The Churn

"Living with My Ghost — NIGHTFALL"
Osaka, Nukekubi Japan, 2036

. . .

2036 arrived.

An 8.3 Nankai megathrust earthquake erupted near Wakayama and Tokushima prefectures generating a massive tsunami almost thirty meters in height, razing the southeastern Japanese coastline and riding up the Seto Inland Sea, river outlets, and unprotected spillways. The waves and the shocks tore through harbors and artificial islands, including Niihama capital district in Osaka Bay. Between the Wakayama and Tokushima coasts and up against Awaji Island, the lands acted as guardrails along a bowling alley for the churning water. There was no chance the tsunami waves would miss. The early warning system J-ALERT gave ample warning ahead of disaster but disaster still arrived—the “Big One,” promised at least once a century.

Between the parallels of history, Niihama island rose from Osaka Bay bedrock after World War Three as an attempt to reignite domestic construction and industries. Tokyo and Yokohama burned in nuclear fire due to Japan’s place in the American global security alliance. With American troops forced home by civil war and nuclear fallout, Japan took a risk moving its emergency government far south to Fukuoka, away from the radioactive craters and sinking wetlands. The move was risky and precarious, within proximity of Beijing, Pyongyang, and Seoul City—an easy target as the renewed, second Korean War turned hot. But the city also had the means to rebuild: pragmatism, survival over preference. It was a risk deemed necessary.

It was not the first or last hot war under two seasons of nuclear winter. Water turned to poison, crops failed, and the winters were extra cold. The developing world burned while the post-developed world turned a blind eye just to survive. The refugee peoples called it World War Four. Japan’s role was less than substantial, earning its wounds in the third Great War. Emergency military rule created policies which were unpopular, but got Japan through the first few years like it did after the American fire bombings of World War Two and the resulting famine.

When civilian government returned, subsequent parliamentary coalitions sought to move the national capital somewhere more central and better defended. They chose Osaka Bay, thus the “New Port City” was born.

Then convergence. The Nankai was simple circumstance aligning with consequence. A disaster of probability.

The crash of the first waves cracked like distance thunder on the horizon as they pounded against the beaches and waterfront. They groaned on, crackling as buildings and streets crunched and flooded against millions of kiloliters of advancing storm water. From above, the tide looked like a slow-moving horde, eating away at the vacant city blocks. And absorbing – vanishing cars, trees, street booths, and everything else in the warpath.

This marked Kusanagi’s third tsunami experience: a defining, common staple of Japanese geography and history, along with frequent, regular earthquakes. Yet the natural forces continued to mystify and shock her years later. A permanence of awe and fear towards mother Nature refusing to allow humanity to win in dominion upon the land.

The forces of the surface wind and sea could not reach Section Nine’s rescue helicopters above, so the police officers watched helpless as once gray-green waters turned black and brown, sinking the capital island street by street like the unreality of a documentary or movie. From on high, the shattering city island was silent compared with the beat and hum of the deafening helicopter blades.

Major Kusanagi chewed on her plastic finger nails in disgust. Togusa, their lead detective, growled in frustration at the angry sea. And as his defining mullet swarmed through the open air. Saito the professional sharpshooter thumbed his nose with a nervous fidget, eyes on the many leaning skyscrapers. He clutched at his chest, maybe in search of his missing, prized sniper rifle. Silence and the wind dominated the day and the helicopter crew. Few were brave enough to break the earth-breaking silence.

Prime Minister Kayabuki muttered a Buddhist prayer, sitting cross-legged on the helicopter cargo deck. Her soft murmurs were lost in the growl of the propellers but Kusanagi could read her lips.

“We are a link in Amida's golden chain of love that stretches around the world,

We will keep our link bright and strong.

We will be kind and gentle to every living thing,

And protect all who are weaker than ourselves.

We will think pure and beautiful thoughts,

Say pure and beautiful words,

And do pure and beautiful deeds.

May every link in Amida's chain of love be bright and strong,

And may we all attain perfect peace.”

Kayabuki rose from her half-kneel by the helicopter side door as a sudden, violent gust thrust into the cabin. Pulled off balance, she leaned on the giant and stoic Borma behind her. The Prime Minister gave a frustrated snort as her tears vanished on the wind. She rubbed her face into her ratty red coat sleeve. Once dry, her steely gaze found the balding, wild-haired elder in the back of the aircraft, Section Nine Chief—the retired-Lieutenant Colonel Aramaki Daisuke.

“Chief Aramaki. I want your teams in on the search and rescue effort.”

The Section Nine chief offered a stern stare back, tapping his cane thrice on the metal floor for thought and possible effect. “Madam, my team’s responsibility is to ensure your safety first and foremost. We can do no such thing with you present.”

Kusanagi spoke up too as Section Nine’s field commander, but used neural communications as her voice faded in the wind.

MOTOKO:

「 The waves are still coming in too, it’s too risky. We need to wait for the water to recede. 」

The Prime Minister chewed on her lower lip, turning the surrounding skin white with force. From Kusanagi’s experience, Kayabuki was a cunning politician considering how she survived and even exploited scandals of caliber capable of shuttering previous governing coalitions. By compare, she thrived in controversy. But in this job and proximity to the office, Kusanagi and her team also saw the Prime Ministers at her weakest.

Kayabuki’s first year in the role was weak with many bouts of genius, much in the way she defanged and put away Takakura for her false house arrest during the Dejima Island refugee crisis. But the Prime Minister’s strengths and weaknesses were a veil. It was part of her talent, the ability to hide strength as weakness, and weakness as strength.

What was this one as Kayabuki mulled over the rejection of her request? The Prime Minister already did her job, activating martial law, mobilizing emergency services and military in advance to evacuate civilians across the Japanese coast. She declared a national emergency through the J-ALERT system, freeing disaster response funding for the emergency Reconstruction Agency. But her seeming, bold stubbornness mobilized Section Nine to rescue her and her essential staff because she refused to leave Niihama against the advice and judgment of her many subordinates.

Was this bravery, or folly? Weakness or strength?

“Fine, I’ll evacuate,” Kayabuki frowned. “But, Aramaki, we are airborne and I am safe. You should focus now on what I’m asking you to do. I’m not the only person out there in need.” After a pause, she added. “Please...”

“Madam...” Aramaki grimaced at the continued persistence outpouring from his commander-in-chief.

“No, Section Chief. Provide me two men and a helicopter escort for my staff if you insist. Your other aircraft and teams will remain. I recall your annual section budget described an “international search and rescue” team. Now is the time to act like it.”

Aramaki paused, looking towards Kusanagi with his stoic, tired eyes.

MOTOKO:

「 You alright there, Chief? She seems more reactive that usual. 」

ARAMAKI:

「 She’s not wrong, Major. I’ll be fine. Carry out her wishes. 」

Kusanagi pursed her lips as Aramaki tapped his cane again, harder as if in finality of some additional, unspoken decision.

“Understood, Prime Minister.” Aramaki flagged the Section Nine helicopter pilot and Operator-class assistant gynoid over neural communications to turn the helicopters towards the Osaka coast. He looked again at Kusanagi.

“Major, take charge! Ishikawa and Togusa will join the Prime Minister and I. We’ll fly into Camp Yao, and then you will attach yourselves to Reconstruction Agency command structure. Assist in whatever way they need.”

Kayabuki spoke up as well; her featureless, dark brown eyes meeting Kusanagi’s artisan violent orbs. “And if anyone asks, in fact, please notify anyone who might question you. The Prime Minister wants every asset in the area participating. From police to military to civilian. All hands are needed to assist.”

Kusanagi nodded to both her bosses, then queued her radio network to dish out preliminary orders. “Everyone, listen up. We are headed to S.D.F Camp Yao in Osaka. Prepare to step off as we transfer the P.M. to the military. We will have a few minutes break then we’re to reconfigure the task force for disaster search and rescue. Any nonessential equipment will offload once we’re in contact with Army command elements.

Orders will come from me, but we are attaching ourselves to the requests and hierarchy of the Reconstruction Agency. Team leaders will designate personnel for standby while others will return to the helicopters to assist in rescue operations. We will determine shift rotations after.”

The Section Nine radio array echoed back with the voices of her senior officers, “Yes, Major! Understood!”

For two days and two nights, Section Nine rotated through its personnel on helicopters and tilt rotors, pulling stranded civilians and fishing corpses from the angry sea. Below by sunrise and sunset, they watched Niihama’s sunk into a soup of debris, gasoline, and sewage. Other parts of the country reported fluctuating and rolling blackouts; and increasing safety risks around hydro power and nuclear generation stations. Some dams even broke, washing away rare rural villages after escaping a century of historical upheaval to end in whitewater.

Anger and sadness flooded the Net as netizens looked for direction and reason among their fellow countrymen. And blame, because in the wake of crisis, both hope and cynicism won the day. The inherent balance of opposite pairs always together and warring over humanity, life, and reality.

Some would blame the Prime Minister, looking for something she did wrong. Those voices might be right. Some might be wrong. Kusanagi tuned out the stormy jeers of crowded online public forums. Gone and abandoned until they became useful to her again.

One small, personal detail did irk the Major toward Kayabuki’s subtle cunning. Her orders endowed Section Nine with the informal warrant and power of the Prime Minister’s office to do what they sought fit in helping rescue efforts. But wherever Kusanagi went, it was with the whispers of appreciation for Kayabuki.

Every nice or good deed Section Nine did, Kayabuki’s act of selfishness turned into a theater of the Prime Minister’s generosity. A small, irrelevant public relations victory toward Osaka residents. The Major received “thank you” as she pulled children out of cold water, but it was Kayabuki who received praise as parents spoke to the news cameras. Such were the powers of politics, but Kusanagi kept the minor annoyance to herself.

Where public opinion mattered—an assassination plot against the Prime Minister—she listened. A kitten crying out over spilled milk? The ill-cherished cost of human life? It was unfair, but this was the natural order: with reality as an uncaring, unfair master.

All suffer. And all cover their ears, only to offer their selective listening. This is the world Kusanagi was born into, was a part of. The world she helped make. She had no misconceptions. And if she did, she buried them only to resurface in the rare moments of great boredom and doubt. She tried to stay busy to keep the demons at bay. But she didn’t stop hoping—dreaming in her bed at night after Section Nine was told to stand down from their search and rescue efforts. Soon they would pack up their exhausted air frames and tired cyborg bodies, and return to their provisional headquarters in Fukuoka, with the Prime Minister in tow. Kayabuki would return to her work, Section Nine would return to their operations.

Life would continue, one more complicated mission fading into nostalgic memory. Kusanagi spoke the words on her lips in the dark, alone. Questions meant for no one, absent of comprehension or expansion.

“Where are those who will usher us into a better world? Where are they now?”

Thunder rumbled in a far-off distance. An unclear answer from the dark heavens.

Light rain crackled against the overhead military tent as an ominous wind rustled against the temporary structure. Kusanagi cracked her violet eyes, staring towards the canvas ceiling in strange wonder. Her mind was so noisy a few moments ago, alight with ancient and recent memories. But in an instant she turned quiet, her senses distant like the impolite weather outside.

This wasn’t the warm bed in her Fukuoka apartment, or one of her several safe houses dotting Japan’s depopulated countryside. She was on a raised, flat ground. A worn and ratty cot setup over a nylon tent bottom in the Self-Defense Force Camp Yao, atop an underutilized tarmac. So far, it seemed the airbase was not participant to any major airlifts of helicopters or airplanes. However, the field floodlights still glared through the seams of her tarp canopy turning the night into a hint of second day.

Kusanagi knew she should go back to sleep, but there was a sensitive energy in the air. A jitter she could not set aside and return to her shadowy dreamland. On nights like these, she would do some aggregate web scrapping—dual booting her human sleep and letting her robot brain do machine things, collecting interesting data for the morning to come.

The airbase network was up and running, interlinking with regional fiber optic lines and orbital telecommunication satellites overhead. And yet, Kusanagi did not feel the call of the Net. Its presence felt diminished, maybe in mourning for the loss of life brought by the tsunami. Or maybe it was a physical consequence of water washing away much of Osaka and Niihama, along with their server farms and provincial Internet of Things (IoT). The sea of information felt quiet, and the Major’s curiosity was left wanting.

Kusanagi threw off her army blanket, and pulled herself upright while her polished legs touched the crackly canvas and nylon of the tent bottom. She grounded herself, feeling the coarse asphalt texture beneath against her false toes and sensitive soles. Putting aside the habitual fascination, she began her morning routine: Section Nine network diagnostics, security and driver updates for her cyborg components—every single one of them.

Tonight there were 46 in total, from isolated limb firmware to haptic internal sensors. At the same time, she pulled on a set of army camouflage pants and a green Flecktarn jacket over her designer lilac leotard. Besides her undergarments, the leotard was the one piece of clothing she could fit under the form-fitting tactical suit she wore during the Prime Minister rescue operation.

On base, it made sense to dress like military, for the simple reason of abundant laundry and fewer questions of what government agency she was with. But it came with the old traditions of cohesion and uniformity she left behind in the JSDF long ago. In another lifetime, Kusanagi was an Army intelligence hacker.

Funny how she held the rank of Major there too. A time where she wore the uniform, marched to the drum of war, and saluted the national flag each morning. Her skills reflected her experience, and the rank followed her as an enduring stamp of service given. Tours with the United Nations Peacekeepers in Latin and South America. She participated in the Nemuro, Hokkaido maritime landing like many Japanese military veterans. But when she joined Section Nine, Kusanagi closed that chapter in her life just as she did with several others.

Kusanagi could fall back into her military routines like putting on a second shell, as easy as returning home again. Being a police officer was not so different from the military, including a similar uniform. But upon pulling on the camo-greens again, she still felt off—like its subtly thicker, wool fabric marked a new headwind. A warning of things to change and come. It seemed life was dropping more of those warnings day after day. Maybe she was feeling nervous.

It was difficult to pin down where her displeasure seemed to manifest from. Kusanagi peeked out of the tent and placed a reflexive hand against her forehead and purple hair bangs as the overhead floodlight intensified against the tent flaps. Dribbles of water polka-dotted her hair and a spot of drizzle traced the ridge of her nose.

Maybe her discomfort was simply the rain, or the intense light. Her artificial eyes adapted faster than organic ones to the dark-and-light values as smudged shadow palette transformed into more tents, guardsmen, and military vehicles shifting around near the civilian portion of the military encampment. Clearly no one was getting sleep tonight.

Thinking deeper though, Kusanagi could not set aside the uncertainty of something born recently—the rescue operation, or maybe something from Section Nine’s public responsibilities rather than recent operations. Or maybe it was a deeper, personal unsettlement. From tonight, or before the tsunami, or before the Kayabuki administration, or maybe before Section Nine. The deeper she wondered, the more lost she felt.

As if in an instant, the noisy mind returned. The clarity of thought escaped Kusanagi, leaving behind the buzz of discontent. Quiet, but present under the murky surface and begging for attention. The caricature of nuisance tugged at her, pulling her towards a darkness with an unseen goal or destination.

Instead of standing under the floodlights to mull her feelings, the Major let the rebellious energy pull her along into the drizzling night.

Kusanagi startled the gate guard on her quiet approach. She didn’t request a military rental vehicle, instead choosing to walk two kilometers to an east border gate of Camp Yao. For her disheveled and striking purple bob cut, she looked somewhat out of regulation. Her camo uniform was bare of Velcro tabs, instead marked with a Kusanagi name duct tape etched with permanent market and a borrowed set of two-bars-and-star insignias from a generous JSDF logistics officer. But that was for the daytime.

“Who goes there? Where are you heading to?” The guard called out, putting up a stopping hand, flickering his glaring flashlight, and palming his Minbea PM-9 machine pistol.

Kusanagi gave him a deadpan look, her features silhouetted against the floodlight glow behind her. Even cyborgs got tired, her synthetic muscles for emotion became rigid like a statue. Uncanny, inhuman feminine features—a creature masquerading as human.

“Major Kusanagi Motoko, Public Security special attache with Central Army Aviation-Headquarters. I’m going for a walk outside the wire.”

The single guard became a full security team as a couple more guards emerged from the shadows and exited the security station nearby. The first guard crossed his arms over his soft armor chest plate but relaxed his stance. “Can we see some identification?”

Kusanagi obliged, ringing a government identification card slung from her neck. The lead guard stepped forward to examine it for a moment as the security team relaxed. She was quickly waved through the raised gate and into the darkened streets of Osaka. Or what was left of some.

"I recommend you take an escort, ma'am." One of the guards called after her.

"Thank you, I will be alright." The Major replied, glancing back once. Instead, she followed her long cast shadow, her ghost...