creation—the Idoron!"
Back arching unnaturally, Eki opened his mouth and emitted a feral cry, a preternatural, ululating howl. The hair-raising sound was more than enough of a demonstration for a few workers. Muttering hasty apologies and excuses, they scurried for the elevator, ignoring the guards and Mazawa's orders for them to return.
Restraints snapped. Eki lurched off the stretcher. The overbed table crashed to the floor, shattering the syringe. Screaming, Mazawa’s tech ran for the door, leaving Mazawa alone with his acid-eyed embodiment of living death. In the booth, all hell broke loose. Shoving and screaming, people trampled each other in their race to the exits. Mashed against the window by the retreating horde, Jo and I continued to watch the spectacle unfold in the room below.
Body convulsing, his still-malformed arms contorting themselves into unnatural positions, Eki bellowed once more, a yowl that rose to a gut-wrenching crescendo, eclipsing every monitor sound. Head and neck bulging, each tumorous protuberance moving with a life of its own beneath his pallid skin, he staggered towards Mazawa, who retreated, shrieking for his guards.
Not fast enough.
Eki's head and torso erupted with a sickening pop, splattering Mazawa with blood and thick, black ichor.
Mask and goggles askew, instead of retreating, Mazawa now took a few tottering steps towards all that now remained of Eki, a glutinous mound of liquified flesh and bony shards. With shaking hands, he tore off his surgical robe and gloves, added them to the pile, then hollered for his assistant. Head low, he hunched over the stretcher, one hand clutching his heart. "The rest of you get out. Get out!"
After the stampede, hardly anyone was left in the booth. As they began to shuffle out, Jo, still at the window, unzipped his suit, then slowly removed his hood. "A spectacular failure, Yoshizo."
Mazawa's shoulders stiffened. Shocked gasps and titters arose from the few who still hadn't made it to an exit. Sounds that quickly stilled when Mazawa turned. One look at Jo and eyes widened in shock. His ragged mouth quivered. "You?"
I tore off my hood. "And me!"
"Kill them!" Mazawa screamed.
We barged through opposite doors, taking out anyone in our path. Jo caught two of Mazawa's guards with one blast, while I cut mine down, one at a time. Guards, workers, lab techs: I didn't care. Armed or unarmed, all tasted my blade.
Thrusting and slashing, I finally made my way outside onto a wide plinth that sat above this part of the gallery. At the end of the plinth, two of the green panes that capped the Spire Lab were sliding open. Aided by his lab assistant, Mazawa hobbled towards one of the Evacu-Sleighs.
I pulled out my MBL and fired. The first blast went high, whizzing over Mazawa’s head, it shattered one of the long windowpanes. The next, grazing his assistant’s shoulder, set his gown ablaze. Screaming, batting at flames, the young man doubled over.
Mazawa added to his pained screams by pulling him up by the hair. Using the guy's body as a shield, he half-lurched, half-fell into the Evacu-Sleigh.
"Jo, he's getting away!"
Sprinting around the other side of the lab, Jo fired off a string of rapid shots. Fast on his heels, Yurina and Daiki followed. Behind me, the emergency craft roared to life.
Oh, no you don’t, bitches! I blasted a chunk off Yurina's shoulder. Just so her thigh wouldn't feel left out, it received a matching wound.
As she crumpled, Jo improved on Daiki’s looks by turning his forehead into a peep hole.
"Duck!"
Obeying Jo for once, I hit the ground, and was glad I did. If I'd waited a second longer, my head would've been a hood ornament on Mazawa's craft, which now swooped low over the repliterrium. Gathering speed, it sailed through the open windows.
We sprinted to the Evacu-Sleighs, each hopping aboard one of the emergency crafts. "Go after him. I'll meet you outside after I detonate this." Jo set the Seismi-Shell on its bench-like seat.
I fired up my hovercraft. "You'd better. Wouldn't want to kill him without you!"
"I'll be right behind you!" Launching himself from the plinth, Jo made a bee line for the repliterrium.
As my craft cleared the balcony, a fireball whined through the air. Slamming into Jo’s Evacu-Sleigh, the MBL blast set the craft ablaze. Engine shredded, it plummeted, taking Jo with it.
"I'm coming!'
"No, Renata! Get Ma—"
The next blast caught him in the chest and sent him crashing through the repliterrium's glass ceiling.
"Jo!" I swooped over, only to have to dodge another volley from somewhere on the balcony.
"Die! Why...won’t you...die!" Badly injured but still alive and armed, Yurina lay in a spreading pool on the balcony.
"What, two shots weren't enough for you, bitch?" My third shot, which landed right between her eyes, finished her.
Calling for Jo, I eased the craft over the shattered roof but couldn't see anything through the cloud of noxious smoke. Then, faintly, I heard his voice from below.
"Renata! Get out! The bomb!"
The Seismi-Shell. Shit! It must've detonated it during his fall. We had less than a minute before the whole place blew to smithereens. "Hold on, I'm coming down there!"
"No! You'll die, if you do!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "Get out now! Go! Go!"
The building shuddered, churning up more suffocating smoke. The horrific rumbles that followed, thundering growls that reverberated to the marrow of my bones, swallowed his last words.