Passing Ships

Maho could feel her face lose color as she finished reading out the missive. 

The single words on print she could understand, but she struggled to make any sense of what they told her together. She fell backwards onto a rust-spattered chair as she grappled with the decisions that she had made in the past few days. In a way, this shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise. 

Re-evaluating was all she seemed to have been doing, ever since she had that frightful surprise sprung on her on Utarijima.

That day, they found nothing on a canvass of the island, even with the assistance of local lawmen; nothing of the missing couple that was the supposed reason for the search, but more importantly nothing of the alleged sorceress. 

The commotion and her orders to restrict access around the old cemetery had inevitably aroused the curiosity of the locals, but the usual cover stories sufficed. Of more immediate concern at the time was the next course of action.

From the start, she held doubts about the American’s encounter. A positively identified sorceress was exceedingly rare; so few and far between that her organization still catalogued them by the place of first encounter followed by a set of numerals.

The physical evidence they had recovered in the form of that statuette would have been convincing grounds for immediate action; but she would have preferred a more thorough analysis of it before proceeding further. That was, if not for a concurrent development. 

What she had previously considered to be an irrelevant piece of news was given a disturbing new context by that statuette: that same Saturday saw the city’s fisheries recording the highest single-day seafood catch in three years. In all the excitement, there were even rumors of gold brought up in the nets.

Between the recovered object and the sudden reversal of fortunes for the local fisherfolk, there finally formed a pattern that Maho could demonstrate. More than that, it was a match with a specific modus operandi.

Attributable to a threat group her organization typified as Delta Oscar, it was one they had inherited some awareness of from the colonial days. Yet as far as she knew, Delta Oscar had never been encountered once in the post-war. 

If the provenance of the statuette was as the American said, then the emerging pattern in Hokishi represented a categorical threat to national security. It was imperative that a Delta Oscar infestation be neutralized at the earliest stage, and the American made sure to remind her of that much at every turn. As much as to placate the foreigner as to address the urgency of the situation, Maho was compelled to activate certain emergency protocols.

In redirecting an asset of the maritime self-defense force and issuing a direct standby order for the rapid response unit, she had bypassed her chain of command, an unthinkable move in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, she was confident of the evidence; such measures could be justified when it came time to give an accounting. 

The first upset came while trying to find a match with the American’s description of his assailant through Tokura, when the policeman suddenly burst into laughter.

“That’s old lady Hongo!” he pointed out, referring to an apparently infamous local. 

But Tokura must be mistaken, Maho first thought. She tried to expand on the old woman's description without revealing anything sensitive. How else could her feats of agility be explained?  

“She’s a real piece of work, but she’s kind of become a fixture around here. Yeah, she gets up to mischief from time to time, but nobody can ever seem to get to grips with the old hag– not for lack of trying, mind! Besides, she’s never hurt anybody.” he said dismissively. “I guess it was about time you’d run into her. Ah, we did have word that she’s been hanging those parts lately.” 

“You failed to mention that. She’s a person of interest to us, so if you have information that could lead to her, then there is no excuse. You must submit it to me.” Maho replied stiffly. 

She was still irritated at his irreverent manner, but Tokura was delivering on their arrangement thus far. 

“Did I now… I did, I did! Sorry about that. Anyway, about Hongo. As far as we know, she doesn’t have a place of residence around here. But that’s not surprising. The paperwork isn’t always up-to-date around these parts, and you have a lot of old folks who’d keep all to themselves till they… you know. Lots of free real estate. And forget about looking for family.” 

What few records he did provide were indeed unhelpful, but all the same the American swore that the old woman that the local authorities identified as Hongo was the one he had seen on the island that day. 

So the so-called sorceress was a confusing dead end. Picking up the trail would take precious time, so she instead made the decision to pivot their current efforts towards exploiting the hard evidence: the statuette, the proof that this entire operation was not all for naught and her strongest justification. Belatedly, forensics had gotten back to her with their analysis of it.

Thus it was a Wednesday when Maho found herself sat blanched against a chair in her room at the Miyatsuko hostel. Reading through the results had just informed her of the second upset:  

The statuette could not have possibly been part of the collection they recovered in the warehouse; it had never been to any other country but Japan. Most telling of all, nothing of the statuette’s constituent material was of unnatural origin; it was normal stone. The statuette was a bust. 

The missive almost slipped from her hands as the series of mistakes she had made unfolded to her all at once. 

She was put here to produce evidence, not call on the damn army, and now she had could no longer defend her reasons for circumventing her orders. And to make a fiasco of such an operation, much less in full view of the Americans– the blame could only fall on one person. 

The dangers of acting on your initiative; the civil service career of Tokura the contact bore that out, as if she needed the reminder. But it wasn’t as simple as getting banished to an unimportant post, or forced retirement anymore; not in the world she was now in. Now, the very thought of a “forced retirement” made her blood run cold. Then fear gave way to anger. 

Maho started from the chair, intent on having a reckoning with the boy who had made her cry wolf. That last line had come to her unbidden, and she cringed at herself for even thinking of it; that damn kid really was insidious.

***

“I know what I saw.”

Caught by surprise, Theo could only say the same thing as before. Maho begged to differ. 

“Evidently, you didn’t know what it was.” 

Posted up as he was in this musty hostel, he was having a decent evening drawing up fire support plans for the city and its environs anyhow, up until his counterpart barged in to dole out a thorough razzing, complete with dazzling accusations of incompetence and idiocy. All that before he could even figure out exactly what he was getting scolded for. 

He only managed to get a word in edgewise when she shoved the papers into his hands.
She let him read it in silence. The results of the analysis, detailed down to the isotope. Most of it flew over his head, but enough stuck to get him up to speed. He put the papers aside to look up in disbelief he couldn’t hide. Confusion abounded in his head as he cobbled together a less-than-kneejerk reply. 

“So it’s a replica.” He repeated, as coolly as he could manage. 

“And I can’t justify emergency protocols on the basis of a shoddy replica. Not when we can’t even establish ownership.” Maho snapped. When he tried to reply, she started talking over him. 

“But the old woman–“

“Of which we essentially know nothing about besides your bare testimony,”

“–and the sudden spike in fis–“

“means nothing if we can’t connect cause and effect. And the way I see it, the sole instigator of that incident on the island was you.” 

“I know what I saw! Who the hell do you think I am to shoot off without a positive ID?” he said, raising his voice. She stuck in his craw all the more with what came next. “I don’t doubt that you would be quick to shoot off that toy of yours.” she said as she moved to recover the missive, bringing her close. Theo retaliated.

“As quick as you would be to hide behind all that paper, huh? I have half a mind to find out what your higher-ups think–” 

Theo heard a sudden whizz past his ear end in a thwack and a rattle as Maho slammed what she was holding against the desk beside him. That it was the first time she was blowing up at him did far more to stun him than the action itself. He was expecting a drop in room temperature when she put on the ice queen act, not a physical outburst.

“Don’t you dare!” 

Her jaw tightened with the effort of calming down, but she was quick to follow up. Her next words seemed directed at no one in particular. 

“It will take more than the wild speculations of a pair of field agents to change that...” he heard her mumble. Maho tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before her eyes found focus on him again.

“There’s little time for this. I will continue to work my sources. But hear this– If all this comes down on me for acting on your intel, I will make it my personal mission that you never set foot in this country ever again.” she said, in the cold voice he had expected. 

Maho made to leave then, but tripped over something hidden underneath a makeshift tarp.

“And clean up your mess! What even is that thing?” 

“I was thinking that–“ 

Without waiting for his answer, she showed herself out and slammed the door behind her.

“–we needed an extra bang…” Theo replied, trailing off. 

Evidently, she never bothered to find out what it was he was using this room for to begin with. Good thing too, since she was already pissed. He imagined that she would not have taken any more kindly to finding out that the “recovered” contents of the room were probably enough to blow up the entire block.

Even as Theo tried to take things in stride, the visit was troubling him. There was no helping it, since Maho was right on most counts. If they couldn’t find the old hag, or at least establish a definite connection between the artifact and recent events, then the whole damn thing was a wash, whatever it was that a foreigner said. 

Damn her. How could someone like that old hag not be known to her people in the first place? 

As the prospect of action faded his mood soured further; to finish what was left of his work proved more difficult than it should have been, and he was getting sloppier with his pencil strokes. 

There was no mistaking what it was he had fired at that day. The Unit would have never doubted his word, even if they would’ve never let him hear the end of it for letting her get away. He pushed back on that line of thinking as he wrapped up his work. Such thoughts were unworthy; this was the mission, and there was nothing to do but adapt.

Stowing away the overlays drawn over with scheduled targets and coordination measures for Maho to find later, Theo decided that his morale could do with a little boosting. 

Try as he might to put it from his mind, a part of his brain was still going over the problem as he went out into the town, trying to find some way to prove the truth of his encounter to the Japanese.

Instead, the more he ran through the facts in light of the new evidence, the more it seemed a wonder that he had convinced Maho at all.

But I know what I saw.

The place had a strangely cozy feel about it for how much it smelled of stale old men by the time he got there. He always came in the last hour before closing time, finishing his meal before accompanying Ema on a walk and the visit to that hilltop shrine more often than not. 

That had also become something of a routine. It had become that way more out of convenience than anything else, he insisted. He had already spent the time to get to know the girl, so why not?
That he had taken a shine to the cooking there might have been another reason. 

That wasn’t quite right– whenever Ema was allowed to prepare the orders herself, or once when an old lady gave a kind word to her cooking, her face lit up in a way that fascinated him. Maybe he had taken a shine to that. 

Whatever it was, he had made a habit out of all of it. Again, the two of them wound up on that bench in the shade of the camellia tree. 

By that time, he was coming around to the possibility that he would have to end his first solo foray overseas on a less than auspicious note. He had done as he was trained, and more besides. It was a real shame, but he would have to cut his teeth on the old enemy some other time, some other place.

And with only a few days left, there were sundry things to take care of before closing out his stay here. He was preoccupied with that when Ema asked him something out of left field.

“Hey, Theo-san. Do you think I smell like fish?” she said, in that typical quiet voice. He didn’t put much thought in his reply, saying the first thing that came to him. 

“If you do Kurose-san, then I haven’t noticed– If you did, I’d wear that proudly. I told you before, didn’t I? You’re a hard worker.” 

“Is that so? Ehehehe…”

What the the hell kind of noise is that?

That really got her attention, and he gave her a closer look. Something was off; her eyes were clouded, and she was swaying. Before he could do anything, Ema lost to sleep.

And crashed into Theo’s lap. It dawned on him then just how tired she must be; he had been too concerned with the operation to really notice. Theo almost started at the sudden lap pillow, but decided to stay put. 

She had done him a solid, so it was only fair that he do something right by her. And now that he was on the way out, he couldn’t deny that he was curious about girls his age, if only a little bit. 

He poked her cheek once or twice to make sure she was fast asleep. With no objective in particular, he played his eyes along her hands, where coarse bumps marred the young skin of her fingers. 

A hard-working girl, for sure. 

His eyes went up to the sleeping face, now in full view after he dared to fix the hair that had fallen over it. Up close like this, you could even call her cute. That sound she made earlier was too. 

Idly, he allowed himself to wonder what it was that normal girls like her dreamed about. His own long day was creeping up on him when her lips started moving. The girl was mumbling in her sleep.

“hnggh…the sea roars beneath the waves, further out.”

The phrase entered through his one ear and passed out the other at first, along with a slew of other half-words that came out her sleep talk. Half-asleep himself, it still sounded strangely familiar. 

It was a long moment before he recalled where he heard those words, but when he did it shot him up ramrod straight. Suddenly, he no longer had any trouble staying awake. 

He might have overdone it with his reaction. Theo shook Ema her by the shoulders before grilling the girl on her sleep talk. The girl was groggy, so it wasn’t surprising that she had no idea what it was he was on about. That was fine; she already told him all that he needed to hear, and what her father did for a living added to his mounting suspicions. 

He quickly excused himself to the flabbergasted girl, hustling down from the shrine and walking at full clip back to that hostel, hoping that Maho was still there. 

Bringing up a burner phone to his ear to call ahead, he inadvertently brushed the hand he’d run through Ema’s hair against his nose. It did smell of fish after all.

***

Ema thought she could smell perfume through the haze of sleep. Then she was back awake, being jerked back and forth like a fish just out the water. She didn’t even have time to feel embarrassed about her dozing off or anything else when Theo-san just up and left before she could even figure out what for. 

The headache caught up to her while he ran off into the night, but a cold gust through the shrine helped some to throw off the worst of the rude wakeup. She smelled that strange perfume again, much more faintly, and tracked it down to her front bangs. A hand had run through them, she remembered. Whose hand was it?

Come to think of it, whose lap was she lying on just now? It didn’t take long for her to put two and two together. Now there was ample time to feel embarrassed.  

And that weird question about fish smell– she might have been starting to find it easy to talk to him, but something must have come over her to ask that. Not that the questions he bombarded her with after the doze-off made any sense either. She had never talked in her sleep, ever, and didn’t know anything about the… 

Sea, roaring. The sea roars beneath the waves. 

Of course. The dreams were getting worse lately, after all, and that was to blame for her trouble with keeping her head straight lately. That must be it. 

She thought back to her weird question. Surprisingly, he had answered her quite nicely. The warm feeling she had gotten from that was still with her. As she set out on her own way, Ema resolved to answer Theo-san’s questions properly next time they met in return. 

That warm feeling disappeared when she got home. The lights were off, like it had been for most of past week. She didn’t know if she could ever get used to opening the door to an empty house.

But her father was a busy man now, off on whatever it was he had to do to run for chairman. For his and the mate's efforts, it was looking to be a surer thing by the day. Moving up in the world, and the house was changing with it. She should be happy.

Hoping to get rid of the droning pain in her head, Ema went straight to bed.

***

Ema’s father came back from courting the Association late in the night, bone-tired and a little drunk. He opened the door and saw his daughter. Immediately, he knew something was wrong. She was just staring at the wall, side-on to him. Before he could react, she took another step towards the wall one moment and was just gone the next. Rushing up to where she disappeared, he had no time to process the event before he stumbled on the entryway step, he was about to hit the wall– and instead got a faceful of sand. All of a sudden he could hear waves, smell brine and feel a brisk wind. He looked up around him, finding himself among a huddle of decrepit hovels by a shore, sedge-grass and debris everywhere. He was close to panic when he remembered and looked around frantically, quickly spotting something, someone on the beach. Wading out in the surf, his daughter looked out to sea, holding out some sort of medal before throwing it into the water. Then there was something else, further out. A glow.

***

Theo he looked out over the berm and saw nothing to report. In the cool sea air, his full battle-rattle was making him sweat like a pig. Well, that might not have been the only reason. 

He was going all in on this soup sandwich, making promises to his Japanese counterpart that was bound to get him in a world of trouble. All on the words of a high school girl and his gut. 

This had to be a real winner in his hands this time. Otherwise, he’d really have hell to pay, not only stateside but with Maho. Even now she was probably still fuming back at the motorboat they’d knocked off to get here. 

He glanced at his watch. He had been on this side of the abandoned island for hours now, and all the while nothing about the remnants of a fishing village below him had changed. In haphazard rows, crumbling mounds of what had once been thatched buildings lay sullenly, unchanged from the photograph in the library except for the time of day. 

He was sure this was the one. As the night wore away on in its slow revolution around the north star, the name of the island repeated in his head. 

Kuroshima.

A girl came out of thin air, at the edge of the village where it met the beach. It was none other than Ema Kurose. The sight got Theo's blood up. All the screw-ups and side-tracks to reach this point no longer mattered. This was it.

Theo maintained eyes-on as she stumbled out into the shallows and stayed there. Not long after, another one popped up at the same spot; a man he didn't have an ID on. He kept his counterpart abreast of the situation, knowing that she would be seeing what he saw through the video feed anyhow. 

A scatter of birds that should have been asleep fled into the night. Theo felt his gut start to churn, and watched the sea more intently. When the waters in front of Ema started glowing a greenish-blue, the gears in his head clicked together. Wolf was going to cut his teeth on the old enemy after all.

When the tide is out, the table is set.

The chief officer took the cigarette out of his mouth, stretching an arm out to tap out the ashes into the waters churned up by the ship’s massive wake. He was watching them fall away when he noticed a light some ways off the port quarter, a big green glow that wasn’t there when he last looked. 

Bioluminescence was his first thought. Yet the more he looked the more something in him shrank at it, and that irritated the officer. The feeling brought up an unwelcome memory from his cadet days, when he had screamed and cried like a babe in the face of a storm. 

A nervous breakdown, they later said of his episode, even as he swore never to repeat it. He wasn’t that fresh-faced cadet anymore, to get spooked by lights out at sea. He threw the butt over the side.

He about to turn back for the bridge to tell his watch partner about the sighting, when something breached the surface in the glow’s center. They were indistinct things, that looked to him in the faint starlight like squid clustered around a whale. 

That was when the clouds moved aside, briefly, to let the full moon through. 

That brief moment was enough to see in full clarity what it was that swam in the water, and in the space of that moment the seaman’s feeble rationalizations were squashed utterly.

Suddenly, the sixty-thousand tonne ship under his feet seemed all too small. 

He screamed.