Chōhei Kambayashi: Yukikaze

He got up, holding the pistol at the ready, but just as he was about to step through the door, a wave of nausea broke over him. Slipping the gun back into his vest, he gripped the doorframe and called for Marnie. She came running down the gloomy corridor. He got the impression that she was the only one there. He asked her where the toilet was and then rushed to it. His guts turned inside out. After he finished vomiting, he reeled with an overwhelming exhaustion.

Marnie helped him back to the room and he collapsed onto the bed. He felt feverish.

He awoke to the sound of her voice. He raised his arm to check his chronometer and saw that ten hours had elapsed, but he had no true sense of time’s passage. His fever had gone down, and there was now an I.V. needle stuck in his right arm.

“You seem to have a viral infection, Lieutenant,” Marnie said. “You must have caught it out in the desert.”

“No… No, that’s not right…”

“It seems to be presenting neurological symptoms. You’ve been hallucinating. That probably was the cause of your distress. But you’re okay now. You’ll be just fine. How’s your appetite?”

His stomach was empty, but he never wanted to put that liquid food in his mouth again.

“I’ve made some soup for you,” Marnie said as she drew a small trolley up to the bedside and shifted the bed’s movable table close to Rei’s chest. He sat up. She placed a bowl down on the table. It smelled decent… He decided not to eat the portable rations he had and took the spoon she offered him. He took a cautious sip. It tasted good.

“What is this?”

“Chicken broth.”

“Chicken? It tastes different, though. It’s not instant, is it?”

“Don’t spill it, Lieutenant. There’s more if you want. If you eat too fast, you’ll make yourself sick.”

Rei did as Marnie said and ate slowly.

Major Yazawa came in and set a small computer on the side table. “I figured you must be bored, Lieutenant,” he said. “Would you like to communicate with Yukikaze?”

The major turned the computer on. The display glowed and an image of Yukikaze appeared. She was in a large maintenance hangar, or something that resembled one. It was hard to tell. The image was a little hazy.

“This device can synthesize a transmission on any frequency or wavelength. I’d do it myself if I could get a link through to the plane. I imagine you know how to contact it without triggering the security systems.”

“So you can monitor how I do it? What are you people after? You’re acting like…”

Like they were JAM. Just as he was about to say it, a cold wave prickled the skin over his entire body.

JAM. They were JAM. They had to be. These were the first JAM to ever show themselves to human eyes. They were JAM…

“What’s wrong?” asked Yazawa. “You look like you’re scared of something.”

“Major,” Marnie said smoothly, “The lieutenant is mentally unstable. It’s Faery Fever. It looks like he caught it out in the desert. May I ask you to leave now? I have to administer a sedative. Please, Lieutenant, lie down.”

“I… I’m not crazy,” Rei said. “Take me to Yukikaze.”

“You can leave at any time, Lieutenant. However, we would advise against it. You can’t fly in your condition, can you?”

Rei tried to get out of bed, but the major held him down. He was strong. Marnie slid a hypodermic needle into his arm again. A terrible weakness spread across his body.

“You… What are you…?”

“We’re your friends,” Marnie answered. “The same organic life as you.” Both she and the major laughed.

“A bit different, though,” Yazawa said. “We made a small mistake. A stupid one, really.”

“We realized it when we gave you that liquid food. It was the D-type alpha-amino acids,” Marnie added. “Lieutenant, did that chicken broth taste good? I imagine it was to your taste. You can digest that.”

They were voices in a dream. I’m having a nightmare, Rei thought. The desert must have gotten to him. When he woke up next, he’d be all right. He’d be back in the real world at the normal hospital at Faery Base. No doubt about it…

Once more he fell into the white void.

HE AWOKE TO the same room. Yukikaze was still displayed on the computer the major had brought to him. He saw she had been fitted with a new canopy.

His head felt hollow. He remembered being given some sort of drug and that he’d heard something very important just as he was sliding into sleep, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He gathered his strength and ventured out into the corridor. One direction led to a dead end. He turned around and backtracked to a T-intersection. To the right was a nurse’s station. To the left was a short passage that ended at a metal door. He thought it might be an emergency exit but couldn’t budge it.

He heard Marnie approaching, her footsteps making that awful squeaking noise.

“Do you need something, Lieutenant?”

“Where’s Lieutenant Burgadish?”

“I’m afraid he’s—”

“Dead? Let me out of here. This isn’t a hospital, it’s a prison.”

“Please return to your room, Lieutenant. You don’t look well at all.”

Seeing no other option, Rei went back to the room. Yukikaze glowed on the computer screen. As Rei looked at her, he grew more and more agitated by the feeling that he’d forgotten something. Why was Major Yazawa so concerned about Yukikaze? If he wanted to activate her comm system, all he had to do was turn it on, right? If they tried to force their way into her internal systems electronically, she might activate her self-destruct protocol, but she couldn’t stop a human from flipping a switch. He assumed she couldn’t, anyway. So in short, the reason must be that Major Yazawa didn’t know how to turn on the system or to use Yukikaze’s instrumentation. But if he was in the FAF, how could he not…

Once again a chilling unease swept through Rei’s body, bringing with it a powerful sense of déjà vu. He clutched at his head.

Were they human? Were they JAM? Externally, they looked no different from any other human. Was that the JAM’s real form? A human form? He didn’t believe that. He was sure he had the answer. They’d given it to him. They said that they were his friends. No, after that. After…

Yukikaze. If he had access to Yukikaze’s data file, he might be able to find proof. He reached out for the computer’s keyboard. He knew it might be a trap. Major Yazawa had to be somewhere monitoring the link between this computer and Yukikaze. Even so, Rei figured that freeing himself from this paralyzed state had to take priority.

He spent a few minutes familiarizing himself with the device. He then composed a pulse code on the same frequency as the SAF emergency tactical line and transmitted it. It worked. The link with Yukikaze opened up.

SEARCH FOR JAM.

The message seemed to leap out at him from the screen. It was the same message that appeared on Yukikaze’s display during battle. That was all he needed to know. Rei quickly switched the computer off.

This was a JAM base. It had to be. But he doubted that Marnie and Major Yazawa were JAM. So what were humans doing in a JAM base?

“Why did you turn it off ?” Marnie asked, entering the room. “Lieutenant, you look tired.”

“I’m not tired at all.”

“How about shaving at least? You look awful. You should see yourself in the mirror.”

Mirror. Something stirred in his ragged memory. Mirror. Mirror image. D…alpha-amino acid. The optical isomer of the L-type. He remembered now. He remembered what she had said. He looked at her. What if this woman’s body wasn’t composed of L-type amino acid proteins, but rather D-type polypeptides, making her a mirror image of a human at the molecular level? Is that what she was?