Beyond The Barricades

Somewhere in layer two of New Nantan- June 17th 2233

9:05am

The line rang twelve times, each time sending him a new piece of code that he stored on his main memory bank. A small jingle played at the end. “I’m busy at the moment, please try again.” An AI recreation of Haruto’s voice said.

Ichijo hung up. The third attempt and it hadn’t gone through. He supposed he shouldn’t expect much given that it was still so early in the morning. But he was eager for the private line to pay off. If it didn’t then he knew Jaelynn wouldn’t hesitate to spike him or worse.

He thought of his old body sitting in amniotic fluid and collecting metaphorical dust. It reminded him, sickeningly, that there was no going back to that body. At least, not without turning his brain off and pretending he wasn’t killing himself by doing so. He sprawled on the floor, spreading his legs under the kotatsu as he did. It was a philosophical question he hadn’t had a chance to ponder since waking up, but he had to decide what counted as him.

If he valued continuity of memory he would want to “return” to the old body by having the memories in his current solid-brain copied over. An impossibility given that Jaelynn vowed to wipe his memories once his time was up. That wasn’t all. He knew given the differences between a single solid-brain and an organic brain with several solid-drives inserted throughout that a transfer from one to the other was near impossible. In actuality, the fact that Jaelynn had copied each drive over indiscriminately was essentially death for Ichijo Hajime.

The new body named Kaiya Arakawa, while containing memories from Joben Gima and Ichijo Hajime had a new continuity of memory parallel from the old. Add that to the fact that Kaiya looked different, sounded different, and had experienced new things that Ichijo hadn’t, and it became clear that he (or she) was a different person entirely. Ergo, if Ichijo valued himself in the present moment, he had to consider Kaiya a new person with her own life to live.

Secondary to that, he would have to think of a way to allow Ichijo Hajime, the original, pathetic as he was; to wake up and live on his own. He would have to accomplish all of this if he wanted to “live” as his memories were now shared by two entities. They would both have to live for him to “win”.

He thought about the spiker, how quickly it had killed the driver last night. Suddenly the prospect of being spiked wasn’t so scary compared to trying to find a way to live twice. Keeping both bodies would mean he’d have to turn the organization upside down. He scoffed.

“That’s not happening.” He remarked.

He heard five knocks at the door and marched over immediately. Joseph was waiting with a jacket, a pair of sunglasses and a hat.

“Next job, should be quick.” He said roughly. Suddenly, Ichijo didn’t want to go.

“You know what? I’m good actually!”

“Shut up and do what I say, please?” Joseph asked. His eyes were bloodshot being weighed down by bags on either side. Ichijo slid on the borderline useless disguise.

“You got it boss.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re following me today.” He had explained as they drove down into the murky depths of Nantan Tier 1. “A group by the name of Clear Skies is trying to make a move on some intelligence we’ve heard on the grapevine and it’s our job to intercept some information they’re tying to send to a client. Some classified documents have been stolen. The physical kind, if you can believe it. And we need to go get a hold of them.”

“Point being?”

“I don’t know. We just need to know what they’re trying to find out, okay?”

They pulled into a vacant parking lot. Even with lights on the lower tier was darker than hell itself. Hints of buildings could be seen through the orange glow surrounding them. Ghosts of civilization hung in the air about them as the car idled. But without the bright lights from the SUV there would be no world to see. At least, not one worth engaging in. The concept of the tiered city seemed good on paper. But the lack of public funds meant that more and more resources were pooled on the upper tiers where private ownership could leverage a better way of life. Lower tiers bred crime like rats in a sewer and there was no one to blame but the government for planning such a monstrosity.

“That’s why we did it.” Ichijo sighed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Joseph shrugged then pointed through the windshield at a small grey shape. “See that?” He motioned. “Around that corner the broker is supposed to come by in a few minutes. I go over there, rough him up, take his shit and come back. You get in the driver’s seat and take off as soon as I make it back, got it?”

“Sure.” Ichijo said. Then realized something: “Isn’t there someone more qualified for this though? I’m mostly just good for body-hacking and such.”

“There was. Don’t remind me about it, okay?” Joseph relented. Ichijo realized instantly who he was referring to. Part of him wanted to say he was sorry for his loss, but he held his tongue as a man in black stepped out from the darkness, barely visible.

“Showtime.” Joseph said, practically skipping out of the car.

Another smash and grab. The organization seemed to want to convince him they were all knowing. But to gain information like this? Through mugging someone and taking their things? And then there was last night in the club. The plan had been to “copy Haruto Minazuki’s brain” but what of the mechanics of it, did it matter if he could get away with it without being caught? The organization’s doings, even excluding Jaelynn’s performance last night, had the air of a pack of wolves turned loose in a chicken coop. If the objective was to kill chickens, so be it. But the methodology was…

“Sloppy.” Ichijo caught himself saying. He switched to the driver’s seat adjusting the height for Kaiya. “Jaelynn is too smart of a person to allow this kind of waste to happen on her watch.” Or was she?

Joseph collided with the other shadow. The only reason he could tell them apart was because Joseph was so massive, he could hardly be confused with anything else. Quick work was made of the broker. In short order the taller shadow was rummaging through the remains of the smaller. Feeling satisfied, Joseph turned back to the car but was stopped by the sound of a loud crack ringing across the concrete.

In the darkness Ichijo saw small flares of light pop into existence with the sounds of small-arms fire. The tall shadow fell over, still moving but slower now. “Shit!” Ichijo put the car into gear and revved the engine. More pops as several shadows emerged up the street. “Shit, shit, shit.” The tall shadow got up and began sprinting towards his moving vehicle. Ichijo swerved around him and chose to head towards the pin lights in the darkness.

Bullets pitted the windshield and hood as he accelerated towards them. He turned on the SUV’s headlights and three gunmen appeared in the dark street. They looked up in horror as they realized what was happening. Three loud thuds rang against the bumper as Ichijo collided with them. He put the car in reverse immediately after he’d confirmed they were either under his tire or in front of him in a heap.

He heard a knock on the back door and popped the trunk in response. Joseph leapt inside carrying the unconscious broker. “Drive, asshole!” He yelled. Ichijo obliged the request, peeling out and speeding off as quickly as he could manage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Here! Pull in here!” Joseph yelled at a turn five blocks away. He turned left and the vehicle bottomed out as it careened down a steep ramp. Behind them a door slammed shut and ahead of them the road widened into a small garage with three men standing in hazmat suits.

Joseph exited and the three men began scanning the car with lazers. Ichijo followed him around to the back where he popped the trunk revealing what remained of the broker. He was a small man with thin black seams lining his face. His eyes had been replaced with optic cameras and he appeared to have natural hair, though, that could be faked these days. He was beaten bloody but breathing in the way that a cat might after being run over.

“Man, you messed him up.” Ichijo commented, lifting the inside of the man’s coat. “Did you at least get the hard copies he’d taken?”

Joseph held up a fragment of plastic that had once contained paper. “I think the first bullet hit this and shattered it. What a pigscrew.” He said, tossing the debris onto the man. He turned away revealing an arm dripping with blood.

“Hey! You’re hurt!”

“I’m fine!” Joseph spat. He hobbled away and slumped against the garage wall. Ichijo followed and tried to grab him before he fell.

“Don’t! Don’t touch me!” He yelled. Ichijo took a step back, trying to study the lines in his tired face. He was reacting out of impulse, frustration, but also something else he couldn’t place. He knelt beside him, not too close.

“Is it because I’m New Japanese? Is that why?” Ichijo asked, finally owning up to the label he had tried to avoid placing on himself.

“You wouldn’t understand.” Joseph scoffed. “It just, it makes me uncomfortable.” He finished shakily. The two made eye contact for the first time in hours. In the deep blue of his irises, Ichijo thought he could see the man’s whole life story. Joben Gima only needed a glance. Joben saw the prison yard, the cement, and the gnashing of teeth.

Joben glaced back at the car where the techies were busy cleaning, where the unconscious broker slowly bled.

“You want them to help you?” He asked. Joseph didn’t respond. “All right then, close your eyes.”

Joseph closed his eyes then held his arm out. Ichijo pulled back his leather jacket and peered around. He was well-armored, but there would always be gaps in any defense. His chest was riddled with bullets, his arms too, only one had penetrated the thin dragonskin halfway up his bicep.

“I can get this out.” He promised, thankful for his now small fingers he pinched the indentation and pulled the shard of metal out of the arm. Joseph reached into one of his pockets and produced superglue and a lighter. “Old school, very cool Joseph.”

“Shut up.” He managed to chuckle. The old guard slid one of his legs out from under himself. “There too,” He gestured to his thigh where a bloody volcano had erupted. “And here.” He turned his hand over; a hole of flesh had formed through his wrist.

“I don’t know if glue is enough for all that.”

“Just do what you can and go scan the broker’s head.”

Ichijo tore off a few strands of his button-up shirt and did his best to fill the thigh and wrist punctures. Afterwards he filled the holes with glue, running a flame over them to dry it faster. As he stood up Joseph grabbed his hand.

“I need you to look for something specific.” He said making eye contact again. “’Wet-state drive.’ That’s what the organization is trying to find information on. I don’t know what that means, might be lost tech. But anything related to that, that’s what we’re after.” He released him, slumping against the wall and breathing heavily.

Joben Gima turned around and hid his face. The term held more significance to him than he could adequately explain. He thought of Hiroki Nakazawa, his grandfather, the secret they kept between them, and he stifled the thoughts like small flames. He couldn’t be certain she wasn’t listening in on his thoughts and if she somehow figured it out, he’d lose this advantage. But… the wheels began to turn, and he could hardly keep himself from grinning. He’d found his way out.

He rummaged through the broker’s pockets, searching for a portable drive, a piece of cold storage, anything. Then, on the man’s neck, he found a cleverly disguised terminal key designed to look like a piece of jewelry. He removed the device from the man’s neck then got to work.

Joben plugged into the broker and quickly scanned through the man’s brain, saving what was important and discarding the rest. When he was done, the man’s brain had been completely fried and all that remained of his thoughts were a few files in the solid-brain of Kaiya Arakawa.

Ichijo turned back to Joseph and offered his net cable. Joseph obliged and Ichijo sent over a blurry image of the stolen schematic, hardly decipherable, along with a conversation the man had with a woman the day before. The footage was doctored but contained lots of information on Wet State… at least, the kind that would make the organization happy.

“Thanks.” Joseph said with a sigh of relief. “I get to live another day.”

“Let’s think positive!” Kaiya yelled with a hefty amount of pep in her voice. “Shoot for a week!”

The cleaners finished scrubbing the car, disposing of the broker, and removing all traces of human activity in the tunnel. Joseph got up after a time, and despite cursing up a storm led Ichijo to a fresh car where they could head to the next point on their mission. Back to base.

Ichijo was conscious for it this time; he was able to see the location of Jaelynn’s laboratory up close. At the base of a small building in New Kyoto, scarcely ten minutes from Ichijo’s former employment was a New Japan National Bank branch. The stuffy company had been around for decades, but few used it anymore. As Joseph and Ichijo entered, they were greeted by a front desk woman.

She had sharp features and wore her black hair slicked back into a tight bun. She wore a large pair of black horn-rimmed glasses alongside a dark-grey overcoat and a tailored white shirt. Her eyes betrayed no signs of discomfort or tiredness despite the hour in which they had arrived. And she smiled when they came in, greeting them openly.

“Welcome back. I assume you want to check on safety deposit 2?” She asked Joseph.

“No, it’ll be box one today.”

“May I get your member number, sir?”

“666-66-6166”

“Right this way.” She said, gesturing to an automatically opening door to her left. The two stepped inside the small space. In the event that a legitimate member of the bank came in the doors would open to the safety deposit vault. In their case, the room became a falling coffin taking them down into the secret lair of one of the organization’s many “brains.”

They arrived in the room where Ichijo had run his diagnostic the previous day. It was an industrial heap of slag with wires and cooling pipes coiling along the ground like a bed of snakes. The walls’ loadbearing beams jutted out menacingly and if it weren’t for a grid of metal catwalks (Each lacking a guardrail) there would be nowhere to walk at all. The room had one entrance and one exit. The exit leading to a long hallway with branching paths off it. The leftward corner contained the terminal, a cluster of screens, wires and cables anchored to a reclined seat. Someone sat inside, plugged into the vast net. Behind a support beam closer to the elevator someone was buried deep in the wall, hard to spot and fussing with wires.

“I’m going to get patched up. You wait here for your next drop of information, capiche?”

“Understood.”

Joseph hobbled off in a huff. After a few steps one of Jaelynn’s automatons stepped out of a nook in the hallway to help the massive man into a brightly lit room. Ichijo, now alone, paced while glancing periodically at the occupied terminal. If he got a chance, he’d jump at the opportunity to try calling Haruto again.

After a few minutes, the figure in the corner crawled out of the terminal seat, uncoupling several wires as he did. The man, in a finely tuned suit, froze when he saw Ichijo. Ichijo smiled and waved, ignorant to the blood and dirt that coated him. The tall man wearing a small lanyard gave a short bow then slid past him on the catwalk as he left.

Ichijo slyly glanced at the man’s nametag as he left. He missed the name, but he easily figured out the company he belonged to… Clear Skies Technologies. Ichijo made note of the man’s face in case he had to try finding him again. In case he needed the information for something.

A numbing pulse shot across the top of his head. “Gathering information, Kaiya?” he heard from somewhere in the room. He whirled around, trying to find Jaelynn. “I’m nearly done with your next few assignments, have you had any luck with your new friend?”

Jaelynn Amadeus emerged from behind a support beam dressed in a sports bra and leggings. She was wearing a hardhat and held in her offhand a pair of metal pliers that she clicked together as she approached him. Rather than holding a computer like before, she had a few wires draping across the back of her neck.

“He hasn’t answered.” Ichijo responded. “And what’s the point of information gathering when you know what I’m thinking?” Jaelynn’s eyes narrowed as she approached him slowly.

“My connection has been oddly spotty lately. But that’s all right, hearing what you think isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyways.” She walked past him then turned around grabbing him from behind. She began groping and squeezing in various places. “Oh Kaiya, I’m so glad I didn’t pop you off. You’re so cute…” She clicked the pliers in his face loudly.

Ichijo couldn’t hide his shudder, his cringe as she breathed on his neck. And yet he felt full just below his stomach. He was still attracted to her even as he feared what she would and could do to him. He tried not to cry out as she continued but he whimpered with pleasure as she teased his thighs.

“Shall I tell you the best thing about your new body?” She pinched him just above his left breast, his right thigh, then his hand. “I’ve planted certain redundancies throughout it. If I so choose, anytime, anywhere I can send a signal to them.” She dug her fingernail into the side of his temple then released. “Boom.”

Ichijo stifled a gasp as she let him go. He followed her with his eyes as she left, clicking the pliers and giggling to herself.

“Plug yourself into that terminal and I’ll give you your next assignment. Fail me on the Haruto case and I’ll… Oh, I’ll surprise you with something.” She said as she wandered away. The terminal room hummed quietly, Ichijo breathed heavily and tried to catch up with himself. The world swirled as he limped over to the terminal, his previous optimism leaving him.

As he plugged himself in, he felt a surge of dopamine that helped to calm the panic in his system. If he were in his old body the feeling of plugging into a terminal such as this might’ve been too much. As it was, he was grateful not to be so wholly dependant. He checked for any inbound messages; none had bounced off him while he was on the trip with Joseph. It came as a relief and a point of worry. Jaelynn’s information hit him like a wave, a 56-page document on his various assignments for the next week crashed through his net port. He saved the documents for what they were worth but did his best not to get absorbed in them for the time being. What came next surprised Ichijo as it happened so fast, but for the first time he was conscious for it. Joben Gima woke up.

Joben worked quickly. He attached the broker’s terminal key to the proper port and cleansed it. After that, he did something. Ichijo couldn’t recollect, but once it was over he was standing outside of the terminal holding the broker’s terminal key in his hand and a single word written on one of his fingers, “hide”. Ichijo assumed that meant the drive.

He hung the key around his neck then turned around as Joseph walked out of the hallway with confidence. His damaged hand bore thick grey metalflesh on either side, a mark that some surgery had been done and he seemed more chipper than Ichijo had ever seen of the man.

“Ready to go?” He asked.

“Plenty.” Ichijo responded, not 100 percent certain himself.