BA3 - Chapter 28

The final lock on the incognito miniature Tuko_TK(name?) came free and my munje flowed through the machina like a broken dam across a rice field. I rotated, pulled, and slid pieces into place until the eight-legged, long-necked bot sat on my stomach under the blanket. The slender thing stood a fair forty centimeters tall and couldn’t have been excused as anything else that may have been propping up my blanket.

I lifted the cover and spread a coating of ry munje along the exterior. Then, with a thought, I walked TuTu_tk out from under the covers. Her tiny, clawed feet tickled my skin, but I kept quiet.

‘Last but not least—Mae, are you sure this is going to work?’I asked one more time, worried to be wasting the precious red munje. It was at least three times the energy cost as any other munje, which didn’t leave me with much more dinner to convert.

“I’m ninety-nine percent positive. Maybe ninety-eight, or seven. I don’t know. I’ve only seen the red nanites in action a few times before and know about as much as you do. I do know if we don’t try this, you’ll never make it back,” she reminded me.

It was a fair distance to Dokun Corp_TK, which far surpassed TuTu_tk’s capabilities. Even if we caught the wind well, and conserved as much energy as possible, the return trip would be impossible. We couldn’t lose TuTu_tk, lest we lose the evidence for the lie we would tell Ena come morning.

Jigu save me, what was I going to tell Ena in the morning?

One thing at a time. I needed to find out more about Dokun first—which may even inform what we would tell Ena in the morning. But the more I knew, the harder it would be to lie.

I sighed. There was nothing to be done for it. I’d plan to carefully answer with truth around her questions, and obscure the rest.

TuTu_tk still needed her final piece, the one customs hadn’t taken from me. I rolled over quietly and reached up for my backpack. Inside the front flap was a handkerchief, or so everyone thought. The thin, lightweight fabric unfolded to reveal tiny metal loops TuTu_tk’s claws fitted into nicely.

I passed my hand over the material with a coating of ry reflection the same as TuTu_tk’s slender metal body, then handed the cloth to the machina and laid back in bed. I closed my eyes and navigated TuTu_tk to the window. I wiggled two legs into the frame and pulled.

The downside of being tiny, slender, and lightweight was no strength—but the upside was we were so small we could slip through almost anywhere. With TuTu_tk’s modular body, we could slide, slip, and sneak our way through even the smallest gaps.

The window opened just enough and I folded TuTu_tk in on herself, then slid through. It was gusty out on the ledge, and I could feel the pull of the wind on the fabric clutched in my claws. I pulled the material closer and climbed the outer wall—which was fortunately wood, allowing my claws to stab into the grain and keep us steady.

We reached the top and I set to work locking my claws in the metal loops of the parachute. My four flexible legs rotated upwards, holding the sheet above me as the other three legs marched toward the vortex of air at the center of the pagoda. It was a happy coincidence that Anbura used such technology—but I wasn’t going to turn down the boost.

Before I could even get into the current, the wind picked me up and ruffled the chute above my head. I shot into the sky like one of the ancients rockets, leaving the Earth behind—or so it felt. My gut tightened with the fear of heights and I exhaled my held breath.

I kept my gaze—though purely black and white—pointed at the city. The sparkling buildings put my mind at ease, and I relaxed, regaining control of my fear. I set my sights on Dokun Corp_tk. Mae popped up a colorful display that monitored my munje use. Then, she generated a new view which showed the cardinal directions, the horizon, and our estimated altitude.

Everything fit nicely along the top and bottom of my vision, not distracting in the least. When I focused on any one part of the display, Mae would bring it into focus. I’d have to learn how to do this on my own before it came time for Mae and I to permanently part.

A sense of unease came at that thought, and I knew it wasn’t my own. I felt my lips turn up in a smile back at my fleshy body. ‘That’s not for some time. We don’t even know if separation will be possible.’

“I didn’t say anything,” she said with a guilty tone.

‘Yes, but I could sense your discomfort.’

Mae was quiet for a long time. We soared through the air, catching updrafts and angling our way toward Dokun’s headquarters. Finally, her voice filled my head. “There’s something we need to talk about, and I know now isn’t the right time, but I feel I can’t control myself from telling you—which is troubling in itself.”

‘What is it?’

She sighed. “My feelings are growing with every passing day. While its unexpected, and sometimes very frustrating, it’s also very joyous. I’d never truly feltbefore, not like humans do. Living in you has made me grow far beyond what I used to be…”

I knew where she was headed, and filled in the silence. ‘You’re still going to be you when we’re separated.’

“How can you be sure?” Her words hung in my mind like smoke, clouding my confidence with doubt.

How could I be sure? I knew next to nothing about her or the technology that created her. There was no guarantee we could even be separated successfully—and if we failed, it was more than likely Mae who would pay the price. Was my privacy worth her life?

‘When all this madness is over, and we have some time to work on ourselves, we’ll do our research. We won’t try to separate unless we’re truly certain you’ll be happy that way.’

“And your happiness?” she asked, her voice pained with the shame of guilt.

‘Is not worth a life. Not a single one, machina or flesh.’

She was quiet again and the ma counter in my vision dipped below seventy percent.

‘Plus, you’re one of my closest friends.’ I thought, exaggerating the word.

“I’m literally inside you right now,” she said, her voice deadpan.

‘Don’t blame me. I didn’t like sarcastic jokes before you took up residence here.’

She laughed once. “For one, that is a complete lie—but I may have exacerbated the issue… and that’s another thing we need to talk about, but later.”

The edge of Dokun’s facility pulled clearly into view. I checked my munje reserves. Down to sixty five percent ma, and still sitting well at one hundred percent en. Because of the huge initial lift, and the well-timed updrafts, we hadn’t needed any of the en stored in the tiny reservoir.

I checked the red munje_tk reserve as well, just to be certain it wouldn’t leak out of TuTu_tk’s body somehow, or not respond to my control. The munje moved and thrummed at my command, making the little bulbous sack on TuTu_tk’s underside vibrate. Good, we were going to need it.

A single Enjiho patrolled the outer edge of the perimeter, and I thought it the perfect target for my first try. No one was around, and I was coming in at a good angle from above that would keep me out of range for their cameras—not that they could see TuTu_tk through the reflective ry shield.

I pointed one of my little legs up, giving a burst of chilling en munje into the parachute. The air cooled and we dropped a bit more. A few more bursts like that and we were right on target. Sweat gathered in my palms and I trembled at the thought of overshooting, or falling into it, or a hundred other factors.

“Breathe. We’ve got this.” Mae lit up the Enjiho with a distance counter. Then, a red box came into view which showed the Enjiho just off center. I corrected a little, squaring the Enjiho between my sights, and the box turned green.

The distance meter counted down and I tensed my muscles, preparing to touch down. My two little bottom legs touched down with a tink tink, and the Enjiho stopped. I wrapped a claw under the seam of its shoulder joint to hold on, then gave a single burst of warmth to the chute above.

After a tense second, the Enjiho continued on it’s patrol. I let out my held breath and focused on the red munje in TuTu_tk’s hold. I scratched my tiny, diamond tipped claw [JH1] into the metal of the Enjiho to get past any surface level repellant spells. Then, I let the red munje flow down my arm into the Enjiho.

Little by little, I sensed ma, en, and ry munje coming under my control. I used two free limbs to release the stolen ry around my body to reinforce the reflective spell. Then, I pulled the en and ma into my reservoir until they were full. That had cost me a little over twenty percent of the red munje in the reservoir, but was well worth it. It cost more to create, but was inarguably worth the return.

When I had taken everything I needed, the Enjiho driver none the wiser, I released my claw and pumped hot air into the chute. From the few moments we’d spent in Dokun’s office, Mae had been able to approximate its location from the outside. She marked it in my vision, and I turned that way. I lifted through the air, expending little bursts of en munje, until his office was in my sights.

We drifted closer to the glass and I saw the outline of Dokun sitting at his desk. I reached out all three free feet to grab the wall as we came in for a landing. My foreleg touched down and I grabbed onto the metal support beam between glass panes, then dug in the diamond claw. I pulled myself in and dug in the other two limbs, anchoring myself.

I let the chute drop to my back, then rolled it up into a ball and tucked it between my spine and the red munje reservoir. I leaned my mantis-shaped [JH2] body around so my camera could look inside.

Due to the angle, and the glass, I could only see one diagonal slice of the room. I couldn’t see the door, or the shelves of books and machina along the north wall. Fortunately, I could see Dokun. He was sitting at his terminal with several ry screens projected in front of him. One screen scrolled slowly with row after row of words, none of which I recognized, but knew they were words all the same.

“It’s English and I’m trying to read it. This place is just so loud it’s hard to concentrate. I have to drop your HUD for a moment,” she said sounding flustered and the gauges in my vision faded away.

‘HUD?’

“Heads up display. Now quiet.”

I kept one camera pointed at the screen while I let the other drift around the room. It was sickening to have the two visions in my mind at once, but after a moment, I got used to it. The hanging face that had been in the ry display was gone—likely parlor tricks from Dokun to impress the students anyway_TK.[JH3]

The room looked colder than before, but perhaps that was due to my limited color spectrum. In the other view, Dokun waved a glowing hand through the air. I focused my attention back on him.

The screens in front of him changed to a recreation of the scene outside the port customs building. The view walked toward one of the buildings and went up through the elevator to the train pickup location. The Enjiho turned, then my face came into view, as did Woong-ji’s and Hana’s.

‘Is that from the Enjiho that escorted us?’ I asked Mae, but already knew the answer.

“Seems like.”

‘Why would he be watching those playbacks?’

The playback slowed and the image shifted so that were watching from an Enjiho farther back. The image of me turned toward the window. My hand lifted in slow motion as I waved to the little girl in the train in front of me. I clenched my teeth at the thought of her. Would she ever be the same?

The view changed to the Enijho that had been standing next to me. A highlight appeared on the man in the chrome visor, standing behind the girl.

Dokun stood and pointed to that image, then paced away. Someone stepped into view from beyond my vision and stepped in front of the image on the desk. They threw their hands up in an exasperated fashion and looked to Dokun.

My great uncle turned back and charged the man, grabbing the collar of his robes. He pulled the man close, and my limited vision narrowed on his face. His eyes were wide with fear and his mouth clamped shut. Dokun pointed to the screen again, then shoved the man backward.

He bowed, and at Dokun’s dismissive hand wave, stepped out of view once more. Unease spread through my chest as I processed what we’d seen.

‘Mae, what are the chances that man he scolded was the terrorist we’d seen?’

“Given their body language, the other man’s dimensions, and that the English on screen for that display—E493-28.10.4351-Train Incident—I’d say it’s eighty-five percent.”

This was exactly what we’d come for, but she was only eighty-five percent sure? We needed more than that if we were going to put know how to move forward.

‘What do you need to be one hundred percent sure?’

She laughed. “One hundred! That’s like asking for a miracle.”

‘Ninety-eight then, whatever.’

“Get us in there.”

I let another fifteen percent of the red munje flow down my legs into the metal. It spread into the glass, then slipped down the wall and into the floor. My sense of connection with the red munje waned, and I knew I had to find ma munje to convert quickly, but was too afraid to target Dokun himself.

The giant face display came to life and its mouth moved. Dokun whirled on the spot, his gaze raking over the windows. My heart dropped into my stomach when his face turned up to where I perched. I pulled back around the metal beam, making myself small. He couldn’t have seen me… I was still shielded in ry.

A siren blared and I jumped back in my own skin. I retracted TuTu_tk’s claws and whipped the chute out from it’s storage spot. I caught the wind and sailed toward the tree line three hundred meters away.

The icy chill of dread spread through my chest as I shakily rode the currents of air toward freedom. Below, Enjiho bounded across the grassy clearing to the trees, trying to cut me off. I knew we couldn’t afford to lose TuTu_tk, so why had I been so stupid?

Two of my legs tingled with resistance and a bright mist surrounded my vision. I didn’t need to know what color it was to know what was happening. It was a cloud of Dokun’s ma munje. This was the end of our adventure.