#35: FIC/ART COLLABORATION - Electric Sheep (And Other Dreamscapes)
Title: Electric Sheep (And Other Dreamscapes)
Fandom: Arashi
Rating: PG-13n
Summary: Jun glanced at Nino's reflection in the glass, and wondered how an expression of such enthrallment could be a mere product of sparks and wires.
Notes: Art by widowmangada. Long notes here. But in short, thank you forochel for being utterly incredible throughout this, as well as to darong for cheering me on. This story was inspired by a certain picture in one of floweranza's picspams.
UPDATE (23/4/2014): I've just discovered, while clicking around randomly, that the website I was hosting this (and Storm Children) on has apparently vanished the story entirely! So - on the off-chance that anyone might still wander over here and try to read this fic, I've posted the text version (with pictures to be added) in this LJ post.
I
It was Jun who had found Nino, while searching a recently-vacated research block some distance from the Bridges. He had spotted a young man amidst the discarded ventilation capsules, curled up on the ground in a fetal position and making low groans deep in his chest. It was only after Jun had half-carried, half pulled him back to the ship that they realised that he was a cybernetic unit.
"I like him," said Aiba, wandering into the hold with two utility bins in tow.
"It's not a question of whether you like him or not - and please put on a shirt," said Sho exasperatedly. "He looks too expensive to have just been left behind. Someone has got to be looking for him."
"You're right," Jun replied. He knew all of Saori's models intimately from years of dismantling them for ease of transport, and while this unit certainly resembled one, it had none of the usual processor extensions present in even the latest releases. "I don't even know how to switch him back on."
"He's in hibernation now," said Ohno as he ran a system check on the processor and powered up the cooling tank. "Units like him don't have on-off buttons."
"Too telling?" asked Jun, recalling all the times they'd spotted and taken out a lone cybernetic unit by locating its processor.
"I was thinking more along the lines of too ugly, but I suppose there's that, too," replied Ohno, opening a packet of rice crackers with his teeth.
"Has he got a name?" asked Aiba, peering at the unit through the glass.
"If I'm not wrong, it's that," said Jun, pointing at the letters tattooed inconspicuously on the unit's left arm.
"Nino," murmured Sho, "no series number, no model code."
Inside the glass capsule, Nino's body stirred every now and then, involuntary movements caused by the computer testing his reflexes. Even shut down he looked alive - a young man deep in slumber, one arm thrown over his eyes to shield them from harsh laboratory lights they knew he couldn't actually see. This, too, had been carefully programmed, Jun realised; whoever had made him hadn't missed a thing.
"I suggest we leave him for another twelve hours at least. Even these cybernetics have their limits," said Ohno. He tapped his fingers absently against the glass. Nino didn't respond. He turned to the others. "Tea?"
II
People still referred to the Temple as if it were a fixed location, a single unused warehouse or run-down amphidome, rather than a series of meeting-places that changed by the day. The name had stuck despite this because people knew of it as a place where their prayers were answered. Most residents of the New Cities suffered from some deficiency or other - bad lungs, like Aiba, or Sho's bad arm (Jun was lucky enough to have escaped with merely a bad temper), but new prosthetic limbs were heavily regulated. This was where crews like Jun's came in: what Saori Corporation had withheld from the people, smugglers had no qualms providing.
The Temple that evening was a small ramen restaurant run by one of Sho's long-time contacts. They normally frequented other venues but the goods they had this time sold better when packaged with a replacement procedure, and while Ohno was a competent enough surgeon, it was common knowledge that Ogura Tomoaki had by far the steadiest hands under the Outer Bridges.
Tokyo's Bridges had been built almost four decades ago in a joint project with Saori Corporation, which aimed to extend the city above ground level in order to facilitate the introduction of air transportation. With Saori Corporation at its heart, the Bridges soon consumed large swathes of Tokyo, introducing a labyrinthine quality to an already mazelike city. In the Outer Bridges this problem was worse, after Saori Corporation had embarked on the haphazard construction of new apartments for displaced or incoming citizens, packing the units closer and tighter than previously imaginable.
"Who's up for some action?" asked Sho, as Aiba eased the ship under the network of metal ramps and walkways that formed the Outer Bridges.
Jun rolled his eyes. "You're saying it like it's a question but you really mean me, right?"
"Ah," said Sho, looking only slightly sheepish.
"I'll need someone to cover me," said Jun briskly, grabbing his coat and hunting around for his good pair of boots. He had never quite felt safe making transactions at Ogura's despite Sho's insistence that it was the securest location for miles. There were too many people, too many changing variables. Ogura had control of all the surveillance cameras in his alley, but Saori had ground officers and an endless supply of security units at their disposal.
"I'll do it," Sho said readily, probably motivated by the fact that all he would need to do was eat ramen and keep a furtive lookout. "Ohno should stay with the- with Nino."
"Are we ramen suppliers again?" asked Aiba, as the ship slowed to a crawl by the entrance of a dingy back alley.
Ohno patted a large trolley he had been stuffing with packets of noodles. Lying within, securely wrapped, was a selection of bionic limbs they had scavenged from a dumping ground under the Bridges and painstakingly rewired. "I've already prepared the crate."
The streets under the Outer Bridges seemed to be comprised entirely of steep drops and ridiculously narrow walkways, which made transporting the ramen trolley a rather intricate balancing act. Jun had grown up traversing these passages but it didn't make navigating them any easier, and it was mostly through sheer luck that he reached the back entrance of Ramen Nakamura without any major mishap.
Ogura was waiting for him behind a bubbling pot of soup.
"What the hell are you doing there?" snapped Jun, wheeling in the trolley.
"You're late," said Ogura benignly, "people are waiting for their ramen."
Jun raised an eyebrow. "And how is that my problem?"
"You have a point," Ogura replied, emerging from behind the pot. "Come, let's take a look at these noodles."
A study of any available blueprint for Ramen Nakamura would reveal a small storage room at the back of the shop, the entrance to which was obscured by one of those clever trick doors that had been fashionable about two decades ago. This was enough to occupy inspecting Saori ground officers whenever they came by - they usually left the shop with no further questions and good ramen in their stomachs.
What the blueprint did not include, however, was the second trick door in the far corner of the room that led, as Jun discovered, to a smaller room about the size of two closets. It was in that room that one customer was waiting, already seated on the long bench that would function as an operating table.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," said Ogura smoothly, ushering Jun through the door and shutting it securely. They would not be disturbed - the door locked from the inside.
"And the others?" asked Jun; they had been told to expect three that day.
"Let's just say they've... found another place of worship," said Ogura meaningfully.
"Akanishi's?"
Ogura shrugged.
"I'll poke his eyes out the next time I meet him," said Jun, "You tell him that."
"Very well," said Ogura, "but you're ignoring the young lady here."
Jun glanced at her briefly. She was around his age; beautiful, wearing a look of quiet uncertainty that made her face her lovelier than she already was.
"Forgive me," he said, giving her a short nod.
"Shall we begin?" asked Ogura, as Jun bent to lift out the bionic leg from under a pile of ramen packets. It was a good fit, he thought. Ohno had gone beyond merely fixing the connectors, altering the calf structure as much as he could as well. The synthetic skin was perfect like only Ohno could manage, from the texture to the way it stretched, and it was evident that his skills in follicle installation were impeccable.
"For Haruka," Ohno had murmured when he had shown Jun the completed product. "A girl with a beautiful name deserves a beautiful leg."
"Send Ohno my regards," said Ogura, taking the limb from Jun and turning it deftly in his hands. He glanced to the girl. "Please make yourself comfortable," he told her, "This might take a while."
III
Jun's sojourn in the Outer Bridges left him with filth on his skin and an unpleasant taste in his mouth, the gritty residue of recycled smog spat back onto the streets by thousands of overworked generators. When he got back into the ship a shower was his right and his first priority; the others knew from past experience not to disturb him until he was done scrubbing the dirt off every inch of skin he could reach.
Sho was waiting outside the shower unit when Jun was done.
"Fit?"
"Like a glove," said Jun. "As always. How was the ramen?"
"Superb," Sho replied. "As always."
"Sluggard."
"Stop whining and come up; Ohno's waking the unit."
Most cybernetic units were programmed to state, on exiting hibernation, their unit number, maker and date of manufacturing. When Ohno woke Nino he merely sat up and demanded to know where he was.
"You're not very polite, are you?" asked Sho.
"I'm on an unfamiliar ship, surrounded by what look like third-rate smugglers who are probably making plans to dismember and sell me for a tidy sum," said Nino. "I'd say this is hardly the time for manners."
Jun and Sho exchanged glances. Someone had actually thought to give this unit a personality.
IV
They sold the two other limbs within the week, and fixed the processors of two ancient cybernetic units whose owners had neither the money nor permission to replace. Sho and Ohno did the bulk of the reparations, being the experts at such things: Sho had grown up having to maintain his own ill-constructed mechanical arm, a pre-Saori model that he doggedly refused to replace, and at some point in his life Ohno had somehow procured himself a certification in cybernetic engineering with Saori Institute. (This was according to the records, anyway - he had very little recollection of this.) Jun handled most transactions and scavenged the rest of the time. He had an eye for salvageable things; after all, that was how he had found Nino.
Nino, who sniped and whinged and found things funny like a real human being, while most of the cybernetics they had encountered had the conversational ability of a lamp-post. Even his physiology was atypical - and this was what had caused Jun to mistake Nino for a real person at the beginning. Saori models were typically tall and powerfully built, units with function and purpose, but Nino was small, shorter than Jun, his shoulders hunched in a constant slouch. Most startling, however, were his eyes, which Jun was quite aware were standard Synth-Oculi but nevertheless posessed an alertness that he had always thought impossible to bionically replicate.
"Stop looking at me like that," Nino would say whenever Jun was in the room with him, as if he could actually feel discomfort, and Jun couldn't understand how the others could keep their eyes off him, couldn't understand why they didn't seem at all fascinated by the technological miracle standing before them in Aiba's old clothes, poking around their ship and stealing their rice crackers.
"You don't eat," said Jun, the third time he caught Nino opening a new packet.
Nino rolled his eyes. "Thank you for reminding me."
Ohno and Aiba appeared to find Nino adorable, and Jun was quite certain that the ancient Nintendo console that had taken residence in the dusty corner of the hold had been set up entirely for his benefit. Sho, on the other hand, seemed to regard Nino as a puzzle he could not yet solve.
"If we identified his maker we'd be able to find some answers," he would say, poring, for the hundredth time, over the data Ohno had gathered during Nino's hibernation.
It was evident that whoever had made or owned Nino had had no intention of being tracked down - Nino had come in with his memory almost completely erased, nothing left from his past function apart from a name and his sardonic wit. This did not trouble Nino very much, as far as Jun could tell, just like how the fact that he no longer had a discernible purpose seemed to be no cause for concern for him. Some days, he sat in Ohno or Sho's cabins and watched them work; other days, he lingered on the bridge and played pictionary with Aiba, much to Sho's chagrin.
There was no question, after that first day, of whether or not they were keeping Nino. They had been shorthanded even after Ohno had joined the crew, and were not about to say no to extra help about the ship, even if said extra help had so far been of no help at all.
V
The rendezvous point with the Osaka shipment was the indoor berthing grid of a mid-range hotel. Their contact had secured them invitations to the wedding banquet happening inside, and the Prospero IV entered with no hassle at all.
"Those were real invitations," said Sho, when they cleared security. "My name is listed under 'Family Friends'."
"Who are we meeting, exactly?" asked Nino
"Nishikido Ryo," answered Jun, "who is, by all appearances, a two-faced, double-crossing scoundrel of a smuggler."
"Kind of like you lot, then," said Nino.
"Yes," said Aiba earnestly, "except Ryo-chan's also a terrible driver."
Jun didn't like the fact that Nishikido had never seen the need to decide exactly whose crew he was part of - Murakami's in Osaka, or Koyama's. He also didn't like the fact that they needed a middle-man in their dealings with the Osaka smugglers, or that Koyama got equal priority. That aside, Nishikido's goods were always of a high standard, and he was nothing if not fastidious when it came to sorting out payments.
"Nice invitations," said Sho, when they emerged from the ship to see Nishikido already waiting for them on the next dock. It had been years since he and Jun had hung around the Outer Bridges, stealing things and sneaking into movie theatres, but the man was still wearing the same grubby leather jacket and that insufferably boyish smile.
"Only the best for my sister's wedding," said Nishikido, flashing them a grin.
"Congratulations," said Sho.
Jun, in the meantime, was glancing about warily. "Where's Koyama?"
"Held up," Nishikido told him. "Come on, then. I've got a speech to make in twenty minutes."
"Don't you have an older brother for that?" Jun asked. Nishikido had two brothers; one was an accountant and the other beat people up for a living. Neither of them was particularly fond of Jun. Or of Nishikido, for that matter.
"Weren't you listening?" asked Nishikido. "Baby sister. Getting married. Of course I'm making a speech."
"And will this speech take place before or after you finish engaging in criminal activities?" asked Nino, who had sidled out of the entrance while their exchange was taking place.
"New crew member, I see," Nishikido murmured, eyes darting to Nino. "I like him."
"So do we," said Sho. "Now can we please proceed?"
"What, no introduction?" asked Nishikido.
"You don't need an introduction," snapped Jun. "Anyone can tell that you're a little bastard just by looking at your face."
"I meant him," said Nishikido, jerking his head towards Nino.
"He's just some guy we picked up," Sho said quickly.
Nino gave a little wave. "Also a little bastard. Jun tells me so all the time."
"Nice," Nishikido said, flashing him another grin. "Well, let's get going then. Criminal activities await."
They soon reached a small storage room quite hidden from the rest of the building. Nishikido produced the key with a flourish and proceeded to unlock the door.
"The best of Osaka," he announced, when they had all filed in and he had secured the room.
It was nothing short of incredible; Murakami's crew had really outdone themselves this time. There was a good supply of nanowires, a number of processors that looked like they were brand new and several titanium cores, apart from the usual spare limbs and Synth-Oculi sockets. The Osaka smugglers might have been less adept at putting things together after losing one of their engineers, but they still remained more than capable of taking out cybernetic units, it seemed.
"Ohno would have a fit," murmured Jun, glancing over the selection presented before them.
Next to him, Sho was unconsciously clicking the joints of his mechanical arm, a habit that surfaced whenever he got excited about something. "And this is why we left Ohno in the ship." He turned to Nishikido. "Prices?"
"The usual," Nishikido replied. "Take it as a wedding special."
"All right," said Sho, "we'll take a look at your inventory."
While Nishikido and Sho went over the price lists together, Jun began examining the contents of the first crate, picking through the parts more eagerly than he would have liked to appear. "These guys are good."
Nino, on the other hand, now seemed to hang back. When Jun handed him a processor he barely maintained his grip on it.
"What is wrong with you?" hissed Jun, snatching the processor back before Nino damaged it by accident.
"-check the goods, and if everything's fine I'll be back to close the deal," Nishikido was telling Sho. The moment he exited the room Nino reached out to catch Jun's arm.
"Don't," he said, voice serious. "Don't buy these."
"What do you mean, don't?" asked Sho. "We need this stuff."
"I just don't think this is a good idea," said Nino. He was no longer smiling, and his grip on Jun's arm was bordering on excruciating.
"Nino," warned Jun, "let go of me."
"So now it's up to you to decide what is or is not a good idea?" Sho demanded.
Jun finally managed to pry Nino's fingers away. "Why?" he asked.
"Just a feeling," said Nino defiantly. "If I knew what it was I'd tell you."
Sho was shaking his head. "I can't work like this. I'm not going to blow off a deal just because you have a hunch about something."
"Wait," said Jun, reaching over to the crate and picking up a nearly-intact bionic arm. He turned to Nino. "Hold this."
Nino held on to the arm for a moment, testing its weight in his hands. Then he held it up to his face.
"What is he doing?" asked Sho, exasperated. Jun, in the meantime, was watching Nino with narrowed eyes.
"I can't-" Nino began, "This-"
"Let me," Jun interrupted, taking the arm from Nino. In one swift movement, he lifted it high and brought it crashing down against the edge of the table.
"Are you insane?" Sho shouted, but Jun already had his tools out and was picking away at the opening he had made.
"Look at this," hissed Jun, pointing jerkily at the ruined arm on the table. "Look at what that little fucker's trying to sell us."
Packed inside the arm was satchet after satchet of teal-coloured powder, the sort that kids mixed in their drinks and used to coat their bionic joints with before they got completely wasted.
"Party drugs," said Sho with disgust. "Figures he'd be double-smuggling."
Nino was still standing stock-still by the table, blinking down at the powder like he was trying very hard to recall something.
"We're leaving," Jun spat, grabbing Nino by the elbow. "Nishikido can clear up on his own."
They made their way back out onto the berthing grid and into the ship without a word. Jun was still seething with anger.
"How did it go?" asked Ohno.
"Splendidly," said Jun. "Which is why we've returned empty-handed."
"Sho-chan," said Aiba, "are you all right?"
Jun turned; Sho was still looking at Nino with wary curiosity.
"What were you made for, Nino?" asked Sho. "That's what I want to know."
VI
"Do you remember anything?" asked Jun.
Nino didn't reply.
Gently but firmly, Jun took Nino's face in his hands and tilted it until their eyes met.
"Do you remember anything?"
Nino averted his gaze.
"Nino."
"Don't touch me."
"All right," said Jun, stepping away. "All right."
VII
The cybernetic unit knew it was being watched. It would take much more for its processor to send a distress signal to Saori Corporation, though, which meant that Jun still had time.
He had seen Sho hunt before. Sho always took the first opportunity he got, wasting no time after sighting a viable unit. For someone with a mechanical arm Sho was a genius with the long-range blaster gun.
Jun, on the other hand, liked the wait. He enjoyed having the unit traverse the full length of the deserted thoroughfare before taking it out, quick and precise with no buffer time in between. This was mostly for the challenge but also partly out of caution; there had been occasions when daring scavengers had intercepted a disabled unit before they could get to it.
There was still time. The cybernetic unit continued along with what looked like the week's groceries clutched to its chest. Shuji A29: designed for most household chores but with added security functions. Jun liked this model. It was one of the easiest to disassemble.
There was still time. Jun readjusted his grip on the blaster gun, never taking his eyes off the target. Sho normally got antsy by this point, but Sho wasn't around this time. Crouched beside Jun on the ledge was Nino, who had so far been silently observing Jun's every move, face impassive. Jun could tell that Nino was on edge, but it wasn't a distracting sort of tension; rather, it focused Jun, made him more alert.
The unit was fast approaching. Nino's hand slowly crept up until it rested uncertainly on Jun's shoulder. One step closer, no, another. One more, and he would-
Nino's fingers gave a squeeze. "Now," he whispered.
Jun fired one shot straight at unit's shoulder, taking out the broadcast communicator without hurting the processor. Before the unit could begin to run, he fired another shot at its right leg, causing it to fall to the ground.
"Nice," murmured Jun. "You could get good at this."
Nino grinned. "If you'd let me near a blaster gun."
"All in good time," Jun replied.
Quietly they made their way down from the ledge and approached the unit. It was only Nino's second time hunting, but already he knew to reach for the switch automatically, shutting off the unit in a trice. On some level it disturbed Jun a little to see how blase Nino seemed about disassembling what one could roughly consider his own kind. Mostly, though, Jun was just amazed at how quickly he learned.
"Now for the difficult part," said Jun, pulling his tools out and getting to work. He was just about to make an incision in the unit's shoulder, however, when he felt something cold and hard pressed against the back of his head.
"Don't move," said a voice. "Drop your weapons. Ground officers will be arriving momentarily."
"Fuck," Jun spat, as the Saori security unit removed his blaster gun from its holster. From the corner of his eye he could see the other unit motioning for Nino to put his hands up.
They'd been careless. Jun should have sensed that something was wrong when he'd noticed no other ships in sight. They still had a chance, though, before the ground officers arrived with actual weapons.
In one swift movement, Jun twisted around and grabbed hold of the electroshock baton in the unit's hands, attempting to dislodge it before retrieving his gun. Before he could do so, however, a startling snap of energy zipped by his head, causing him to instinctively duck for cover. When Jun looked up, the security unit had fallen motionless to the ground.
"I don't suppose we'll be able to take all three with us?" asked Ohno, replacing his blaster gun in its holster.
VIII
"Have a look at the scans," Ohno murmured, slilding the files over to Sho. "His design is fascinating."
Jun glanced at one of the printouts. It was a cross-section of one of Nino's arms, heavily annotated in Ohno's lazy scrawl.
"The basic principles are the same as any Saori model - nanowires that can simulate muscle movement, layered over a reinforced skeleton and covered by synthetic tissue," Ohno told them. "The difference here is the materials used. Look-" and here he pointed to the arm, "while Saori models incorporate a lot of metal components for durability, Nino's skeleton appears to have been made from a composite material with a similar density to human bone. This might explain his smaller size, because his optimum muscle mass has decreased due to his weaker skeleton."
"If he's so advanced, why make him weaker?" asked Sho.
"Weaker than the average Saori model, yes, but as we've discovered, he's got a good reaction time and plenty of agility and speed. And whoever installed his musculature is a bit of a genius," said Ohno, with visible admiration. "Nino's got a very powerful set of limbs."
"You still haven't answered the question," Sho reminded him.
"He's not meant to be at all like a Saori model, as far as I can tell," Ohno told them. "In fact I think his design hinges around something else altogether."
"And what's that?" asked Jun.
"Remember how when you first found him, you couldn't immediately tell that he was a cybernetic unit?" asked Ohno. "It's fashionable now, of course, to try to hide all the visible components, but with Nino it was impossible to tell until I ran all my scans."
"So he's designed to blend in?"
"More than blend in," said Ohno. "The last clue is the synthetic tissue. Saori models have a very thin layer; it's very easy to expose metal when you cut one of them. But Nino's..." Ohno reached out and pointed at the cross-section again.
"It's much thicker," observed Jun, examining the layers.
"If you prick him," said Ohno, "he bleeds."
IX
"I want to show you something, Nino," said Aiba one evening, over the ship's intercom. They had just returned from a dumping ground on the outskirts of Tokyo's Bridges, and Sho and Jun were sorting through their haul while Ohno hovered over them with a clipboard.
"What?" asked Nino, only mildly curious. He didn't look up from his game.
"Nino-chan," Aiba repeated.
Sho glanced out of the window. "This isn't our usual route."
"I'm not coming up unless you tell me what it is," said Nino, thumbs still working frantically at the patched-together gaming console.
"Matsujun," came Aiba's voice again. "Bring Nino up to the bridge."
"Can't you see that I'm busy?" Jun snapped.
"Technically, no," Aiba replied cheerfully.
Jun rolled his eyes, but he set down the bunch of nanowires he was sorting through and scrambled to his feet anyway.
"Come on," he said, walking over to where Nino was crouched on the floor and nudging him in the ribs with his toe. "Or we'll never hear the end of it."
With great reluctance, Nino saved the game he was playing and put aside his console, shutting and stowing it with the same sort of painstaking care Ohno would show his prized toolbox. Together they climbed up the short ladder and emerged on the bridge, where Aiba was bringing the ship to an unsteady hover.
"Look," Aiba commanded, hitting the button that would open the rest of the window shades.
They were below Bridge level, but a glance out of the windows surrounding them revealed a sky painted sullen red in the sunset, large Bridge pillars cutting through the horizon. In the far distance Jun could see a mass of tiny black specks navigating the tangle of steel and concrete: ships just like theirs, heading back to landing grids or out of the city. In the foreground, however, was something entirely different.
Silhouetted against the sky was a seemingly endless network of branches, bare and black like delicate claws spread out in marvellous symmetry; a stark forest of still skeletons stripped of leaves and birdsong.
"What are these?" asked Nino, gazing out at them in fascination.
"Trees," said Jun quietly. "This is Tokyo's last park, isn't it, Masaki?"
"On the old maps, we'd be in Chiba," Aiba replied, "but yes, this is it."
"They must cost a fortune to maintain," said Nino, pressing closer to the glass. Nothing moved out there, in that barren grove pregnant only with memory.
"More than a fortune," said Jun. "It would cost less to build an oxygen plant, but I suppose Saori Corporation has the money. The government certainly doesn't."
"Beautiful, aren't they?" asked Aiba. "Old Tokyo's last real trees."
Jun glanced at Nino's reflection in the glass, and wondered how an expression of such enthrallment could be a mere product of sparks and wires.
X
The inspectors arrived one week earlier than expected, while Ohno and Jun were out peddling their latest at the Temple. It was a good thing they had been, because the existing spare parts on board were apparently enough, under the revised guidelines, to warrant the seizure of the ship's captain.
Sho's incarceration lasted for three days this time. They picked him up off a precarious little landing strip by one of the back entrances of Saori Corporation's intelligence centre, and while Aiba attempted to manoeuvre the ship out of the close network of berthing grids, Ohno helped him into the cabin for some food and rest.
"The usual questions, then?" asked Jun, as Sho shivered over his hot drink. He looked as if he had not slept (which was likely) and winced with every movement of his mechanical arm, but there were no bruises or external wounds. Saori Corporation was clever that way - they left as little evidence as possible.
"What do you mean, the usual questions?" Nino demanded, appearing by the door. "Do you mean that they regularly arrest and interrogate him?"
"There's a reason why the Prospero IV is one of the few cargo vessels with automatic clearance for most sectors of Tokyo's Bridges, and it's not because Aiba's been filing his paperwork right," Jun replied grimly. Times were lean, even for smugglers, and no sane crew would turn down a bit of double-dealing every now and then.
Sho nodded as he let Ohno hook him up to the medical unit. "Temple. I gave them three fakes and two of Joshima's. Think he'll be pissed?"
"He's a grown man, he can handle it," said Jun.
"Give him a heads up anyway," said Sho. "They also asked if I'd heard of any dealers who've been doing conversions - cybernetic limbs to human prosthetics."
"And I suppose you neglected to inform them that the man who pioneered the technique is also a member of your crew?" Nino asked dryly. He directed a meaningful glance at Ohno, who was attaching a temporary probe to Sho's good wrist.
"What I told them was that if I did, I wouldn't have this piece of junk still attached to my shoulder," says Sho, flexing the fingers of his mechanical hand. "And that was the point where they sent in the bots to start dismantling it. Hurt like you wouldn't believe it. Hurt more when I had to put it back together."
"I'll take a look at it," Ohno told him, "after you get some rest." The look he gave Jun was particularly pointed.
"All right, I'll come back later," said Jun irritably, taking Sho's mug from him and heading for the door.
"One last thing," said Sho, before they left. "They asked about our scavenging. Wanted to know if we'd found anything."
Jun paused. "Did they mention what they were looking for?"
"Not a word," said Sho, but Jun couldn't help but notice the way his eyes darted to Nino, who was still poking at Ohno's monitor screen with a great deal of interest.
"We'll keep off the dumping grounds for a while, then, if Saori's going to be watching," said Jun, even though he knew from their latest stocktaking that if they didn't venture out again they would have nothing. "Lie low for a bit."
"I was actually thinking more of a change of scenery," Sho replied. "We can cast our nets wider, if you know what I mean."
"No," said Nino, appearing to have been listening all along, "I don't."
"What he means," Ohno said, a smile creeping onto his face, "is that we're going fishing."
XI
Including checkpoint stops and trans-prefecture screenings, it took them about half a day to leave Tokyo's Bridges and reach their destination, a water purification farm belonging to an old couple Aiba claimed were his grandparents.
"He's not actually related to them," Jun told Nino, as Aiba eased the Prospero IV into the narrow dock.
"Oh, but he is," said Ohno in a knowing voice, while sort of half-dangling off the ship so he could secure its position. "Isn't he, Sho-kun?"
"No comment," said Sho, fiddling with the hydraulic clamps.
"Where are we, exactly?" asked Nino when the ship juddered to a halt.
"Aomori," announced Aiba, emerging from the bridge. "More specifically, the water catchment belt."
When they had scrambled out of the ship and onto the somewhat rickety berthing grid, Nino glanced around appraisingly. "So we're branching out now, then? Purifying a bit of water to earn some pocket money?"
"Not exactly," said Sho. He waved enthusiastically at the figure approaching them from the far side of the berthing grid. "Think of it more as a holiday."
"A working holiday," Jun corrected.
"The key word here being 'work'," added Ohno.
They had stayed on the water purification farm a number of times before, usually during seasons when scavenging in Tokyo became more difficult and business was slow. The man Aiba claimed was his grandfather owned a significant stretch of catchment area, and while the processing of the water was handled by machines, much had to be done to clear the dirt and daily detritus that found its way into the reservoir and clogged up the filtration system.
When it had just been the three of them - Jun, Sho and Aiba - they had taken turns to go out in the trawler each morning with Aiba's grandfather and dredge up miles of junk. It was from this junk that they picked out usable cybernetic parts that had been carelessly discarded. Of course, most of these items were far from the most advanced, but Sho (and later Ohno) could still do wonders with spare bits of metal and salvageable processor casings.
When they had not been out on the trawler, they'd been tasked with carrying crates and clay pots in the small donabe restaurant run by Aiba's alleged grandmother, just a little way away from the farm. It was there that they headed towards, after unloading their cargo from the ship.
Aiba's grandmother's only greeting when they entered the shop was a critical, "There are more of you," before she disappeared back into the kitchen.
"She's preparing dinner for a hundred guests next Friday," explained Aiba's grandfather.
"A hundred and twenty," his grandmother called back, "and I'll need all the help I can get."
Nino turned to the rest of them. "A working holiday. I see."
XII
On their first morning there, they discovered that Nino could get seasick.
"You can't possibly be seasick," Jun pointed out. "You're a cybernetic unit, for goodness' sake."
"Believe me, I can," said Nino crossly, looking utterly miserable as he sat huddled in a corner of the trawler and tried to shut his eyes.
The next day they left him back at the restaurant to help Aiba's grandmother, and returned to find them bickering like they'd known each other all their lives. Jun was familiar with her abuse, but he had never seen her take a shine to someone the way she had with Nino.
"Boy," she would roar from the kitchen, "don't let me catch you eating the mushrooms from those pots again!"
"Who in their right mind would want to eat your mushrooms?" Nino would snap back while furtively replacing the cover of a bowl he'd just picked at.
At one point, Jun walked into the kitchen to find her standing over Nino while he arranged vegetables on top of bowls of rice, brandishing a fly swatter as she gave him commands.
"This is wrong," she said, tapping him on the shoulder. Nino merely shrugged, and carried on doing exactly the same thing. When she persisted, he feigned despair and sighed, "Baa-chan," in his most brattish voice, which only earned him a more vigorous scolding.
"She's never been this happy before," observed Aiba's grandfather over dinner, while the others attacked their food with fervour in hopes of being in time for a second helping.
Their days out at the catchment area were long and tiring, an endless slog that involved cranking up the nets when they were full and picking through the sludge to dislodge anything of value. By the end of the first week Jun's hands were sore to the point of uselessness from hauling in nets and throwing them back out, and all of them spoke in a constant shout caused by having to spend the day raising their voices over the roar of the trawler engine.
It wasn't as though Aomori was out of Saori's influence - sections of Aomori city had also been consumed by networks of Bridges. But away from Tokyo, away from its Bridges and its restless heat, there was less of a feeling of being watched and followed, less fear when the next farm was a few miles away and the only authority around was the young policeman Ikuta, who was largely genial and spent most of his time luxuriating in the nearby onsen.
"That boy should have more ambition," Aiba's grandmother said, whenever Ikuta came in for a meal, "he's a healthy young man, reasonably clever - there's no reason why he should be shunted to the outskirts like this."
"I quite like the outskirts," Ikuta replied, giving her one of his sheepish smiles. He seemed the good sort, not mean or spiteful like the Saori security officers could get, and certainly less powerful. It didn't make him altogether harmless, but Jun had always had a good feeling about him.
"There's something familiar about you," Ikuta told Nino, the first time they'd met. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"
"Probably not, sorry," Nino replied, but he didn't say more because they had agreed it would be best not to let on to anybody that he was a cybernetic unit.
"Oh, that's all right," said Ikuta, "I do that a lot - mistake people for someone I know."
"Like the first time he met Ohno," Aiba piped in. "He insisted he had seen him somewhere before and they both confused each other so much trying to remember where and when they'd met."
"I still don't remember, actually," Ohno said, somewhat morosely.
"I wouldn't expect you to," Sho told him, "since I suspect you can't even remember what you've been doing for the past five years."
"That's true," said Ohno, considering this for a while. "Mostly convenience stores, I think."
Sho and Ohno had been classmates sometime in the distant past, but they had lost contact after Sho had transfered from Cybernetic Engineering to Aeronautics. It had been by pure chance that Sho had run into Ohno almost a year ago, when he had been fixing vacuum cleaners in the back rooms of a housekeeping agency.
"Well to be honest it's all rather a blur, isn't it?" said Ikuta, grinning with a sort of artless sincerity that wasn't just politeness.
They shrugged off the exchange soon after but Jun noted the way Ikuta sometimes looked at Nino like he was still trying to puzzle him out, and hoped that whatever pieces he might be attempting to put together would never properly fall into place.
XIII
One of Jun's favourite things at the farm was being able to sit on the verenda outside the restaurant on a cool evening with his legs dangling from between the bars of the railing. It was a stark change from the unsettled heat and neverending grumble of Tokyo's Bridges, the inky darkness of the catchment area ahead soothing where the Bridges' bright lights had seared.
"Mind if I join you?" someone asked, startling Jun. He looked up; it was Nino.
"You'd do it just to spite me even if I said no," Jun replied, shrugging.
"You know me too well," said Nino, crouching down easily next to him.
They remained there in silence for a while, Jun pressing the side of his head against one of the bars while the land rested darkly around them. He thought he could hear Nino breathing; lightly, peacefully.
Finally, Nino spoke. "Are you planning to do this for the rest of your life?"
"What, sit here and stare out into the distance?" asked Jun.
Nino rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."
"Smuggling earns good money," said Jun, "and I've been doing it all my life."
"Really?"
"Almost," Jun corrected. "I did spend my formative years roaming the Outer Bridges with Nishikido Ryo. It's a miracle I still have any moral values left to speak of."
Nino snorted, but withheld comment.
"It's a funny question coming from you," said Jun, "seeing as you have no idea what you were meant to do in the first place."
"That's why I asked," said Nino. "I can see myself doing this for- for a long time, anyway."
You're a cybernetic unit, Jun wanted to tell him, you're not supposed to have hopes for the future. But he didn't say that, because he could tell that Nino was keenly aware of this himself. "Well," Jun said instead, "you could stick around."
"That's what Ohno told me," said Nino.
"That's what Ohno did, after all," Jun replied, "and he's been a great asset."
"So he wasn't part of the crew before?" asked Nino.
"The Prospero IV is Aiba and Sho's ship," said Jun. "They hired me after they caught me trying to remove one of the booster engines. Sometime later we picked up Ohno. Then we found you."
"And for some reason decided not to turn me into spare parts," finished Nino.
"I don't think we would have," Jun told him. And if any of the others had brought it up, Jun didn't think he would have let them.
"That's nice to know," said Nino.
"You're different," Jun began, haltingly. "I'm not sure if you're aware of this. You're - nobody has made a unit quite like you before."
"Why, thank you," said Nino.
"That was a statement of truth, not a compliment," snapped Jun.
"I know."
When Jun turned to look at Nino - to look at him properly, it was practically impossible to tell that he wasn't an actual human being. Only Ohno's scans had been able to detect that. Sitting there next to Jun, in a ratty singlet and an old pair of Aiba's shorts, was by all appearances a living, breathing young man; face far from flawless, hands small, fingers stubby, hair damp and plastered to his forehead. For a moment Jun could do nothing but be overwhelmed by this fact.
"Sometimes," Nino was saying, "I think I have memories."
"What?" asked Jun, blinking out of his reverie.
"Memories," Nino repeated. "There's no logical explanation, but I remember things."
"What sorts of things?"
"Bits and pieces," said Nino. "A woman, a very small house. Miso soup. Playing baseball."
"That's impossible," said Jun, before he could stop himself.
"I know," said Nino.
XIV
"He's a cybernetic unit," said Sho.
They were on the jetty cleaning out the nets. Far off in the distance, Aiba and his grandfather were bringing the trawler to berth, while Ohno leaned over the side, rope at the ready.
"Just so you know, they're still not giving out prizes for stating the obvious," Jun told him, jerkily picking up a nozzle and beginning to spray down the mesh.
"What's obvious," Sho persisted, "is how you look at him."
It had been foolish to think the others wouldn't have noticed. Ohno, perhaps, would have feigned obliviousness, but Jun knew Sho far to well to even hope for him to let it slip by.
He made a non-committal noise before turning up the water pressure by another notch. The hose twisted in his hands for a moment, the impact of the jet against the platform sending water splashing up onto his face.
"Jun."
"Right," said Jun. A kick to the shut down button and the water slowed abruptly to a trickle, hose stilling in his grip. "Yes, you're very observant."
"And?"
"And I am acutely aware that this is a futile endeavour, and that whatever I try will only end badly," Jun continued. "Because he is a cybernetic unit."
"Okay."
"Now will you let me finish doing my job?"
"All things considered, you're taking this rather well," said Sho, finally.
"Oh no," said Jun, "I assure you, I cry myself to sleep over this every night."
XV
He should have known, Jun realised on retrospect, that this peaceful interlude couldn't have lasted.
On Thursday afternoon, Aiba and Jun returned to pick up the lunch bentos, only to be greeted by the sight of Nino fast asleep at the entrance to the restaurant.
"Aren't you supposed to be helping inside?" asked Jun.
Nino stirred a bit on the bench before sitting up slowly. "I've been ejected from the kitchen."
When they made their way past the barricade of chairs blocking the door to the kitchen, they found Aiba's grandmother in a foul mood indeed.
"They're coming to take away my farm," she muttered while taking out the clay pots, "they're taking away my farm and my restaurant and the onsen and they expect me to feed them."
"Baa-chan," said Aiba soothingly, shuffling over to massage her shoulders, "they're not taking away your farm. They're just here to have a meal."
"Then how do you explain these?" she cried, gesturing to a stack of brochures off the countertop.
Jun picked them up and glanced at the first one, noting, with a sinking feeling, the all too familiar colour scheme and logo.
"The City of the Future - Now," read Nino over Jun's shoulder.
"It's just a proposal," said Aiba, "isn't it, Matsujun?"
"Baa-chan," said Jun, scanning the rest of the pamphlet. "Why didn't you tell us that those hundred and twenty guests were from Saori Corporation?"
Part 2
Now accompanied by Scurry (though you probably should read Electric Sheep first).
Fandom: Arashi
Rating: PG-13n
Summary: Jun glanced at Nino's reflection in the glass, and wondered how an expression of such enthrallment could be a mere product of sparks and wires.
Notes: Art by widowmangada. Long notes here. But in short, thank you forochel for being utterly incredible throughout this, as well as to darong for cheering me on. This story was inspired by a certain picture in one of floweranza's picspams.
UPDATE (23/4/2014): I've just discovered, while clicking around randomly, that the website I was hosting this (and Storm Children) on has apparently vanished the story entirely! So - on the off-chance that anyone might still wander over here and try to read this fic, I've posted the text version (with pictures to be added) in this LJ post.
I
It was Jun who had found Nino, while searching a recently-vacated research block some distance from the Bridges. He had spotted a young man amidst the discarded ventilation capsules, curled up on the ground in a fetal position and making low groans deep in his chest. It was only after Jun had half-carried, half pulled him back to the ship that they realised that he was a cybernetic unit.
"I like him," said Aiba, wandering into the hold with two utility bins in tow.
"It's not a question of whether you like him or not - and please put on a shirt," said Sho exasperatedly. "He looks too expensive to have just been left behind. Someone has got to be looking for him."
"You're right," Jun replied. He knew all of Saori's models intimately from years of dismantling them for ease of transport, and while this unit certainly resembled one, it had none of the usual processor extensions present in even the latest releases. "I don't even know how to switch him back on."
"He's in hibernation now," said Ohno as he ran a system check on the processor and powered up the cooling tank. "Units like him don't have on-off buttons."
"Too telling?" asked Jun, recalling all the times they'd spotted and taken out a lone cybernetic unit by locating its processor.
"I was thinking more along the lines of too ugly, but I suppose there's that, too," replied Ohno, opening a packet of rice crackers with his teeth.
"Has he got a name?" asked Aiba, peering at the unit through the glass.
"If I'm not wrong, it's that," said Jun, pointing at the letters tattooed inconspicuously on the unit's left arm.
"Nino," murmured Sho, "no series number, no model code."
Inside the glass capsule, Nino's body stirred every now and then, involuntary movements caused by the computer testing his reflexes. Even shut down he looked alive - a young man deep in slumber, one arm thrown over his eyes to shield them from harsh laboratory lights they knew he couldn't actually see. This, too, had been carefully programmed, Jun realised; whoever had made him hadn't missed a thing.
"I suggest we leave him for another twelve hours at least. Even these cybernetics have their limits," said Ohno. He tapped his fingers absently against the glass. Nino didn't respond. He turned to the others. "Tea?"
II
People still referred to the Temple as if it were a fixed location, a single unused warehouse or run-down amphidome, rather than a series of meeting-places that changed by the day. The name had stuck despite this because people knew of it as a place where their prayers were answered. Most residents of the New Cities suffered from some deficiency or other - bad lungs, like Aiba, or Sho's bad arm (Jun was lucky enough to have escaped with merely a bad temper), but new prosthetic limbs were heavily regulated. This was where crews like Jun's came in: what Saori Corporation had withheld from the people, smugglers had no qualms providing.
The Temple that evening was a small ramen restaurant run by one of Sho's long-time contacts. They normally frequented other venues but the goods they had this time sold better when packaged with a replacement procedure, and while Ohno was a competent enough surgeon, it was common knowledge that Ogura Tomoaki had by far the steadiest hands under the Outer Bridges.
Tokyo's Bridges had been built almost four decades ago in a joint project with Saori Corporation, which aimed to extend the city above ground level in order to facilitate the introduction of air transportation. With Saori Corporation at its heart, the Bridges soon consumed large swathes of Tokyo, introducing a labyrinthine quality to an already mazelike city. In the Outer Bridges this problem was worse, after Saori Corporation had embarked on the haphazard construction of new apartments for displaced or incoming citizens, packing the units closer and tighter than previously imaginable.
"Who's up for some action?" asked Sho, as Aiba eased the ship under the network of metal ramps and walkways that formed the Outer Bridges.
Jun rolled his eyes. "You're saying it like it's a question but you really mean me, right?"
"Ah," said Sho, looking only slightly sheepish.
"I'll need someone to cover me," said Jun briskly, grabbing his coat and hunting around for his good pair of boots. He had never quite felt safe making transactions at Ogura's despite Sho's insistence that it was the securest location for miles. There were too many people, too many changing variables. Ogura had control of all the surveillance cameras in his alley, but Saori had ground officers and an endless supply of security units at their disposal.
"I'll do it," Sho said readily, probably motivated by the fact that all he would need to do was eat ramen and keep a furtive lookout. "Ohno should stay with the- with Nino."
"Are we ramen suppliers again?" asked Aiba, as the ship slowed to a crawl by the entrance of a dingy back alley.
Ohno patted a large trolley he had been stuffing with packets of noodles. Lying within, securely wrapped, was a selection of bionic limbs they had scavenged from a dumping ground under the Bridges and painstakingly rewired. "I've already prepared the crate."
The streets under the Outer Bridges seemed to be comprised entirely of steep drops and ridiculously narrow walkways, which made transporting the ramen trolley a rather intricate balancing act. Jun had grown up traversing these passages but it didn't make navigating them any easier, and it was mostly through sheer luck that he reached the back entrance of Ramen Nakamura without any major mishap.
Ogura was waiting for him behind a bubbling pot of soup.
"What the hell are you doing there?" snapped Jun, wheeling in the trolley.
"You're late," said Ogura benignly, "people are waiting for their ramen."
Jun raised an eyebrow. "And how is that my problem?"
"You have a point," Ogura replied, emerging from behind the pot. "Come, let's take a look at these noodles."
A study of any available blueprint for Ramen Nakamura would reveal a small storage room at the back of the shop, the entrance to which was obscured by one of those clever trick doors that had been fashionable about two decades ago. This was enough to occupy inspecting Saori ground officers whenever they came by - they usually left the shop with no further questions and good ramen in their stomachs.
What the blueprint did not include, however, was the second trick door in the far corner of the room that led, as Jun discovered, to a smaller room about the size of two closets. It was in that room that one customer was waiting, already seated on the long bench that would function as an operating table.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," said Ogura smoothly, ushering Jun through the door and shutting it securely. They would not be disturbed - the door locked from the inside.
"And the others?" asked Jun; they had been told to expect three that day.
"Let's just say they've... found another place of worship," said Ogura meaningfully.
"Akanishi's?"
Ogura shrugged.
"I'll poke his eyes out the next time I meet him," said Jun, "You tell him that."
"Very well," said Ogura, "but you're ignoring the young lady here."
Jun glanced at her briefly. She was around his age; beautiful, wearing a look of quiet uncertainty that made her face her lovelier than she already was.
"Forgive me," he said, giving her a short nod.
"Shall we begin?" asked Ogura, as Jun bent to lift out the bionic leg from under a pile of ramen packets. It was a good fit, he thought. Ohno had gone beyond merely fixing the connectors, altering the calf structure as much as he could as well. The synthetic skin was perfect like only Ohno could manage, from the texture to the way it stretched, and it was evident that his skills in follicle installation were impeccable.
"For Haruka," Ohno had murmured when he had shown Jun the completed product. "A girl with a beautiful name deserves a beautiful leg."
"Send Ohno my regards," said Ogura, taking the limb from Jun and turning it deftly in his hands. He glanced to the girl. "Please make yourself comfortable," he told her, "This might take a while."
III
Jun's sojourn in the Outer Bridges left him with filth on his skin and an unpleasant taste in his mouth, the gritty residue of recycled smog spat back onto the streets by thousands of overworked generators. When he got back into the ship a shower was his right and his first priority; the others knew from past experience not to disturb him until he was done scrubbing the dirt off every inch of skin he could reach.
Sho was waiting outside the shower unit when Jun was done.
"Fit?"
"Like a glove," said Jun. "As always. How was the ramen?"
"Superb," Sho replied. "As always."
"Sluggard."
"Stop whining and come up; Ohno's waking the unit."
Most cybernetic units were programmed to state, on exiting hibernation, their unit number, maker and date of manufacturing. When Ohno woke Nino he merely sat up and demanded to know where he was.
"You're not very polite, are you?" asked Sho.
"I'm on an unfamiliar ship, surrounded by what look like third-rate smugglers who are probably making plans to dismember and sell me for a tidy sum," said Nino. "I'd say this is hardly the time for manners."
Jun and Sho exchanged glances. Someone had actually thought to give this unit a personality.
IV
They sold the two other limbs within the week, and fixed the processors of two ancient cybernetic units whose owners had neither the money nor permission to replace. Sho and Ohno did the bulk of the reparations, being the experts at such things: Sho had grown up having to maintain his own ill-constructed mechanical arm, a pre-Saori model that he doggedly refused to replace, and at some point in his life Ohno had somehow procured himself a certification in cybernetic engineering with Saori Institute. (This was according to the records, anyway - he had very little recollection of this.) Jun handled most transactions and scavenged the rest of the time. He had an eye for salvageable things; after all, that was how he had found Nino.
Nino, who sniped and whinged and found things funny like a real human being, while most of the cybernetics they had encountered had the conversational ability of a lamp-post. Even his physiology was atypical - and this was what had caused Jun to mistake Nino for a real person at the beginning. Saori models were typically tall and powerfully built, units with function and purpose, but Nino was small, shorter than Jun, his shoulders hunched in a constant slouch. Most startling, however, were his eyes, which Jun was quite aware were standard Synth-Oculi but nevertheless posessed an alertness that he had always thought impossible to bionically replicate.
"Stop looking at me like that," Nino would say whenever Jun was in the room with him, as if he could actually feel discomfort, and Jun couldn't understand how the others could keep their eyes off him, couldn't understand why they didn't seem at all fascinated by the technological miracle standing before them in Aiba's old clothes, poking around their ship and stealing their rice crackers.
"You don't eat," said Jun, the third time he caught Nino opening a new packet.
Nino rolled his eyes. "Thank you for reminding me."
Ohno and Aiba appeared to find Nino adorable, and Jun was quite certain that the ancient Nintendo console that had taken residence in the dusty corner of the hold had been set up entirely for his benefit. Sho, on the other hand, seemed to regard Nino as a puzzle he could not yet solve.
"If we identified his maker we'd be able to find some answers," he would say, poring, for the hundredth time, over the data Ohno had gathered during Nino's hibernation.
It was evident that whoever had made or owned Nino had had no intention of being tracked down - Nino had come in with his memory almost completely erased, nothing left from his past function apart from a name and his sardonic wit. This did not trouble Nino very much, as far as Jun could tell, just like how the fact that he no longer had a discernible purpose seemed to be no cause for concern for him. Some days, he sat in Ohno or Sho's cabins and watched them work; other days, he lingered on the bridge and played pictionary with Aiba, much to Sho's chagrin.
There was no question, after that first day, of whether or not they were keeping Nino. They had been shorthanded even after Ohno had joined the crew, and were not about to say no to extra help about the ship, even if said extra help had so far been of no help at all.
V
The rendezvous point with the Osaka shipment was the indoor berthing grid of a mid-range hotel. Their contact had secured them invitations to the wedding banquet happening inside, and the Prospero IV entered with no hassle at all.
"Those were real invitations," said Sho, when they cleared security. "My name is listed under 'Family Friends'."
"Who are we meeting, exactly?" asked Nino
"Nishikido Ryo," answered Jun, "who is, by all appearances, a two-faced, double-crossing scoundrel of a smuggler."
"Kind of like you lot, then," said Nino.
"Yes," said Aiba earnestly, "except Ryo-chan's also a terrible driver."
Jun didn't like the fact that Nishikido had never seen the need to decide exactly whose crew he was part of - Murakami's in Osaka, or Koyama's. He also didn't like the fact that they needed a middle-man in their dealings with the Osaka smugglers, or that Koyama got equal priority. That aside, Nishikido's goods were always of a high standard, and he was nothing if not fastidious when it came to sorting out payments.
"Nice invitations," said Sho, when they emerged from the ship to see Nishikido already waiting for them on the next dock. It had been years since he and Jun had hung around the Outer Bridges, stealing things and sneaking into movie theatres, but the man was still wearing the same grubby leather jacket and that insufferably boyish smile.
"Only the best for my sister's wedding," said Nishikido, flashing them a grin.
"Congratulations," said Sho.
Jun, in the meantime, was glancing about warily. "Where's Koyama?"
"Held up," Nishikido told him. "Come on, then. I've got a speech to make in twenty minutes."
"Don't you have an older brother for that?" Jun asked. Nishikido had two brothers; one was an accountant and the other beat people up for a living. Neither of them was particularly fond of Jun. Or of Nishikido, for that matter.
"Weren't you listening?" asked Nishikido. "Baby sister. Getting married. Of course I'm making a speech."
"And will this speech take place before or after you finish engaging in criminal activities?" asked Nino, who had sidled out of the entrance while their exchange was taking place.
"New crew member, I see," Nishikido murmured, eyes darting to Nino. "I like him."
"So do we," said Sho. "Now can we please proceed?"
"What, no introduction?" asked Nishikido.
"You don't need an introduction," snapped Jun. "Anyone can tell that you're a little bastard just by looking at your face."
"I meant him," said Nishikido, jerking his head towards Nino.
"He's just some guy we picked up," Sho said quickly.
Nino gave a little wave. "Also a little bastard. Jun tells me so all the time."
"Nice," Nishikido said, flashing him another grin. "Well, let's get going then. Criminal activities await."
They soon reached a small storage room quite hidden from the rest of the building. Nishikido produced the key with a flourish and proceeded to unlock the door.
"The best of Osaka," he announced, when they had all filed in and he had secured the room.
It was nothing short of incredible; Murakami's crew had really outdone themselves this time. There was a good supply of nanowires, a number of processors that looked like they were brand new and several titanium cores, apart from the usual spare limbs and Synth-Oculi sockets. The Osaka smugglers might have been less adept at putting things together after losing one of their engineers, but they still remained more than capable of taking out cybernetic units, it seemed.
"Ohno would have a fit," murmured Jun, glancing over the selection presented before them.
Next to him, Sho was unconsciously clicking the joints of his mechanical arm, a habit that surfaced whenever he got excited about something. "And this is why we left Ohno in the ship." He turned to Nishikido. "Prices?"
"The usual," Nishikido replied. "Take it as a wedding special."
"All right," said Sho, "we'll take a look at your inventory."
While Nishikido and Sho went over the price lists together, Jun began examining the contents of the first crate, picking through the parts more eagerly than he would have liked to appear. "These guys are good."
Nino, on the other hand, now seemed to hang back. When Jun handed him a processor he barely maintained his grip on it.
"What is wrong with you?" hissed Jun, snatching the processor back before Nino damaged it by accident.
"-check the goods, and if everything's fine I'll be back to close the deal," Nishikido was telling Sho. The moment he exited the room Nino reached out to catch Jun's arm.
"Don't," he said, voice serious. "Don't buy these."
"What do you mean, don't?" asked Sho. "We need this stuff."
"I just don't think this is a good idea," said Nino. He was no longer smiling, and his grip on Jun's arm was bordering on excruciating.
"Nino," warned Jun, "let go of me."
"So now it's up to you to decide what is or is not a good idea?" Sho demanded.
Jun finally managed to pry Nino's fingers away. "Why?" he asked.
"Just a feeling," said Nino defiantly. "If I knew what it was I'd tell you."
Sho was shaking his head. "I can't work like this. I'm not going to blow off a deal just because you have a hunch about something."
"Wait," said Jun, reaching over to the crate and picking up a nearly-intact bionic arm. He turned to Nino. "Hold this."
Nino held on to the arm for a moment, testing its weight in his hands. Then he held it up to his face.
"What is he doing?" asked Sho, exasperated. Jun, in the meantime, was watching Nino with narrowed eyes.
"I can't-" Nino began, "This-"
"Let me," Jun interrupted, taking the arm from Nino. In one swift movement, he lifted it high and brought it crashing down against the edge of the table.
"Are you insane?" Sho shouted, but Jun already had his tools out and was picking away at the opening he had made.
"Look at this," hissed Jun, pointing jerkily at the ruined arm on the table. "Look at what that little fucker's trying to sell us."
Packed inside the arm was satchet after satchet of teal-coloured powder, the sort that kids mixed in their drinks and used to coat their bionic joints with before they got completely wasted.
"Party drugs," said Sho with disgust. "Figures he'd be double-smuggling."
Nino was still standing stock-still by the table, blinking down at the powder like he was trying very hard to recall something.
"We're leaving," Jun spat, grabbing Nino by the elbow. "Nishikido can clear up on his own."
They made their way back out onto the berthing grid and into the ship without a word. Jun was still seething with anger.
"How did it go?" asked Ohno.
"Splendidly," said Jun. "Which is why we've returned empty-handed."
"Sho-chan," said Aiba, "are you all right?"
Jun turned; Sho was still looking at Nino with wary curiosity.
"What were you made for, Nino?" asked Sho. "That's what I want to know."
VI
"Do you remember anything?" asked Jun.
Nino didn't reply.
Gently but firmly, Jun took Nino's face in his hands and tilted it until their eyes met.
"Do you remember anything?"
Nino averted his gaze.
"Nino."
"Don't touch me."
"All right," said Jun, stepping away. "All right."
VII
The cybernetic unit knew it was being watched. It would take much more for its processor to send a distress signal to Saori Corporation, though, which meant that Jun still had time.
He had seen Sho hunt before. Sho always took the first opportunity he got, wasting no time after sighting a viable unit. For someone with a mechanical arm Sho was a genius with the long-range blaster gun.
Jun, on the other hand, liked the wait. He enjoyed having the unit traverse the full length of the deserted thoroughfare before taking it out, quick and precise with no buffer time in between. This was mostly for the challenge but also partly out of caution; there had been occasions when daring scavengers had intercepted a disabled unit before they could get to it.
There was still time. The cybernetic unit continued along with what looked like the week's groceries clutched to its chest. Shuji A29: designed for most household chores but with added security functions. Jun liked this model. It was one of the easiest to disassemble.
There was still time. Jun readjusted his grip on the blaster gun, never taking his eyes off the target. Sho normally got antsy by this point, but Sho wasn't around this time. Crouched beside Jun on the ledge was Nino, who had so far been silently observing Jun's every move, face impassive. Jun could tell that Nino was on edge, but it wasn't a distracting sort of tension; rather, it focused Jun, made him more alert.
The unit was fast approaching. Nino's hand slowly crept up until it rested uncertainly on Jun's shoulder. One step closer, no, another. One more, and he would-
Nino's fingers gave a squeeze. "Now," he whispered.
Jun fired one shot straight at unit's shoulder, taking out the broadcast communicator without hurting the processor. Before the unit could begin to run, he fired another shot at its right leg, causing it to fall to the ground.
"Nice," murmured Jun. "You could get good at this."
Nino grinned. "If you'd let me near a blaster gun."
"All in good time," Jun replied.
Quietly they made their way down from the ledge and approached the unit. It was only Nino's second time hunting, but already he knew to reach for the switch automatically, shutting off the unit in a trice. On some level it disturbed Jun a little to see how blase Nino seemed about disassembling what one could roughly consider his own kind. Mostly, though, Jun was just amazed at how quickly he learned.
"Now for the difficult part," said Jun, pulling his tools out and getting to work. He was just about to make an incision in the unit's shoulder, however, when he felt something cold and hard pressed against the back of his head.
"Don't move," said a voice. "Drop your weapons. Ground officers will be arriving momentarily."
"Fuck," Jun spat, as the Saori security unit removed his blaster gun from its holster. From the corner of his eye he could see the other unit motioning for Nino to put his hands up.
They'd been careless. Jun should have sensed that something was wrong when he'd noticed no other ships in sight. They still had a chance, though, before the ground officers arrived with actual weapons.
In one swift movement, Jun twisted around and grabbed hold of the electroshock baton in the unit's hands, attempting to dislodge it before retrieving his gun. Before he could do so, however, a startling snap of energy zipped by his head, causing him to instinctively duck for cover. When Jun looked up, the security unit had fallen motionless to the ground.
"I don't suppose we'll be able to take all three with us?" asked Ohno, replacing his blaster gun in its holster.
VIII
"Have a look at the scans," Ohno murmured, slilding the files over to Sho. "His design is fascinating."
Jun glanced at one of the printouts. It was a cross-section of one of Nino's arms, heavily annotated in Ohno's lazy scrawl.
"The basic principles are the same as any Saori model - nanowires that can simulate muscle movement, layered over a reinforced skeleton and covered by synthetic tissue," Ohno told them. "The difference here is the materials used. Look-" and here he pointed to the arm, "while Saori models incorporate a lot of metal components for durability, Nino's skeleton appears to have been made from a composite material with a similar density to human bone. This might explain his smaller size, because his optimum muscle mass has decreased due to his weaker skeleton."
"If he's so advanced, why make him weaker?" asked Sho.
"Weaker than the average Saori model, yes, but as we've discovered, he's got a good reaction time and plenty of agility and speed. And whoever installed his musculature is a bit of a genius," said Ohno, with visible admiration. "Nino's got a very powerful set of limbs."
"You still haven't answered the question," Sho reminded him.
"He's not meant to be at all like a Saori model, as far as I can tell," Ohno told them. "In fact I think his design hinges around something else altogether."
"And what's that?" asked Jun.
"Remember how when you first found him, you couldn't immediately tell that he was a cybernetic unit?" asked Ohno. "It's fashionable now, of course, to try to hide all the visible components, but with Nino it was impossible to tell until I ran all my scans."
"So he's designed to blend in?"
"More than blend in," said Ohno. "The last clue is the synthetic tissue. Saori models have a very thin layer; it's very easy to expose metal when you cut one of them. But Nino's..." Ohno reached out and pointed at the cross-section again.
"It's much thicker," observed Jun, examining the layers.
"If you prick him," said Ohno, "he bleeds."
IX
"I want to show you something, Nino," said Aiba one evening, over the ship's intercom. They had just returned from a dumping ground on the outskirts of Tokyo's Bridges, and Sho and Jun were sorting through their haul while Ohno hovered over them with a clipboard.
"What?" asked Nino, only mildly curious. He didn't look up from his game.
"Nino-chan," Aiba repeated.
Sho glanced out of the window. "This isn't our usual route."
"I'm not coming up unless you tell me what it is," said Nino, thumbs still working frantically at the patched-together gaming console.
"Matsujun," came Aiba's voice again. "Bring Nino up to the bridge."
"Can't you see that I'm busy?" Jun snapped.
"Technically, no," Aiba replied cheerfully.
Jun rolled his eyes, but he set down the bunch of nanowires he was sorting through and scrambled to his feet anyway.
"Come on," he said, walking over to where Nino was crouched on the floor and nudging him in the ribs with his toe. "Or we'll never hear the end of it."
With great reluctance, Nino saved the game he was playing and put aside his console, shutting and stowing it with the same sort of painstaking care Ohno would show his prized toolbox. Together they climbed up the short ladder and emerged on the bridge, where Aiba was bringing the ship to an unsteady hover.
"Look," Aiba commanded, hitting the button that would open the rest of the window shades.
They were below Bridge level, but a glance out of the windows surrounding them revealed a sky painted sullen red in the sunset, large Bridge pillars cutting through the horizon. In the far distance Jun could see a mass of tiny black specks navigating the tangle of steel and concrete: ships just like theirs, heading back to landing grids or out of the city. In the foreground, however, was something entirely different.
Silhouetted against the sky was a seemingly endless network of branches, bare and black like delicate claws spread out in marvellous symmetry; a stark forest of still skeletons stripped of leaves and birdsong.
"What are these?" asked Nino, gazing out at them in fascination.
"Trees," said Jun quietly. "This is Tokyo's last park, isn't it, Masaki?"
"On the old maps, we'd be in Chiba," Aiba replied, "but yes, this is it."
"They must cost a fortune to maintain," said Nino, pressing closer to the glass. Nothing moved out there, in that barren grove pregnant only with memory.
"More than a fortune," said Jun. "It would cost less to build an oxygen plant, but I suppose Saori Corporation has the money. The government certainly doesn't."
"Beautiful, aren't they?" asked Aiba. "Old Tokyo's last real trees."
Jun glanced at Nino's reflection in the glass, and wondered how an expression of such enthrallment could be a mere product of sparks and wires.
X
The inspectors arrived one week earlier than expected, while Ohno and Jun were out peddling their latest at the Temple. It was a good thing they had been, because the existing spare parts on board were apparently enough, under the revised guidelines, to warrant the seizure of the ship's captain.
Sho's incarceration lasted for three days this time. They picked him up off a precarious little landing strip by one of the back entrances of Saori Corporation's intelligence centre, and while Aiba attempted to manoeuvre the ship out of the close network of berthing grids, Ohno helped him into the cabin for some food and rest.
"The usual questions, then?" asked Jun, as Sho shivered over his hot drink. He looked as if he had not slept (which was likely) and winced with every movement of his mechanical arm, but there were no bruises or external wounds. Saori Corporation was clever that way - they left as little evidence as possible.
"What do you mean, the usual questions?" Nino demanded, appearing by the door. "Do you mean that they regularly arrest and interrogate him?"
"There's a reason why the Prospero IV is one of the few cargo vessels with automatic clearance for most sectors of Tokyo's Bridges, and it's not because Aiba's been filing his paperwork right," Jun replied grimly. Times were lean, even for smugglers, and no sane crew would turn down a bit of double-dealing every now and then.
Sho nodded as he let Ohno hook him up to the medical unit. "Temple. I gave them three fakes and two of Joshima's. Think he'll be pissed?"
"He's a grown man, he can handle it," said Jun.
"Give him a heads up anyway," said Sho. "They also asked if I'd heard of any dealers who've been doing conversions - cybernetic limbs to human prosthetics."
"And I suppose you neglected to inform them that the man who pioneered the technique is also a member of your crew?" Nino asked dryly. He directed a meaningful glance at Ohno, who was attaching a temporary probe to Sho's good wrist.
"What I told them was that if I did, I wouldn't have this piece of junk still attached to my shoulder," says Sho, flexing the fingers of his mechanical hand. "And that was the point where they sent in the bots to start dismantling it. Hurt like you wouldn't believe it. Hurt more when I had to put it back together."
"I'll take a look at it," Ohno told him, "after you get some rest." The look he gave Jun was particularly pointed.
"All right, I'll come back later," said Jun irritably, taking Sho's mug from him and heading for the door.
"One last thing," said Sho, before they left. "They asked about our scavenging. Wanted to know if we'd found anything."
Jun paused. "Did they mention what they were looking for?"
"Not a word," said Sho, but Jun couldn't help but notice the way his eyes darted to Nino, who was still poking at Ohno's monitor screen with a great deal of interest.
"We'll keep off the dumping grounds for a while, then, if Saori's going to be watching," said Jun, even though he knew from their latest stocktaking that if they didn't venture out again they would have nothing. "Lie low for a bit."
"I was actually thinking more of a change of scenery," Sho replied. "We can cast our nets wider, if you know what I mean."
"No," said Nino, appearing to have been listening all along, "I don't."
"What he means," Ohno said, a smile creeping onto his face, "is that we're going fishing."
XI
Including checkpoint stops and trans-prefecture screenings, it took them about half a day to leave Tokyo's Bridges and reach their destination, a water purification farm belonging to an old couple Aiba claimed were his grandparents.
"He's not actually related to them," Jun told Nino, as Aiba eased the Prospero IV into the narrow dock.
"Oh, but he is," said Ohno in a knowing voice, while sort of half-dangling off the ship so he could secure its position. "Isn't he, Sho-kun?"
"No comment," said Sho, fiddling with the hydraulic clamps.
"Where are we, exactly?" asked Nino when the ship juddered to a halt.
"Aomori," announced Aiba, emerging from the bridge. "More specifically, the water catchment belt."
When they had scrambled out of the ship and onto the somewhat rickety berthing grid, Nino glanced around appraisingly. "So we're branching out now, then? Purifying a bit of water to earn some pocket money?"
"Not exactly," said Sho. He waved enthusiastically at the figure approaching them from the far side of the berthing grid. "Think of it more as a holiday."
"A working holiday," Jun corrected.
"The key word here being 'work'," added Ohno.
They had stayed on the water purification farm a number of times before, usually during seasons when scavenging in Tokyo became more difficult and business was slow. The man Aiba claimed was his grandfather owned a significant stretch of catchment area, and while the processing of the water was handled by machines, much had to be done to clear the dirt and daily detritus that found its way into the reservoir and clogged up the filtration system.
When it had just been the three of them - Jun, Sho and Aiba - they had taken turns to go out in the trawler each morning with Aiba's grandfather and dredge up miles of junk. It was from this junk that they picked out usable cybernetic parts that had been carelessly discarded. Of course, most of these items were far from the most advanced, but Sho (and later Ohno) could still do wonders with spare bits of metal and salvageable processor casings.
When they had not been out on the trawler, they'd been tasked with carrying crates and clay pots in the small donabe restaurant run by Aiba's alleged grandmother, just a little way away from the farm. It was there that they headed towards, after unloading their cargo from the ship.
Aiba's grandmother's only greeting when they entered the shop was a critical, "There are more of you," before she disappeared back into the kitchen.
"She's preparing dinner for a hundred guests next Friday," explained Aiba's grandfather.
"A hundred and twenty," his grandmother called back, "and I'll need all the help I can get."
Nino turned to the rest of them. "A working holiday. I see."
XII
On their first morning there, they discovered that Nino could get seasick.
"You can't possibly be seasick," Jun pointed out. "You're a cybernetic unit, for goodness' sake."
"Believe me, I can," said Nino crossly, looking utterly miserable as he sat huddled in a corner of the trawler and tried to shut his eyes.
The next day they left him back at the restaurant to help Aiba's grandmother, and returned to find them bickering like they'd known each other all their lives. Jun was familiar with her abuse, but he had never seen her take a shine to someone the way she had with Nino.
"Boy," she would roar from the kitchen, "don't let me catch you eating the mushrooms from those pots again!"
"Who in their right mind would want to eat your mushrooms?" Nino would snap back while furtively replacing the cover of a bowl he'd just picked at.
At one point, Jun walked into the kitchen to find her standing over Nino while he arranged vegetables on top of bowls of rice, brandishing a fly swatter as she gave him commands.
"This is wrong," she said, tapping him on the shoulder. Nino merely shrugged, and carried on doing exactly the same thing. When she persisted, he feigned despair and sighed, "Baa-chan," in his most brattish voice, which only earned him a more vigorous scolding.
"She's never been this happy before," observed Aiba's grandfather over dinner, while the others attacked their food with fervour in hopes of being in time for a second helping.
Their days out at the catchment area were long and tiring, an endless slog that involved cranking up the nets when they were full and picking through the sludge to dislodge anything of value. By the end of the first week Jun's hands were sore to the point of uselessness from hauling in nets and throwing them back out, and all of them spoke in a constant shout caused by having to spend the day raising their voices over the roar of the trawler engine.
It wasn't as though Aomori was out of Saori's influence - sections of Aomori city had also been consumed by networks of Bridges. But away from Tokyo, away from its Bridges and its restless heat, there was less of a feeling of being watched and followed, less fear when the next farm was a few miles away and the only authority around was the young policeman Ikuta, who was largely genial and spent most of his time luxuriating in the nearby onsen.
"That boy should have more ambition," Aiba's grandmother said, whenever Ikuta came in for a meal, "he's a healthy young man, reasonably clever - there's no reason why he should be shunted to the outskirts like this."
"I quite like the outskirts," Ikuta replied, giving her one of his sheepish smiles. He seemed the good sort, not mean or spiteful like the Saori security officers could get, and certainly less powerful. It didn't make him altogether harmless, but Jun had always had a good feeling about him.
"There's something familiar about you," Ikuta told Nino, the first time they'd met. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"
"Probably not, sorry," Nino replied, but he didn't say more because they had agreed it would be best not to let on to anybody that he was a cybernetic unit.
"Oh, that's all right," said Ikuta, "I do that a lot - mistake people for someone I know."
"Like the first time he met Ohno," Aiba piped in. "He insisted he had seen him somewhere before and they both confused each other so much trying to remember where and when they'd met."
"I still don't remember, actually," Ohno said, somewhat morosely.
"I wouldn't expect you to," Sho told him, "since I suspect you can't even remember what you've been doing for the past five years."
"That's true," said Ohno, considering this for a while. "Mostly convenience stores, I think."
Sho and Ohno had been classmates sometime in the distant past, but they had lost contact after Sho had transfered from Cybernetic Engineering to Aeronautics. It had been by pure chance that Sho had run into Ohno almost a year ago, when he had been fixing vacuum cleaners in the back rooms of a housekeeping agency.
"Well to be honest it's all rather a blur, isn't it?" said Ikuta, grinning with a sort of artless sincerity that wasn't just politeness.
They shrugged off the exchange soon after but Jun noted the way Ikuta sometimes looked at Nino like he was still trying to puzzle him out, and hoped that whatever pieces he might be attempting to put together would never properly fall into place.
XIII
One of Jun's favourite things at the farm was being able to sit on the verenda outside the restaurant on a cool evening with his legs dangling from between the bars of the railing. It was a stark change from the unsettled heat and neverending grumble of Tokyo's Bridges, the inky darkness of the catchment area ahead soothing where the Bridges' bright lights had seared.
"Mind if I join you?" someone asked, startling Jun. He looked up; it was Nino.
"You'd do it just to spite me even if I said no," Jun replied, shrugging.
"You know me too well," said Nino, crouching down easily next to him.
They remained there in silence for a while, Jun pressing the side of his head against one of the bars while the land rested darkly around them. He thought he could hear Nino breathing; lightly, peacefully.
Finally, Nino spoke. "Are you planning to do this for the rest of your life?"
"What, sit here and stare out into the distance?" asked Jun.
Nino rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."
"Smuggling earns good money," said Jun, "and I've been doing it all my life."
"Really?"
"Almost," Jun corrected. "I did spend my formative years roaming the Outer Bridges with Nishikido Ryo. It's a miracle I still have any moral values left to speak of."
Nino snorted, but withheld comment.
"It's a funny question coming from you," said Jun, "seeing as you have no idea what you were meant to do in the first place."
"That's why I asked," said Nino. "I can see myself doing this for- for a long time, anyway."
You're a cybernetic unit, Jun wanted to tell him, you're not supposed to have hopes for the future. But he didn't say that, because he could tell that Nino was keenly aware of this himself. "Well," Jun said instead, "you could stick around."
"That's what Ohno told me," said Nino.
"That's what Ohno did, after all," Jun replied, "and he's been a great asset."
"So he wasn't part of the crew before?" asked Nino.
"The Prospero IV is Aiba and Sho's ship," said Jun. "They hired me after they caught me trying to remove one of the booster engines. Sometime later we picked up Ohno. Then we found you."
"And for some reason decided not to turn me into spare parts," finished Nino.
"I don't think we would have," Jun told him. And if any of the others had brought it up, Jun didn't think he would have let them.
"That's nice to know," said Nino.
"You're different," Jun began, haltingly. "I'm not sure if you're aware of this. You're - nobody has made a unit quite like you before."
"Why, thank you," said Nino.
"That was a statement of truth, not a compliment," snapped Jun.
"I know."
When Jun turned to look at Nino - to look at him properly, it was practically impossible to tell that he wasn't an actual human being. Only Ohno's scans had been able to detect that. Sitting there next to Jun, in a ratty singlet and an old pair of Aiba's shorts, was by all appearances a living, breathing young man; face far from flawless, hands small, fingers stubby, hair damp and plastered to his forehead. For a moment Jun could do nothing but be overwhelmed by this fact.
"Sometimes," Nino was saying, "I think I have memories."
"What?" asked Jun, blinking out of his reverie.
"Memories," Nino repeated. "There's no logical explanation, but I remember things."
"What sorts of things?"
"Bits and pieces," said Nino. "A woman, a very small house. Miso soup. Playing baseball."
"That's impossible," said Jun, before he could stop himself.
"I know," said Nino.
XIV
"He's a cybernetic unit," said Sho.
They were on the jetty cleaning out the nets. Far off in the distance, Aiba and his grandfather were bringing the trawler to berth, while Ohno leaned over the side, rope at the ready.
"Just so you know, they're still not giving out prizes for stating the obvious," Jun told him, jerkily picking up a nozzle and beginning to spray down the mesh.
"What's obvious," Sho persisted, "is how you look at him."
It had been foolish to think the others wouldn't have noticed. Ohno, perhaps, would have feigned obliviousness, but Jun knew Sho far to well to even hope for him to let it slip by.
He made a non-committal noise before turning up the water pressure by another notch. The hose twisted in his hands for a moment, the impact of the jet against the platform sending water splashing up onto his face.
"Jun."
"Right," said Jun. A kick to the shut down button and the water slowed abruptly to a trickle, hose stilling in his grip. "Yes, you're very observant."
"And?"
"And I am acutely aware that this is a futile endeavour, and that whatever I try will only end badly," Jun continued. "Because he is a cybernetic unit."
"Okay."
"Now will you let me finish doing my job?"
"All things considered, you're taking this rather well," said Sho, finally.
"Oh no," said Jun, "I assure you, I cry myself to sleep over this every night."
XV
He should have known, Jun realised on retrospect, that this peaceful interlude couldn't have lasted.
On Thursday afternoon, Aiba and Jun returned to pick up the lunch bentos, only to be greeted by the sight of Nino fast asleep at the entrance to the restaurant.
"Aren't you supposed to be helping inside?" asked Jun.
Nino stirred a bit on the bench before sitting up slowly. "I've been ejected from the kitchen."
When they made their way past the barricade of chairs blocking the door to the kitchen, they found Aiba's grandmother in a foul mood indeed.
"They're coming to take away my farm," she muttered while taking out the clay pots, "they're taking away my farm and my restaurant and the onsen and they expect me to feed them."
"Baa-chan," said Aiba soothingly, shuffling over to massage her shoulders, "they're not taking away your farm. They're just here to have a meal."
"Then how do you explain these?" she cried, gesturing to a stack of brochures off the countertop.
Jun picked them up and glanced at the first one, noting, with a sinking feeling, the all too familiar colour scheme and logo.
"The City of the Future - Now," read Nino over Jun's shoulder.
"It's just a proposal," said Aiba, "isn't it, Matsujun?"
"Baa-chan," said Jun, scanning the rest of the pamphlet. "Why didn't you tell us that those hundred and twenty guests were from Saori Corporation?"
Part 2
Now accompanied by Scurry (though you probably should read Electric Sheep first).