9

Countdown: 158 Days Remaining.

It took three days for Makoto and Rui to return to camp, allowing for no distractions on the way back.

Makoto quickened his pace as he saw Kichijouji Station looming in front of him, the neon lettering faintly glowing through the haze. His legs seemed to find a sudden burst of energy despite him running on little sleep overall.

That energy dissipated when he saw one of the camp members sitting by the entrance, eyes darting around and feet tapping nervously on the ground in front of him. The bags under his eyes suggested he had been awake a long time, and how he shifted back and forth suggested he had been seated there a while.

“Makoto!” he called out as soon as he saw the boy approach. “Hurry.” He opened the hatch and gestured for Makoto to climb in.

“What happened?” Makoto asked, breathlessly. His hands and feet went numb, and he hardly felt able to hold himself up. Functioning on auto-pilot, he swung his legs down into the hatch and began the fastest descent of his life.

“It’s Sumire,” the man said, climbing in after him with Rui holding the trapdoor open. “She’s taken a turn for the worse again.”

Makoto was sprinting the second his feet hit the ground. He turned on the advanced night vision, because he didn’t want to risk slowing down, and pulled his respirator and balaclava off to make it easier to breathe. Rui caught up beside him, easily keeping pace, but the man fell behind, unable to see in the pitch black darkness of the underground.

“What can I do?” Rui asked, voice hushed and urgent. He was already lagging behind Makoto to unzip his backpack and hand him his scope and multitool, which Makoto accepted gratefully.

“Granny!” Makoto called out as soon as he was close enough. Usually he never yelled underground for fear of waking anyone who might be sleeping, but an emergency like this forced him to forgo the usual courtesy.

She rose from her seat besides Sumire, reluctantly letting go of the girl’s hand, and rushed over. “She’s running a fever again, and she said she’s feeling unwell. It doesn’t seem to be as bad as before, but it could be the necrosis coming back.”

Rui reached her first and began unwrapping the layers of blankets. Makoto only had to unzip the center of her shirt to reveal the port, saving him precious seconds as he screwed the scope in.

“It’s not necrosis,” he said immediately, relieved. “But her entire GI system is failing, and needs to be replaced quickly.” He noted that her stomach walls had eroded, as had the hinges on the liver he’d made for her. “There’s something too acidic that she’s not reacting well to,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.

“I haven’t been eating anything,” Sumire said, her voice small and muffled beneath a balaclava, respirator, and a blanket still pulled up past her chin. “I’ve been resting like you told me to, I promise.” Her eyes shone with desperation and uncertainty. She looked over to Rui too, trying to convince him of the same, and he offered her a kind smile.

“I believe you,” Makoto said softly, squeezing her hand. “It’s not your fault.”

Makoto must have been making a face, because Rui leaned close and whispered into his ear, “It’s not your fault either.”

Makoto buried his face into his balaclava so Sumire couldn’t read his lips and whispered back, “If I hadn’t left, I could’ve caught it sooner.” He kept his voice low and hoped she wouldn’t hear him.

Before Rui could respond, Shu came over, arms crossed and a scowl on his face, and said, “You’re right.” A glimmer of defiance shone in his eyes, and the tone of his voice taunted Makoto, asking for him to fight back. “It’s not her fault. It’s yours.”

Rui reacted faster. He was already on Shu, standing so close he barely left room for Shu to breathe, before Makoto could even ask what Shu had meant. Being a few years older than Shu gave Rui a height advantage, but his diminutive frame wasn’t exactly intimidating.

Shu didn’t seem bothered. He looked around Rui to continue, “Of course it’s your fault. You built that machine, inside and out. She’s not even human anymore at this point!”

It was his usual argument, and nobody who had heard it before was particularly fazed by it, but Rui stood his ground anyways. “You take that back and apologize to her. She is a living, breathing human being and does not deserve that kind of treatment from anyone, least of all a brat like you.” His voice dropped into an intimidating tone that Makoto hadn’t heard before.

Although Shu usually lived off picking a fight with anyone who looked at him, he hesitated a moment, his face losing some of his usual bravado.

Makoto looked away from the confrontation for a moment to check on Sumire, and she had pulled off her respirator and balaclava, and said, in a trembling voice, “Is that true? Am I not human?”

He realized with a chill that she was usually asleep for most of Shu’s outbursts, and the sedative he gave her kept her oblivious to even his loudest protests. “Of course you are,” Makoto replied instantly, his voice cracking. The pain in her eyes sent a pang through his heart. His eyes threatened tears, but he held back.

In her soft, youthful features, he saw Miyuki, looking up at him, begging him for honesty, for reprieve from the worry she felt. He saw the pain, the struggle, the guilt of it all in his sister’s gray eyes for a brief moment.

Then Sumire said, “But how can I be, when I need all these things just to keep me alive for another day?” Tears shimmered in her eyes and rolled down the sides of her face, disappearing into her red hair. “I shouldn’t be alive right now.”

“That’s right,” Shu said, though he’d lost some of the conviction in his voice. “And all the effort it takes just to keep you alive is taking a toll on all of us, stuck here beca-”

Rui swung at Shu before he could finish, nearly knocking Shu out with a hard punch. The younger boy stumbled back a few steps, but he managed to keep from falling. “Not another word out of you,” Rui said, glaring down at him.

Shu matched the anger in Rui’s look, directing it back, but didn’t speak.

“Makoto…” Sumire said, a pleading look in her eyes.

She opened her mouth to say something more, but Makoto put a hand over her lips and said, almost in a whisper, “Please don’t,” because he already knew what she would say -- Miyuki would say the same. “Please just let me help you, for Miyuki.” He knew that what he was asking was cruel, but he couldn’t stop the words from slipping past his lips. As if to make it any better, he added, “I’ll escort you outside, if you get better, remember? Like I promised.”

She hesitated a moment before nodding and relaxing back into the covers surrounding her, but her face was still tight and discomfort showed in her eyes.

Shu opened his mouth to say something more, but Rui cut him off. “You act all high and mighty, but you’re no better than the rest of us. Stop acting like the Pure.”

Shu scowled harder, letting go of his face to reveal the redness where Rui had punched him. A small trickle of blood spilled out of the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it away on the back of his hand.

“I could be, you know,” he said. Though his tone was defiant, his voice shook. Almost yelling, he continued, “I could be one of them! I could’ve gone with them!” He raised his mechanical arm, “I can live without this, unlike all of you and your enhancements!” He pointed in turn to each person in the camp. “I can live without all of this!”

“Then why don’t you? If you love the damn Pure so much, why don’t you go join them?” Rui said, calling his bluff.

Shu glared at him for a moment, the pair locked in a staring contest, then he smirked, “Fine then, I will. I’ll feel much more at home there than I ever have with you lot.”

He stood still for a moment longer, his hard expression wavering ever so slightly, as though he was waiting for someone to contradict him. Then, in the next second, he was storming off, saying, “Enjoy your pathetic lives without me then.”

Everyone who had been watching the confrontation turned to watch him leave, then looked back at Rui. Makoto watched a flash of regret cross his face, then his body seemed to lean forward, as if ready to go after Shu.

But Rui didn’t move.

“He doesn’t mean all that,” Granny said, speaking up for the first time. She was usually the one who argued with Shu and calmed him down. “He’s just a kid.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have said that to him,” Makoto said softly, trying to be as gentle as he could be.

“What?” Rui turned to Makoto, incredulous. “What did I say that was so bad?”

“You all but said he’s not welcome here. You told him to leave.”

Rui walked over and sat down with a sigh, his eyebrows still furrowed and his lips pursed in frustration. “He was getting on my nerves, saying that he’s so much better than everyone just because he only has a mechanical arm. Like all the other alterations somehow make us less worthy or something. He sounds just like them.”

With a sigh, Makoto turned back to working on Sumire, who was already dozing off as he started to weld her organs back together with his multitool. “He’s had a rough life, for someone so young.”

“Haven’t we all? That’s not an excuse to treat everyone around him like garbage.”

Makoto paused again, looking at Rui. “Do you know how he lost that arm?” Rui shook his head. “He was in an accident when he was young. A transporter malfunctioned, on his way home from school, and activated before he was fully in it. He arrived at this station with a bleeding stub, screaming. Since this was well before the revolt, before even the energy crisis, it was easier to just make him a mechanical one than try to reattach the old one.” Makoto reached into his backpack to pull out a pair of thin wires best used for delicate organs. “He was Pure before that, and it’s been a sore spot of his ever since the revolt, that he couldn’t join his parents because of his arm.”

“His parents left him behind?” Rui said, his jaw dropping in horror.

Makoto shrugged. “That’s what I’ve heard. They won’t accept him, the Pure.”

“He sure made it sound like they would, how he was going on and on about how much better they were,” Rui said. Though he was still trying to sound annoyed, his voice had softened considerably.

“I think he just wanted you to stop him, to make him feel like he should stay.” He wound the new wires around the hinges of Sumire's liver, melting them down to strength what still remained. 

“Dammit,” Rui said, standing up with his fist curled at his sides. “Stupid kid doing reckless things.”

He started to head for the ladder, to follow Shu, when Granny stopped him, gently taking his arm to hold him back. “Give the boy some time to cool off,” she said. “He’ll be back soon.”

Rui raised an eyebrow. “But I thought I was supposed to chase after him?”

Granny shrugged. “It’s a little late for that. Besides, you’re right about his behavior being atrocious. It shouldn’t be rewarded, no matter how much Makoto makes you pity him.” Makoto turned away to avoid Granny’s scolding look. “He’ll make you feel sorry for any lost soul,” she finished.

“Yeah that’s Makoto for you, really such a mom,” Rui said with a teasing wink in Makoto’s direction. He sat down beside Granny, relaxing against the pillar and settling in to chat.

With the heat of embarrassment rising up his face and pooling in his cheeks, Makoto turned away from them and returned his attention to Sumire.