Platitudes

Getting this helicopter off the top of the building was just step one of escaping. Step two was getting distance before the government gave chase.

Ko had switched on a holographic radar that gave us a 3D representation of about 250 meters around our position in every direction. I kept a close eye on it, while Ko and Ekko used their eyes to check around us.

After we’d gained some distance, I saw something appear on the holographic radar. A helicopter lifted off from a building and was heading our way.

“Fly casual,” Ekko suggested. “They might mistake us for one of theirs and think we’re just passing by.”

Her idea didn’t hold much water when an explosion erupted off to the side of our craft, sending shrapnel all through the vehicle's frame.

“Never mind! Full throttle this thing!”

The tailing helicopter was just behind us, closing the distance. I increased our speed, to match, but that only prompted a more violent response from our pursuers.

Bullets zipped past from the chain guns on the sides of the chopper. Their aim was getting better the longer they fired until they finally hit us.

“Can’t you go any faster?” Ekko asked.

If only I could. A small computer screen at the center of the control console was reading significant damage to the helicopter's engine, probably from the shrapnel. We were lucky to still be flying in this condition.

We wouldn’t be lucky for long though. I was tracking more helicopters on the way to us, meaning we’d be getting out of the sky one way or another.

There wasn’t anywhere safe to land. Even if there was, the odds that they would capture us again was high.

“Anyone got any ideas?” I asked, attempting to evade heavy amounts of gunfire and small explosions. “Damn…these guys are trying to kill us!” I shouted.

“If they wanted us dead, they wouldn’t be missing so much,” Ko brought up. “They’re just trying to force us to land.”

Ekko moved herself up toward the windshield and stared out over the river coming into view.

“Forced landing…” she mumbled. “Kitsune, can you get us over water?”

“Are you saying you want to try turning the helicopter into a boat?” I asked in disbelief.

“No.” She shook her head. “I mean we bail out at the river. If we dive at just the right time, we can make it look like a crash did us in.”

Ekko’s plan wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best idea we had so far.

They’ll probably figure we escaped rather than died in the crash, but the shock of watching a helicopter explode will buy us a few seconds.

Ko pointed to a road on the other side of the river. “Get us close to that. We’ll jump out of the helicopter just before it hits there and use the water as a shield.”

“Alright, we’re giving this a try!” I said, maneuvering the helicopter that way. “Hang on!”

At our speeds, it only took about thirty seconds to cross the river, which meant I had to get this thing a few meters off the surface of the water.

We could feel the misty air over the river as we opened the helicopter door. It was going to be quite the drop, so we had to brace ourselves.

I turned the chopper slightly at the very last second before we jumped, just to mask our escape a little and cause confusion.

“Jump!” I shouted, and we all bailed.

All three of us splashed down. The helicopter crashed into the concrete wall of the river and exploded into a fantastic fireball.

We all stayed under water until we were sure the government helicopters flew over us. They slowed and stopped at the wreckage. They probably would assume we made it out alive, but we didn’t want to stick around long enough to let them find out.

“There’s an entrance to the sewers near here,” Ko said. “We can use that to get back to the sanctuary.”

“A sewer never sounded more comforting…” Ekko grumbled.

***

Navigating the sewers took a lot longer than we intended, but all three of us were thankful that we had the slightest idea how to get around it. The confusing twists and turns made certain that it would be even more difficult for people who didn’t know how to get around.

When we got back to the sanctuary, there was a ridged screening protocol at the door. They had to make sure we weren’t bugged in any sort of way, or mentally compromised. We had to answer a lot of questions and take a few lie detector tests.

All three of us passed the tests and were taken to Miyazaki-sama’s office to brief him on the situation.

I gestured for Ko to hand over the data card from her camera. We showed him the footage of the meeting that Ekko managed to get.

Despite how optimistic I was that it could be used against my father, Miyazaki-sama wasn’t pleased at all. “This isn’t as good of news as you think it is.”

“But, this will only give us more leverage over the government,” I argued. “We can release this info and turn more people to our side.”

“And if we do that, once the emotionally unstable public becomes outraged that they’re being manipulated and replaced, who do you think they’ll target first?” Miyazaki-sama let his head fall back to his chair. “Any child like Ko will be in grave danger.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The public don’t know how to express themselves. If we just take them off their pills, they won’t have a clue how to deal with their feelings. Anger, frustration, all those negative things will overpower them, all of which they will turn against our replacements,” He gestured to Ko.

“Then, the revolution starts,” Ekko concluded.

“And who do you think is going to win that war?” He shook his head. “With people like Ko still being young, I’ll give them a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the chaos, but that’s still incredible odds. It only goes up by the day as they get older and more plentiful. Even if sympathizers keep them safe, that’s all the more super children that will inherit the Earth.”

Naturally we turned to Ko when he said that, and she just gave us all an innocent stare.

“Then how do we fight that? Can we change these kids?” Ekko asked.

“Should we change the kids?” Miyazaki-sama folded his arms. “We can’t erase these children from existence, can we? Nor can we make them dumber. They’re just part of our world now.”

I couldn’t tell if I was worried that he didn’t care about us all being replaced, or inspired at his ability to embrace change.

“Are you asking us to just sit back and watch normal people become obsolete?”

“No, don’t look at it like that,” Miyazaki-sama shook his head. “I never said we let them achieve the goal your father’s predecessors set. We just let them live life, accepting them as no less human than the rest of us.”

My worry was that eventually it would be a cause for division. Ko and her generation were incredibly smart and logic based. They surpass most adults I’ve seen. People won’t like that. I can feel it in my bones.

“You’re right to worry about whether people will accept them or not,” he started, “but for now nobody even knows they completely exist. We have time to figure out how we’ll work the propaganda machine to put them in a positive light. We might even be able to make them out to be victims.”

I suggested to him that instead of letting the public blame these poor kids, we should point fingers at my father, who was a leading figure in that project. But like with our other thoughts, Miyazaki-sama didn’t appear to favour that either.

“People don’t know who your father is. He may be the mastermind behind this shadow government, but I didn’t even know about him, and I’m well informed.” Miyazaki-sama nervously rubbed his chin. “If anything, exposing his identity may put you and your sister at risk. Who’ll ever trust his children, especially when one of them is a genetically superior human?”

Damn it. I didn’t even think that our association to him could cause an outrage among the people.

“But what does that mean?” Ekko asked. “I keep asking you; how do we stop this? But you haven’t given me a straight answer.”

“That’s because it’s already too late to stop him completely. He was trying to put pressure on us to accelerate our plans with the pill factory, thus having his little revolution play out.”

Anger filled me as I considered how hopeless the situation was, but I put my rage aside for a moment to keep the conversation steady.

“You don’t give me the vibe that we’re out of luck,” I said, noticing he didn’t look too displeased anymore.

“We’re not finished yet. As long as this world keeps turning, there’s hope that we can make it better.”

“Platitudes only go so far,” Ko responded.

“And so does our influence on the world,” Miyazaki-sama retorted. “The game now is that we need to bring as many people to our side as possible. That way we can largely control what the masses are feeling and keep war from breaking out.”

I noticed he used the word ‘control.’

“Not sure I like how you said that,” I told him.

“Sorry if it strikes an all too familiar chord, but the reality is that we do need some moral code to keep people in check. Not everyone will like it, but we just need the majority for now.”

It was hard to believe that we were planning our own civilization in this room, especially considering how we’d just be putting the people under our own thumb. Could we be sure our descendants wouldn’t abuse this power in the future?

“What does this mean for our mission in Arakawa?” Ekko asked.

“We’re still going through with it, but we’ll have to adjust the plan a little,” he replied. “If we try to influence more people than we can handle, we’ll just have renegades running around that we can’t control.”

Instead of getting all the pills sabotaged at once, he changed it so we’d be doing it in batches, having them shipped off to specific places that we can carefully influence to our ways.

“Sounds like this sort of job is going to take more than a single night…” Ko rationalized.

“It’s funny you say it like that…” Miyazaki-sama gave a mischievous smirk. “So here are your next orders, kids…”

He pulled two papers out of his desk and handed them to Ekko and I, trying not to snicker the whole time.

“A job application?” Ekko read out loud.

“It’s time for you kids to join the working world.”