Vicissitude: Yang Side (Lost Earth Series) Read online

  Temple of Contemplation

  Vicissitude (Entrance Hall)

  Vicissitude: 1-0 'Ah'

  1-1 'Ah'

  1-2 'Ah'

  1-3 'Ah'

  1-4 'Ah'

  1-5 'Ah'

  Secret Room 1-6 (Heaven) 'Ah'

  1-7 'Ah'

  1-8 'Ah'

  1-9 'Ah'

  1-10 'Ah'

  1-11 'Ah'

  Mutability (North Hall)

  Mutability: 2-0 'Ah'

  2-1 'Ah'

  2-2 'Ah'

  2-3 'Ah'

  Secret Room 2-4 (Heaven) 'Ah'

  2-5 'Ah'

  2-6 'Ah'

  2-7 'Ah'

  Metamorphosis (East Hall)

  Metamorphosis: 3-0 'Ah'

  3-1 'Ah'

  3-2 'Ah'

  3-3 'Ah'

  3-4 'Ah'

  Secret Room 3-5 (Heaven) 'Ah'

  3-6 'Ah'

  3-7 'Ah'

  3-8 'Ah'

  3-9 'Ah'

  Maelstrom (South Hall)

  Maelstrom: 4-0 'Ah'

  4-1 'Ah'

  4-2 'Ah'

  4-3 'Ah'

  4-4 'Ah'

  4-5 'Ah'

  Secret Room 4-6 (Heaven) 'Ah'

  4-7 'Ah'

  4-8 'Ah'

  4-9 'Ah'

  4-10 'Ah'

  4-11 'Ah'

  Revolution (Heart Hall)

  Revolution: 5-0 'Ah'

  5-1 'Ah'

  5-2 'Ah'

  5-3 'Ah'

  5-4 'Ah'

  5-5 'Ah'

  Secret Room 5-6 (Heaven) 'Ah'

  5-7 'Ah'

  5-8 'Ah'

  5-9 'Ah'

  5-10 'Ah'

  5-11 'Ah'

  The Inner Garden of Harmony (Outside)

  The Other Side Of The Story

  Vicissitude: Heaven Gained Preview: 1-0 'Un'

  Acknowledgements

  Even More Fun To Be Had

  Copyright

  Vicissitude (Entrance Hall)

  Vicissitude: 1-0 'Ah'

  Vicissitude

  1. A change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.

  ~~~

  “At the center of your being you have the answer;

  you know who you are and what you want.”

  —Lao Tzu

  ~~~

  Polarity Cloning Module Initialized. Please select the desired operation.

  >>>Polarity Gene Splicer

  Please select the subject who will be modified…

  >>>Vermilion Bird (Mura Masah)… Is this correct?

  >>>Yes

  Searching for subject… Please do not turn off the power.

  Match found. Please select the gene(s) to be used…

  >>>Radiance

  >>>Akuma 616 (controllable)

  Syncing to subject Mura Masah. Please do not turn off the power.

  Would you like to perform another splicing at this time?

  >>>Yes

  Please select the desired subject who will be modified….

  >>>Vermilion Bird (Masah Mune)… Is this correct?

  >>>Yes

  Match found. Please select the gene(s) to be used…

  >>>Radiance

  >>>Akuma 666 (uncontrollable)

  WARNING! Gene(s): Akuma 666 (uncontrollable) is unstable! Would you still like to continue?

  >>>Yes

  WARNING! Inserting gene(s) Akuma 666 (uncontrollable) may result in high-risk side effects. Would you still like to continue?

  >>>Yes

  Syncing to subject Masah Mune. Please do not turn off the power…

  …

  …

  …

  ERROR! Gene(s): Akuma 666 (uncontrollable) is in conflict with gene(s): Radiance. Gene(s) Akuma 666 may not express. Continue anyway?

  >>>Yes

  Would you like to perform another splicing at this time?

  >>>No

  “Did it work, Heaven?”

  Face bathed blue from the computer's light, a mocha-skinned woman turns her head, blinking fatigued green eyes. “Mura Masah synced just fine. But the second one gave me an error. The Akuma 666 is still causing the problem, Megumi.”

  A four-foot-ten young woman zips a fat green calculus book and study guides into her backpack, then comes up behind Heaven and squints at the screen. “Even with my donated genes, it still won’t go through?”

  Heaven rubs her temple. “It goes through, but it said the Akuma 666 gene might not express. The Radiance gene keeps canceling out the Akuma.” She gets up. “Are you still willing to keep them for a little bit?”

  Megumi’s amber eyes brighten. “Of course. I love keeping birds.” She pivots around to the table, picks up a red hooded cloak, and slings it over her shoulder. “Let me just check with everyone at home first, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

  Heaven tilts her head. “What’s that for?”

  Megumi points to her cloak. “This? Oh, just a little something I made for an anime expo coming up. It’s from a show called The Red Hood. Heard of it?”

  Heaven has not. “I don’t watch much tv.”

  “Ah, well it’s a pretty popular show. A nice one to get into if you have the time,” Megumi says. Then she gives an over-the-top theatrical sigh. “But exams…”

  Heaven chuckles. “Tomorrow. Did you study?”

  Megumi’s face puckers. “Bleh. I did, but Calc is the devil. I’m going to study some more.”

  Heaven swipes her keys from off the desk. “I’ll drop you off. Can you check to make sure the other computers are off for me?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Heaven turns around to face her own monitor.

  An unknown error has occurred in creating Vermilion Bird (Masah Mune) Polarity tracking may not be possible. Would you like to continue?

  Heaven’s eyebrows knit together.

  >>>Yes

  “You’re still doing the initiation thing, right?” Megumi calls.

  “Hmm? Oh yeah, yeah. Just let me look at…” Heaven’s voice trails. Her gaze slides back to the computer. “Something.”

  Would you like to print an error log?

  >>>Yes

  The inkjet beside her monitor whirrs to life, spitting five pages into its output tray. Heaven thumbs through them and shuffles them back into order. She’ll look when she gets home.

  “All done, Heaven,” Megumi chirps.

  “Alright.” Heaven puts the papers into her alpaca tote bag. She glances at the computer one last time.

  A new message window covers the screen.

  Creating Mura Masah and Masah Mune… Please don’t turn off the power. Estimated time to create Mura Masah: 01:58:29. Estimated time to create Masah Mune: 03:27:54.

  Please don’t turn off the power…

  A mother sweeps autumn’s first leaves beneath the clay-tiled portico of her suburb home with shaking hands. Brown eyes glance up at the hedge-flanked moon gate.

  A sleek black convertible hums to the driveway. Its owner steps out: a mousy woman wrapped in a beige coypu coat, but she carries herself with the proud air of a lioness: head high, strides confident, aviator sunglasses mimicking the quiet authority of an officer.

  The mother's grip on her broom slackens and her face bleaches of color. She opens the door and the two go inside without greeting or preamble. The mother sets her broom in the crook of an empty corner. She wrings her pallid hands. “Did something else happen, Mai?”

  Mai moves to the coffee table, as if to sit but she doesn’t. Instead, she lifts her rounded sunglasses to the top of her head, studies the pictures on the walls of a tan-sk
inned toddler. Mai’s lips thin down to a minnow-sliver. “Is she here?”

  “No, she is still in school with her brother.”

  Mai folds her arms.

  Hikari watches, shaking still. The silence is so much that she can’t stand it. Her bones are like a child’s play putty, and her skin feels more brittle than glass. “Mai, if it's bad news, just say it.”

  Mai looks away. “Well, how soon can you pack?”

  Hikari’s hands tremble. “Pack? Again?”

  Mai touches the back of her neck, looking down at her beige pumps. “I can’t guarantee your safety here.”

  Hikari presses a fist to her mouth. “But where will we go? Mai it’s so expensive in this country, I can’t keep affording to—”

  “I know, I know. I’m working on a place in Taitai prefecture for you guys, it costs about the same as here so you don’t need to worry too much. I—” Mai rubs her temple with a hand. “Is there anyone that Jun can stay with? At least for the time being?”

  Hikari’s bleary gaze looks to the house phone. “There’s my sister Tammy, but…” A quaver cracks her voice. She bites back the swelling ache at the back of her throat. “I don’t know if she’ll agree.”

  The shorter woman clenches her jaw. “Even if it’s a matter of life and death for you and your children?” She paces. “She’s not in the chi system yet. And I suspect that’s how you’re being tracked. They can track you across the country, but not the kids.” Mai stops, leaning against the dining room table. “At this point it’s our best bet. Maybe our only bet.”

  “What about Kyo?” Hikari asks, holding herself. “He’s got nothing to do with this.”

  Mai runs a hand through her brown tresses. “I know you want to keep everyone together, but it might be best to split the kids.” She rubs her shoulder. “They’re not looking for Kyo, but I’d rather not invite any problems. Jun would be kept alive for sure, but I can’t promise they’ll keep Kyo.”

  Hikari’s head falls into her hands. “Oh great gods…” She stifles a sob then picks her head up. “What about you? Aren’t they looking for you too?”

  Mai shakes her head. “More likely they’d just try to kill me. Jun is the more desirable target.”

  Hikari’s eyes fill with water. She can’t say anymore.

  Mai comes to her side. “I know. But I promise, I’ll keep Jun safe.” She gives Hikari’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “No matter what it takes.”

  1-1 'Ah'

  I’m fucked. I’m fucked. I’m fucked. I’m fucked.

  I fight to keep the tremble out of my palms, clench the steering wheel tighter, let my nerves out in an exhale that I hope sounds more pissed off than afraid. My eyes dart to the rearview mirror. The last chi-security pole recedes behind the forest-flanked road. Thank gods. I’m out of the danger zone.

  But not out of trouble yet.

  I glimpse my cousin Jin staring in his lap, one hand pressed against his mouth and the other holding his phone. He’s sniffling.

  A heaviness sinks my heart, only for a tide of heat to stuff it down. Now’s not the time to feel bad. Now is the time to get shit done. My gaze snaps to the street. I hate coming down here at this time of night—hell I even hate coming here during the day; there are barely any signs and those that exist are half-hidden in woodland shrubbery. Streetlights dot the road at intervals that are too long for comfort, plunging the car into dark, making my nape tingle in panic right before bathing us back into the light again.

  “Where are we going?” Jin pipes up.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  The trees are thinning out. They pull back from the dirt leaving a shallow “U” in the curb. I pull over to the wooded roadside.

  “Jun—”

  I reach for the lacquered style safe box on the floor of the passenger’s side, input 0862 into the numerical panel, open the lid. A black pistol rests on the yellow silk. “Get out of the car.”

  Jin is quiet for a few seconds. “What are you gonna do with that?”

  I roll my eyes at the question and unfasten my seatbelt. “I’m not going to shoot you. I just need to make sure you’re not tagged. Because if you are, then we could both wind up in jail.”

  He doesn’t question that and gets out of the car.

  I reach into my glove compartment and reach for a thin switch blade-like scanner that my friend Shig lent me. I push the button on the handle to eject the scan-blade and sweep it over the entire gun. My scanner beeps and a cone of green light projects a small hologram countdown.

  Time until tracking information reaches Pole Control: 00:45:34.

  I let out a breath of relief. Good. I’ve got more time than I thought. When security poles do their six o’clock sweep, it’s not like bells and whistles go off to tell you that your weapon is tagged; it’s a sneaky, completely silent, but thankfully it’s slow and takes about three hours to go to the authorities. De-tagging the gun should take ten minutes, fifteen at most. I get out of the car and face Jin, scanning him from head to foot. No beep goes off. “You’re all clear.” I pop the scanner back into the glove compartment. I grab my safe box. “Stay in this car until I get back. If you see anyone that’s not me, then you duck and call me on my phone. Got it?”

  Jin pales a little. He sits back down in his seat. “Someone else is coming?”

  My gaze flicks toward the trees. “I doubt it, but you never know who could be watching out here.”

  A few beats of tense quiet follow before Jin gives a quiet. “Okay.”

  Holding the box against my under my arms, I roll down the windows for Jin, and lock the doors.

  Crows squawk in the woods, but four circle overhead as if they’re looking forward to pecking the eyes out of someone’s corpse tonight. Empty, the road stretches on forever in both directions. No chi towers or telephone poles. No buildings. No people. Just a deserted tract of land. And a battered green sign in front of me that reads: Welcome to Ise— The rest is faded from age.

  I don’t feel welcome. Criminals murder, rape, and mug in this type of darkness. Technically, I should feel right at home, being an assassin. But being on the land of the nation’s most “Holier-Than-Thou” shrine, it’s awkward —like when you don’t show up for class, and then run into your teacher the same day.

  A draft bites my skin through my boyfriend’s leather jacket. I tuck the box under my arm and tug the jacket tighter to my skin. I regret not putting more thought into my clothes before I left, but I didn’t have time to change. The forty-five minutes I have left on the clock is generous; it takes long enough to drive out here during the worst of rush hour traffic and I ran through a few red lights and stop signs.

  At least no one else was home. I’d take jail over Tammy’s verbal ass-kicking any day.

  The darkness starts to thicken, forcing my Akuma genes to kick in and sharpen my night vision. An owl hoots from the shelter of a thick-leaved branch, but in the dark it only shows up as a mottled shape of red, yellow, and green thermal radiation. I pass a v-trunked tree, and in between them, I spot a couple standing in the distance: a man in a rice hat and a woman wearing a white hoodie.

  I slow behind a thick tree trunk and peer around it.

  They’re not looking my way. The woman folds her arms. “How many of them were here do you think?”

  “Two,” says the second man. “Sometimes I’ve seen three or four here. Be careful if you’re going to be walking around here at night.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” mutters the hoodie-wearing woman. “Be sure to tell everyone to be on their guard. Every time those creeps appear something bad happens.”

  Just civilians. I doubt that they can see me that well from that far away, if at all. I keep walking, but I open the lacquer box’s lid and touch the cold barrel. Just in case.

  Rustle! Rustle!

  My heart thuds against my ribcage. Then I take out the whole thing, aiming it at a thicket.

  A long body slips out, pupils shining green as it stares.
/>   I don’t take my finger off the trigger until it darts away. Just a fox. I lower the gun. Should’ve heard that coming. Get it together, Jun. Pay attention.

  Cypress trees tower high above my head and shower. From here, the torii bridge to the Inner Shrine lolls toward this side of the forest like a tongue of wood.

  It’s been a while. Ironically, the last time I was here it was for the exact same thing. My gun got some funky tag on it during on of my first assignments that wasn’t from the security poles, and back then there weren’t any handheld scanners or de-tagging equipment to save anyone’s ass. You had to ring it through to the Showguns IT department and they had to clear it, or you had to be smart enough to know how to do it the long, excruciatingly painful way. Dumb luck brought me here and taught me that shrines and temples are the only place you can de-tag without drawing suspicion from city cameras.

  I trudge up the arch of the torii bridge. Dry leaves skid through the railing and fall into the river murmuring underneath. Across from it, there’s another stretch of dark forest and a road that leads right to the shrine’s entrance. Moss squeezes between cracks in the moon-rinsed shrine steps. Another torii stands sentinel at the top, rectangular frame seeming like a gateway of judgment. The wooden fence beyond it’s slightly open without a single guard or priest around to monitor it; they’ve stopped watching when people stopped visiting.

  More fencing bars me off from the shrine itself, but dirt and gravel runs abound under the open sky. This should be far enough. Crouching, I lay the box down and take the gun out of the box and lift the silk. Beneath it there’s another smaller box with two gold jacks protruding from the side. I remove it and insert into the two holes on the back of the gun’s grip. It clicks in with a beep.

  “De-tag unit initializing. Please stand by.” The box chirps.

  I set it back down in the box, and wait. I think I’ll leave the gun here just in case. Technically, I don’t really need to leave the gun here, but it’s an extra precaution. My friend Shig gave me this beta de-tagger, but despite the full functionality, it’s still a work in progress. With his version, unregistered weapons sometimes don’t de-tag all the way, but it still erases your ID data. It’s best not to be near it when that happens so if worst comes to worst, the police find the weapon, but there’s no incriminating information left in it. Once the de-tag unit is done, I scoop handfuls of gravel away until I have a decent sized hole for the box and lay silk over the gun, stuffing it in with my gritty fingers. I lower the lacquered box into the earth and cover it; the gravel blends over seamlessly like one big rocky tapestry. Sweeping the gritty dirt off my fingers, I look up at the black sky through the trees. What a nightmare.