3: Bad Trip

28 April, 1000 Hours (Japan Standard Time)

JAL Flight 903, Tokyo Airspace

The captain set down the cabin mic and looked behind him.

A man was standing before the cockpit door, holding a gun with a laser sight and smiling brightly. “Well done,” he said. “We don’t want the passengers worrying, after all.” The suit-clad man tossed his glasses aside. His face was haggard-looking and covered in stubble. He had black hair and bangs that covered his forehead, behind which a large scar could be seen.

“Are you crazy?!” the pilot asked. “Using explosives on a plane in flight?”

“It was only a little blasting powder. Just enough to blow the lock off the cockpit door.”

“You could have killed yourself, too.”

“Killed myself? Hmm, I suppose you’re right...” The suit-clad man let out a chilling laugh. Then, noticing the way the pilot’s eyes were running over the instruments, he said, “Plotting a new course?”

It was as if he had read his mind. “The blast might have fouled up the electronics,” the pilot answered. “We’ll need to make an emergency landing.”

“Ohh. You think something’s broken?” The terrorist gazed with interest at the pilot’s console, eyes narrowed.

“Yes. I’ll pass on your demands, just let me take us back to Haneda.”

“Is this what’s broken?” The man pointed the laser sight at the captain’s head and unceremoniously pulled the trigger. There was a crunch of shattered flesh and bone, and the pilot died instantly.

“Hmm, yes, it does seem broken.” The man let out a cackle, then made a sound like an emergency alarm.

“What have you done?!” the copilot cried, covered in his companion’s blood.

The man flicked the red laser to the copilot next. Laser sights weren’t much use in real combat, but perhaps he enjoyed the way it inspired fear in his targets. “Are you broken, too?”

“D-Don’t do it. You won’t have anyone to fly the plane!”

“You think? But I’ve always wanted to fly a plane like this. Is it fun? What do you think? Give me your expert’s opinion.” Grinning, he leaned in close enough that the copilot could feel his breath.

“D-Don’t kill me...”

“I asked you if it’s fun, stupid...” But just before he pulled the trigger—

“Gauron!” A new voice prevented him. Another man entered the cockpit. He was enormous—close to two meters tall. He wore a suit and glasses, and looked just like a businessman on a work trip.

“Oh... Is that you, Koh?”

“What are you doing? Why did you kill the pilot?!”

“He lied to me. The little fool was mocking me.” He made a show of poking at the corpse.

The large man, apparently named Koh, snatched Gauron’s gun away and said, “And who did you expect to fly the plane?”

“I’ll do it. I’ve flown transport craft before, after all.”

“A passenger jet isn’t like a military plane,” Koh told him. “And if you really had to kill someone, you should have used a knife!”

“A knife?” Gauron protested. “How barbaric; I’d never touch the vicious things.”

Koh grabbed the contemptuously grinning Gauron by the lapels and hoisted him upward. “If you enjoy killing people, that’s your business. But don’t forget, it’s my home country that’s giving you people this chance. Stop adding new risks to the plan.”

“Don’t be like that. If they’d do as I told them, I’d be perfectly civilized. Right?” Gauron tapped the shoulder of the copilot, who was frozen in terror. “Hey, Mr. Copilot. What’s your name?”

“M-Mori...”

“Mr. Mori. Did you hear all that, then? Out of respect for my comrade, I’m going to try not to kill you. If you do defy me, I’ll just kill someone else. How does that sound?”

“Please don’t kill anyone!” the copilot begged.

“Perfect. Then you’ll do exactly as I say, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll do it.”

“I didn’t tell the corpse there, but I have more of my men mixed in with the passengers... And they all carry dangerous weapons,” Gauron informed him. “So just keep that in mind.”

“How did they get the weapons—”

“We enlisted someone in the cabin cleaning agency. Wasn’t that smart of us?”

“Y-You paid him off?”

“No, we just got a little close to his family. He got them all into very hot water... Or should I say, very cold water.” Gauron laughed at his own joke. He’d kidnapped and threatened the cleaner’s family. Then when the job was done, he’d killed them all mercilessly, without a second thought.

“That’s terrible,” the copilot said. “Why would you—”

“Because it was logical. Anyway... here. Fly along this route, would you?” Gauron took a flight map from Koh and showed it to the copilot.

The blood drained from the copilot’s face. “North from... MIMOD? Final destination... Sunan? That’s North Korea!”

“Yes, a country famous for its poverty. I’m sure you’re aware of it.”

“They’ll shoot us down,” the copilot wheezed.

“No, they won’t. They know we’re coming. If you follow my instructions to the letter, they’ll even send an escort. And they do use ILS, though it’s not the most accurate, given the state of the country... Now, listen. Once we pass this point, you’ll identify yourself as...” Gauron laid out his detailed instructions.

It took time for the various authorities to understand the scope of the problem: a passenger plane entering Naha’s FIR had suddenly turned north and flown into the FIR of Daegu, South Korea. At first, the Civil Aviation Bureau of MLIT was in chaos. Flight 903 wasn’t responding to communications, and the bureau broke out in long arguments over whether it was a hijacking or a malfunction.

While MLIT argued, the South Korean Air Force scrambled its fighters. They received a terse communication from Flight 903 telling them simply “it’s a hijack,” but that message, too, had to traverse a complicated series of channels. MLIT only received the message 20 minutes later, at which point, leadership for the issue was passed to the Cabinet Office for National Security Affairs.

While all that was going on, Flight 903 entered North Korean airspace. The ROK Air Force were forced to give up pursuit and return to base. Mysteriously, the North Korean army did not intercept them.

The Metropolitan Police Department had numerous anti-terrorism units, known as SATs. But with the plane in foreign soil—worse yet, in North Korea—they were helpless.

The Prime Minister first learned of the incident when questioned by an NHK reporter at a campaign stop. He responded, “I’ll wait for more information to comment,” and foolishly went back on the trail—The media and the opposition were happy for the new scandal. No one took responsibility for the crime.

The USFK AWACS eventually announced that Flight 903 had set down at Sunan Airfield, 20 kilometers north of Pyongyang, but the hostages themselves didn’t know that at the time.

28 April, 1155 Hours (Japan Standard Time)

Sunan Airfield (Pyongyang International Airport), Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Something wasn’t right here; most of the passengers had picked up on that by now. They should be getting close to Okinawa, but the scenery down below was all mountains.

They tried asking the stewardesses, but that got them nowhere. All they offered was, “Don’t worry” and, “We’ll be landing soon” and, “It’s because of the weather.”

Eventually, the plane started landing procedures. An urban region was visible to the right of the runway. It looked deserted and dingy, though; there were lines of old factories, pouring black smoke into the sky. It seemed like a city rife with pollution sickness. It was like they’d traveled forty years into Japan’s past.

“I knew something wasn’t right,” Kazama Shinji said, looking out the window. “This isn’t Okinawa. It’s not even Japan.”

“I believe you’re right,” Sousuke responded.

The two of them had been the first ones to realize something was wrong. When they were still over the ocean, they’d caught sight of an ROK Air Force F-16 out the window. What would a South Korean fighter be doing over the Pacific, en route to Okinawa?

Soon, the jumbo jet landed. A few dozen meters away stood rows of warehouses, in front of which old-fashioned military aircraft could be seen—silver-bodied tubes, like carp streamers with wings.

“Sagara-kun,” Shinji observed, “those are MiG-21s... no wait, J-7s.” There were tanks, too—two of them with strangely old-fashioned makes. “Look at that!” he cried. “Are those T-34s? Those hunks of junk from 50 years ago?” Then, at the same time, there were arm slaves. They could see at least three from where they were sitting. “And then all of a sudden, cutting-edge Rk-92s. Talk about a tech gap...”

The long-limbed Soviet ASes with khaki-colored armor carried a brand of AS rifles that were common in the East. Western armies codenamed them “Savage,” and they were often seen in countries supplied by the USSR. Sousuke knew those ASes very well too. He’d piloted them—and he’d fought them.

Seeing the weapons scattered across the runway, Sousuke now knew for sure: they were in a North Korean airfield.

What’s going on here? he wondered. Mao had said that Kaname was in the clear, yet their plane had been hijacked. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Some unknown enemy had chosen this method of kidnapping her. It was flawless—With several hundred hostages to worry about, even Mithril would be hard-pressed to intervene.

To make matters worse, they’d landed in North Korea. The interests of Japan, the ROK, the USA, the USSR, and China all tangled together in such a complicated way that any rescue operation would wind up bogged down in red tape. To use that old-fashioned terrorist method, hijacking, in such a perfect way—

“It’s brilliant,” Sousuke muttered.

“Huh?” Shinji asked.

“Nothing,” Sousuke responded shortly. There was nothing he could do. He didn’t have a gun at the moment—and even if he did, it wouldn’t help him much.

Around the time that the passengers began stirring uneasily, there came another cabin announcement: “Attention, passengers. Thank you for flying with us today.” It was a man’s voice again, but it was different from the one who had spoken to them after takeoff. “I’ll be taking over for the captain of this plane. Now, as many of you will have already realized, we are not at Naha Airport. We’ve been forced to land at Sunan Airfield in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

“What did you say?!” their homeroom teacher Kagurazaka shouted out loud.

“Catch on a little earlier, ma’am...” Shinji clutched his head.

“As you may know, the armed forces of the imperialist United States and their puppet state, the ROK, will be holding joint maneuvers next week. Their twisted intent is, as ever, to intimidate the glorious People’s Army. In order to crush the American Empire’s ambitions, I’ve brought this little show of solidarity to my comrades in the People’s Army... et cetera, et cetera, even I’m embarrassed by that spiel. The point is that you’re hostages; please look out the window.”

They looked and saw the plane surrounded by armored cars, arm slaves, and uniformed soldiers.

“You’re welcome guests here, but you must do as you’re told. If you try to escape or show any signs of resistance, we will shoot you all without hesitation.”

Another stir ran through the cabin.

“In addition,” the man resumed, “there are no appropriate facilities in this airport to hold you. Please wait inside the plane until your release can be arranged. We appreciate your patience.”

28 April, 0405 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

Central Control Room, Tuatha de Danaan, Periscope Depth, Tsushima Strait

Dizzying arrays of data swirled on the control room’s central screen. As militaries across the globe began to mobilize, there was a swift increase in communications available to tap; words in red, green, and yellow danced and overlapped in complex patterns.

“They completely outwitted us. I should never have put my faith in the intelligence department.” Tessa—Teletha Testarossa—said to Kalinin. Her eyes darted back and forth among the dozens of map layouts, which were visible on her personal screen. “It’s as if we’re always one step behind,” she lamented. “It’s shameful.”

“It’s like whack-a-mole, what we do. There’s no way to guard against all possibilities,” Kalinin answered. Perhaps he had known this was a possibility. Perhaps that’s why he’d sent Sousuke on the trip... but even he was caught off guard, it seemed, by the audacity of the method they’d employed. “And it doesn’t seem as if the KGB are behind this.”

“North Korea, then?” she mused. “Unlikely...”

“Indeed. Both have been exploited by another entity.”

They thought they had destroyed all of the KGB’s research data, yet someone must have smuggled it out. That someone must have powerful connections in the North Korean military, as well as a facility for Chidori Kaname—for the Whispered.

“Any speculation on who this ‘Mister X’ and his friends might be?” Tessa asked.

“None at all,” Kalinin told her. “At least, not yet.”

“The North Korean government is denying responsibility,” Tessa said, after some thought. “They claim the hijackers just showed up at their door. But they also won’t agree to return the hostages—They want concessions on the upcoming US-Korea joint exercises.” All the while she was speaking, she was flipping through diplomatic papers that had arrived, by way of Sweden, on her screen. To read at a pace close to speedreading, while speaking so smoothly on a completely different topic—it was the act of an extraordinary mind. “Now, Major. How long do you think it will take for the hostages to be safely returned?”

“Chidori excepted, I assume?”

Tessa nodded immediately. “That’s right. If we interfere too soon, we might complicate the return of the 400 others.”

Kalinin thought. “I doubt the North Korean government is eager to escalate tensions. They had a bumper crop last year, they are bringing their palladium reactors online, and their failing economy is beginning an upturn. The needless deaths of hundreds of Japanese citizens would not be to their benefit.”

“Exactly. We should follow their lead for now,” Tessa said. “Once the hostages are freed via standard diplomacy, we can locate and rescue Chidori.” She knew full well, though, what kind of treatment Chidori would face in the meantime—assuming their rescue was even successful.

Kalinin caught the glimpse of self-loathing that crossed the girl’s face in that moment, but he pretended that he hadn’t. “Entirely logical. However—”

“For now, we’ll wait, watch, and see,” Tessa declared, interrupting him.

“Very well,” he agreed. “We do still have time. How shall we prepare in the meantime?”

“Let’s have transports on standby at Merida Island Base—Three C-17s,” she decided. “And within the next two hours, get a KC-10 refuel tanker in the air. I’ll send it its flight plan later.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the officer in charge of communications replied, and went to work, forwarding her orders.

“Major, order Mao and Weber back here,” Tessa continued. “Get six M9s and three FAV-8s warmed up by 0700. And... prepare the Arbalest for usage.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We can kick ourselves another day,” she said. “We are fully prepared for situations like these.”

Kalinin nodded. “And the enemy has already ingested poison.”

Poison—Yes, he really was like poison, in a situation like this...

“That’s true. Let’s wait until we hear from him first.”

Tessa decided to keep her vessel at periscope depth.

28 April, 1718 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)

JAL Flight 903, Sunan Airfield, People’s Democratic Republic of Korea

Inside the plane, you would hardly know there was a hijack in progress.

About a quarter of the passengers sat nervously in their seats, as one might expect. But the rest—the students of Jindai High School—had been driven by boredom to begin acting out. Some were playing cards, hanafuda, and mahjong, while some had board games, like Life and Monopoly, spread out here and there among the seats. Some sang on portable karaoke machines, some kicked off the classic field trip “late night chats” early, some ran Mini 4WDs down the aisles. The stewardesses were at their wits’ end—they could scold them all they liked, but the play resumed the moment they looked away. Even the teachers had given up on trying to restrain them.

“Hey, Kana-chan. Are you getting hungry?” Kyoko asked.

They were playing old maid. Kaname responded while plucking a card from another friend’s hand. “Huh? Yeah, I guess... I wonder how we can get food.”

“You think there’s convenience stores around? Maybe we can pay someone to buy us some stuff...”

“Yeah, for real! Though, if they do have convenience stores, I bet they’re crap... Instead of ‘Seven Eleven,’ I bet they have ‘Seven Il-Sung,’ right?” she snickered.

“I don’t get it.”

“You don’t? Sheesh, kids these days! By the way...” Kaname glanced over her shoulder. Sagara Sousuke was sitting nearby, gazing out the window with an air of nonchalance. Even at a time like this? What the heck is he thinking about? With a feeling of vague disgust, she plucked a card from Kyoko’s hand. It was the Joker. “Oh, dammit!”

“Yes!” her friend cackled. “Sucks to be you!”

Suddenly, a hush fell over the plane. To be more precise, it fell across each row of students in turn, like a shockwave that emanated from the entrance.

Three men, armed with submachine guns, had entered the cabin. They were led by a man who was unarmed, but smiling brightly. This man wore an expensive suit—probably Italian—and adjusted his lapels before spreading his arms magnanimously. “Now, we didn’t come to stop the fun. Continue.”

But except for a few, who were just that brazen, the kids didn’t feel much like going back to their games now. The leader whispered something to one of his men, then pointed in Kaname’s direction.

“What’s all this about?” Kyoko looked nervous. The other students had started whispering among themselves, as well.

The man in the suit took a few steps in their direction, then stopped. “You there,” he said evenly. He was close enough now that she could pin him as the man who had made the cabin announcement earlier. But who was the ‘You there’ he was referring to? “Didn’t you hear me?” he said. “You, the pretty one, with the long hair.”

Kaname just stared dumbly.

“I’m talking to you.” The man walked even closer and loomed over Kaname. He had a vertical scar on his forehead, and there was something doll-like about his gaze. It gave her the creeps.

“What do you want?” she asked him at last.

“We want to make a video for the press,” he told her, “and we need someone to star in it.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Good luck with that.”

“We want you to be that star,” he insisted. “We think you’d be perfect.”

Kaname waved them off. “Oh, no way. Well, um... you can probably tell, I’m not exactly nation’s sweetheart material. I’ll turn the viewers off, for sure.”

“No need to be modest. Come on, now.”

“Um, hey, I...” The man’s subordinates flanked Kaname and began to drag her away. “I just really think it’s a bad idea, I’m... Hey, let me go! I said no! Why do you want me?!”

“Kaname-chan!” Kyoko’s voice was close to a scream.

Kagurazaka Eri ran up and confronted the man. “Excuse me! Where are you taking my student?”

“She’s going to help us out a bit, that’s all,” the man said. “I’ll return her right away.”

“No! Absolutely not!” the teacher protested. “If you’re going to take someone, take me!”

“You’re not what we’re looking for. The press—”

“That won’t work with me, you coward!” The man’s face twisted into a sneer, but Eri ignored him and persisted. “You people are monsters! First you hijack our plane, now you’re using our children? I don’t give a damn about what you want! There’s no justification on God’s earth for—”

“Goodness...” The man shot his subordinates a conspiratorial smile. Then, as Kaname watched, he pulled a gun from his suit. It was an automatic pistol with a laser sight, which he pointed straight at Eri’s head. “You are annoying.”

Eri’s eyes widened. “What are you—” A point of red light fixed itself on her forehead. The terrorist’s finger tensed on the trigger—

A bang echoed through the cabin, and Kaname trembled. Then she realized: the sound wasn’t a gunshot; it was a clang. Everyone turned to look at the source.

A boy was casually picking up a cup he had dropped in the aisle. “Sorry,” he muttered as he noticed the attention. The boy—Sagara Sousuke—then slouched back to his aisle seat as if nothing had happened.

The man fixed his eyes on Sousuke. His gaze was careful, penetrating. Sousuke remained silent, eyes focused on the cup in his hands.

The students looked back and forth between the two.

At last, the man let out a sniff and returned the gun to his coat. It was as if, robbed of his thunder, he had lost all interest in the execution. “Let’s go,” he said shortly. “We have no further business with these people.”

The terrorist headed for the exit with his subordinates and Kaname in tow. Kagurazaka Eri stayed behind, standing limply in place. When the realization hit her of how close she’d come to dying, she fainted away dead on the spot.

While the other students called for a doctor, Sousuke strode through the cabin indifferently. It was only when he made it to the unoccupied galley that he let himself breathe. He leaned over the sink and let out a groan. Just how stupid am I? Even he knew it was madness to intentionally draw your enemy’s attention. But he also knew it had been the only way to save Eri.

In that split second just before he’d acted, there were two choices battling it out in his mind: the first had been, “Let her go; she’s not part of your mission.” The second had been, “Save her; there’s no reason to, but save her.” He had ended up choosing the latter—He still didn’t know why.

After he’d dropped the cup, then, the enemy had spent a few seconds staring at him. Those seconds had been an eternity. Don’t project any malice, he’d thought. Act oblivious and calm, yet slightly anxious... Even for Sousuke, a paragon of willpower and self-control, those few seconds of performance had been exhausting.

That was close; incredibly close. It’s a miracle he didn’t recognize me... Sousuke spent about a minute lost in thought, then took in a deep breath and straightened up. I can’t stand around here forever, he told himself. Chidori Kaname has been taken. I need to act.

There was no one monitoring the cabin itself; as long as they didn’t leave, the hostages were free to do as they pleased. The plane was out of fuel, so it couldn’t take off. The terrorists had likely destroyed the long-distance radio equipment, so they couldn’t contact the outside. It was a perfect prison. And yet, Sousuke needed to escape it.

First, he’d get his things from the cargo hold. Then he’d do some recon and contact his allies. After that, he’d have to find Kaname.

Once he’d confirmed that no one was watching, he crawled into the galley’s elevator and took it down to the cargo hold. The hold was pitch black, lined neatly with containers—a few dozen of them, each as tall as a person. Sousuke pulled a penlight from his pocket and began to go through them, one after the other, searching through the luggage inside. In the thirteenth one, he finally found his bag. He didn’t need the clothes or the toiletries. He needed...

There we are...

A satellite communicator with a powerful encryption function; a 200,000-volt stun gun, powerful enough to knock out most men in one hit; a medical kit and a survival tin, which he jammed into his pockets. It was too bad he hadn’t packed a gun or a knife.

He’d gotten it all in order and was about to close the container when a loud whirring sound filled the hold. The cargo doors were opening! Hurriedly, Sousuke closed the container. He tried to sneak away, but had to settle for jumping behind a pile of bulk bags.

With the cargo doors now open, a group of men filed in. Sousuke wasn’t sure if he was fully hidden or not, but he couldn’t afford to move now. All he could do was lie behind the bags and hold his breath.

The men were heading right for him. Their footsteps sounded purposeful; firearms clinked against the metal in their belts. He counted one, two... three of them. They moved as if they’d had combat training. If they found him, he’d have to fight. But unarmed? And without knowing how many more were outside?

A jeep had brought Kaname to another part of the airfield. It looked like an apron, but instead of parked planes, it was home—at the moment—to two large trailers and a truck. The truck was emitting a noisy hum; maybe it was serving as a generator. The area was illuminated by blinding mercury-vapor lamps, while three or four men in suits with machine guns seemed to be standing guard over the trailers. The trailers themselves looked like OB vans, but she couldn’t find any sign of an antenna.

“Um... What is all this?” she asked.

The apparent leader smiled faintly, but didn’t respond.

She was taken from the jeep and led toward the black trailer. Inside, it was packed with electronic and medical devices. She saw a sort of drum large enough to hold a person, various modules connected by a confusion of cords, and a computer with exposed circuit boards. Kaname couldn’t begin to guess what it was all for. A woman in a lab coat stood in front of a console. “Is this her?” she asked.

“Yes. Begin the tests at once,” the apparent leader responded.

“Tests?” Kaname asked nervously. “What are you—”

“Put this on.” The woman cut Kaname off, and held out a blue hospital gown.

“Why should I?” Kaname demanded.

“Your uniform has metal in it. If your bra has hooks, you’ll need to take that off, too,” the woman said, ignoring her question. “Basically, anything metallic has to go.” The woman’s Japanese was perfect. Almost all of the terrorists, including the ‘leader,’ appeared to be Japanese.

What in the world is going on? Kaname wondered. “Um... Are you going to take X-rays or something?”

“Something like that, but far more advanced. PETs, MRIs, MEGs with SQUIDs... Then I’ll be measuring your NILS response,” the woman told her. “This is all preparation for that.”

Kaname’s mind blanked on most of those words. “They said they were filming a PR video.”

“They’re not,” the woman said. “Get changed.”

“No,” Kaname protested. “Why should I—” A second later, she felt a sharp pain in her neck, and lost consciousness.

“That should speed things up. Now get her undressed,” Gauron said. He was holding Kaname’s weight with one arm after knocking her out with a stun gun.

“Be careful with her!” the woman admonished him. “What if this affects the tests?”

“We don’t require that degree of precision,” he told her. “We just need to know if she’s the real thing or not.”

The woman shot Gauron a scornful glance. “How blissfully ignorant of you. You don’t even understand what Whispered are, or their importance.”

“Oh, but we do,” he told her.

“Do you?” the woman questioned. “That’s hard to believe from the man who brought that top-secret Codarl along...”

“Incomplete though it is, that one machine could fend off a whole battalion,” Gauron argued. “It’s a necessary precaution, in case our hosts have a change of heart.”

“You’re really quite a coward, for someone living on borrowed time—”

Suddenly, Gauron tossed Kaname aside to grab the woman by the throat.

“Hnn...” she squealed.

“Don’t push your luck, pig,” His tone was ice cold, but there was a note of enjoyment in it as well. “Just keep quiet and do as you’re told. Or do you enjoy angering me and forcing my hand? Do you?”

He continued to choke her. Her eyes filled with tears and she let out a wheeze, like pain mixed with ecstasy. Gauron clicked his tongue and relaxed his grip, then shoved the woman against the console. “When will you have the results?” he asked, looking down on her.

“Tomorrow morning,” she managed to say, through fits of violent coughing.

“That’s too long. Can’t you speed it up?”

“Even if I... use drugs...” she croaked, “they won’t take effect for... at least six hours. And there are tests and... procedures to be done first...”

“Hurry, then. If I think you’re wasting time, I’ll kill you, too,” Gauron snapped, then left the trailer.

Thankfully, the three men didn’t seem to notice Sousuke among the bags. They passed by, so close he could have reached out and touched them. From the corner of his eye, he could make out their backs. The suits they wore suggested that they weren’t soldiers from the base, but terrorists who’d come mixed in with the passengers.

“Where is it?” one asked. He was speaking Japanese.

“Should be around here. It’s the only yellow container... ah, there it is.”

They seemed to have business inside the cargo hold. Sousuke could hear the container roll out on the ball bearings that covered the floor.

“There’s no chance of it going off, right?”

“Of course not. It’s perfectly safe until triggered manually.”

He heard them open the container. One of the men whistled when he saw what was inside. “Would you look at that. Didn’t think it’d be so big...”

“In case we need to activate it on land, I guess. You’d need this much to be sure... Now, get around behind it. You’ll see a red cord; remove the jack insulator tape and plug it into the socket marked ‘three.’”

“Found it. Plugging in now.”

“Hold on. Let me get things ready here... There. Okay, now plug it in.”

Sousuke heard a click followed by three soft electronic beeps.

“Did that do it?”

“That did it. Now don’t touch anything else, and don’t use your radios within thirty meters.”

The men closed the container and returned it to its original position. Their business apparently complete, they dusted off their suit jackets and headed back to the cargo doors.

“Who knows about this?” one asked as they went.

“Just you, me, Sakamoto, and the boss. None of the Koreans.”

“Ahh... Well, it feels like a waste. All those feisty high school girls up there... I’d love to take one out and really give it to her. It’s not as if they’re gonna count the bodies—”

“Don’t be stupid. That would tip off the locals, and the boss would kill you.”

“Only if he found out.”

“Then I’d report you. I don’t want the boss to kill me.”

“Fine, I’m just kidding anyway...”

The terrorists left and the cargo doors closed. The hold sank into darkness again.

What were they doing here? And what did he mean, “count the bodies”? Sousuke pulled out the yellow container the terrorists had been discussing. Then after a moment’s hesitation, he opened it. His penlight revealed the contents inside, and he gasped. Damn them...

Inside was a bomb—a massive bomb.

There were two tanks, 1.5 meters tall, and filled with explosives—the binary liquid kind, most likely, the same stuff used in an AS’s rifle. Beside the tanks sat a case with a small electronic circuit inside, and what looked like two backups.

The red light was on—the bomb was armed. This much high explosive, if detonated, would blow the plane to smithereens. A single press of a button from one of the terrorists in the airfield, and all four-hundred-something passengers would be dead.

Sousuke doubted that he could disarm or disable it. He knew more about bombs than most soldiers, but he wasn’t exactly a specialist, and he didn’t have any of the tools that he’d need for testing and disarmament. If he messed with it too much, he would just end up setting it off.

They’re going to blow up the passengers to cover up the kidnapping? he thought. If the hostage group made it back to Japan and Chidori Kaname wasn’t with them, problems would arise. The Japanese government would seek her return, and North Korea would have to address the issue. That would be bad for the terrorists.

Instead, they’d send the jumbo jet back to Japan, then blow it up over the ocean. The government wouldn’t be able to confirm the bodies, so Chidori Kaname would be presumed dead. No one would even suspect that a kidnapping had occurred.

This plan would put the North Korean government in a difficult position, but it probably wouldn’t escalate to armed conflict; the terrorists had even taken that into account. What reason could they have to go to such lengths to abduct her and cover it up? Was whatever secret she possessed really worth the lives of hundreds of civilians?

“No...” That man just loved killing people; that was the only way he could ever have conceived of this scheme.

Sousuke closed the container and returned it to its original location, then moved swiftly in the direction of the nose of the plane. Deeper in the cargo hold was a door to the front landing gear storage. If he could scale down the wheel from there, he could escape the plane safely. He had to contact the de Danaan.

A cylindrical coffin—that was the best way to describe the device Kaname found herself in. It had walls made from plexiglass that looked brand new. From time to time, the platform she was lying on moved, letting out a low hum.

Kaname’s head was fixed in place with a strap, and she was wearing a goggle-like head-mounted display. Its screen kept showing her symbols and pictures, one strange image after another. A star, a circle, a square, a tree, a bottle, a stick... Occasionally, she’d see an image that looked vaguely obscene.

She found herself yawning. She couldn’t help it; she’d been lying there for close to an hour.

“Don’t sleep,” the doctor said.

“Yeah, yeah...” Kaname groaned back.

After being knocked out, she’d awakened to find herself strapped to this machine, wearing nothing but a blue hospital gown. Even her bra was gone—she was about to start kicking and screaming when she thought about it being removed in front of that man, but the woman reassured her that she had been the only one present.

Rationally, she thought, I should be more afraid than I am. I’ve been isolated in a crisis situation. And that terrorist... he was really going to shoot Ms. Kagurazaka. If Sagara Sousuke hadn’t dropped that cup then, something really awful might have happened...

The hand of death. That long-forgotten sensation she had first felt when witnessing her mother’s death was reviving, slowly but surely, inside of her. “No one in this world is invincible,” it told her. “You could be the next to go.”

That’s right, Kaname realized. I might never make it home...

In a storehouse on the edge of the airfield, 500 meters from the plane, Sousuke unfolded the antenna on his satellite communicator. He looked at his compass watch, made a few simple calculations, then pointed the antenna toward the southern sky. He put on his headset and tapped a few things on the keypad. Five seconds later, he was connected to Mithril’s West Pacific base, which was 3,000 kilometers away.

“Yes?” It was a woman, an officer in charge of communications. He’d talked with her several times before.

“This is Uruz-7 of the de Danaan. Sergeant Sagara, B-3128.”

“Confirmed. Sousuke, are you all right?”

“Affirmative, Shinohara,” he said. “Can you put me through to the Tuatha de Danaan?”

“Yes, just a minute.” The transmission cut off. She was forwarding the satellite signal, putting him through to where the Tuatha de Danaan was now, hiding somewhere in the ocean.

“Sagara-san, are you all right?” It was another woman’s voice—Teletha Testarossa, their commander-in-chief.

“Affirmative, Colonel, ma’am.”

It was an absurdly formal way to talk to a girl his own age. But to a mere NCO like Sousuke, Colonel Testarossa was on an entire other plane of existence. She was the captain of their vessel—he didn’t know why she was also their commander-in-chief, but regardless, she was someone to whom even Major Kalinin paid respect. She must possess incredible intelligence and leadership.

“Good. Hold on a minute.” Her voice grew more distant. “Major?”

A man’s voice took over. “Sergeant Sagara, this is Kalinin. Report.”

“I’m at Sunan Airfield,” Sousuke answered. “There are roughly two factions of hostiles: one, a Japanese organization that perpetrated the hijacking; I believe the other is the local military. As far as I can tell, the base’s security level is low. Their forces include...”

He outlined everything he’d learned about the base from his hour and a half of recon since escaping the jumbo jet: what parts of the facility were active, the number of security forces, the morale and discipline of the soldiers... He gave them information about the plane’s location and situation, as well.

The two officers listened calmly to his explanation and pressed for more information on the most vital points. The revelation that Chidori Kaname had been taken didn’t change their responses. But when he told them about the bomb in the cargo hold, Tessa’s voice became tense. “What did you say?”

“It looks extremely difficult to disarm,” Sousuke told her. “I can’t do it with what I have on hand.”

“Understood,” Tessa said at length. “We’ll find a way to deal with it ourselves.”

“Ma’am,” he responded in acknowledgment.

“Sergeant. Do you happen to know where Chidori is?” Kalinin asked.

“I don’t,” Sousuke answered. “I’m going to search for her after this, but I don’t even know if she’s still at the airfield.”

“See if you can find her, but don’t put yourself at risk,” Kalinin ordered. “We’ll be needing you to create a diversion.” It sounded like the de Danaan was planning a rescue—and that they were prioritizing the safety of the people on the plane over Kaname.

“Roger that,” Sousuke said after processing that.

“Your information has given us a number of insights,” Kalinin continued. “We’re going to formulate a plan now. Contact us again soon. Make it...”

“2200 hours local time,” Tessa said.

“As she said, Sergeant Sagara.”

“Roger. I’ll contact you at 2200 hours. And Major, sir...”

“Yes?”

“The leader of the hijackers is Gauron,” Sousuke said. On the other end of the line, the major fell silent. “He’s acting very differently than he did when we fought him. But it’s him, I’m sure of it.” When Sousuke said ‘we,’ he didn’t mean Mithril—This fight had taken place before Kalinin and Sousuke joined that organization.

“I thought he was dead,” Kalinin said.

“He must have survived,” Sousuke told him grimly. “He has a scar where I shot him in the forehead.”

“Did he recognize you, then?” the major asked.

“No. My appearance has changed too much, I think.” Back then, Sousuke’s hair had been longer; he’d been scrawnier and smaller, and more tanned. That was probably why Gauron hadn’t recognized him.

“All right. I admit, the bomb and all... it does sound like something he’d do. Remain vigilant,” Kalinin ordered.

“Roger that. Ending transmission.” Sousuke turned off the communicator and folded up the antenna. He put his things away and was just about to move, when—

“Hold still,” said a voice, in slightly accented Japanese. From behind him, there came the sound of a gun cocking.

28 April, 2032 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)

Corridor, 3rd Deck, Tuatha de Danaan, Periscope Depth, Yellow Sea

“What was that all about?” Tessa asked Kalinin as they walked down the hallway to the planning room.

“Gauron, you mean?”

“I would appreciate an explanation.” She stopped, back to the door, facing Kalinin.

“He’s a dangerous terrorist,” the man eventually admitted. His tone was heavy. “His name is a derivation from the Chinese Jiǔ Lóng, ‘Nine dragons’; it’s said to come from the fact that he has citizenship in nine countries. He’s been tied to over thirty VIP assassinations and at least two aircraft detonations, yet he remains virtually unknown in Western counter-terror circles.”

Tessa recalled that Kalinin had once been part of the Soviet special forces.

“Sergeant Sagara and I faced off against Gauron before we joined Mithril,” Kalinin went on. “That was several years back... We were on the run from the KGB, and we ended up taking shelter with Islamic guerrillas in Afghanistan.”

Tessa knew this story: Andrey Kalinin had been caught up in an intrigue concocted by the Soviet military and the KGB, and they were still after him, even now.

“The KGB hired Gauron to bring me in. One day, while I was out, he brought two arm slaves and attacked the guerrilla village. As the guerrillas had no ASes of their own, he all but annihilated them.”

Tessa said nothing. ASes were currently the world’s most advanced land weapons. Unlike tanks, they could work in just about any terrain—jungles, mountains, anything—and infantry were effectively helpless before them.

“Many people died, including innocent children. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.”

“What then?” she asked.

“I swore revenge,” Kalinin answered. “My chance would come two weeks later—Gauron was pursuing me through the mountains of Pakistan. We set up an ambush: I played the decoy and Sousuke sniped him. Complications ensued, but eventually, Sousuke put Gauron down.”

“Except that he didn’t,” Tessa observed.

“It does appear that way.”

“He must be a brutal man.”

“Indeed,” Kalinin confirmed.

She couldn’t believe anyone would kill hundreds of innocent people, just to cover up a kidnapping. Yet this man was going to do just that. If not for Sousuke’s report, they might have walked into the worst outcome imaginable. It’s like he’s mocking me for thinking about waiting for the hostages’ release... she thought.

“Perfect, then,” Tessa said with a cold smile. “It seems this Gauron person has amassed quite a debt to be collected.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Tessa typically acted quite warm and laid-back, but at times like these, her true self rose to the surface, like ice. It was at such times that she revealed herself to be of a kind with Kalinin and Sousuke—of a kind, even, with Gauron. But perhaps that was inevitable—After all, Teletha Testarossa controlled the Tuatha de Danaan, the strongest and most precise killing machine ever made. She could slaughter millions of innocents on a whim.

“Let’s get through the planning meeting for now, Major,” she decided. “You can tell me the rest later.”

They opened the door and entered the meeting room. Pale blue light shone down on a round table; the six heads of the various departments were already seated.

“Now,” Tessa announced, “let us begin.”

The officers nodded and turned to face the screen.

28 April, 2033 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)

Sunan Airfield, People’s Democratic Republic of Korea

“Turn around. Slowly.”

Sousuke did as he was told.

The man pointing the gun at him was enormous, close to two meters tall. He had a striking appearance—thick, burly arms and narrow, wide-set eyes—and he wore an officer’s uniform. “Are you one of the students from the plane? How did you slip out without my men noticing?” The officer was maintaining a cautious distance, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned. He was alone, and Sousuke couldn’t see any other soldiers in the area—perhaps he’d been doing rounds to double-check airfield security. “You were contacting someone, weren’t you? Tell me,” the officer pressed him.

Eventually, Sousuke spoke. “I was contacting—” he began, and then with a natural motion, he threw the transmitter at the man. The officer, who had unconsciously leaned in to listen, found his reaction time just a little bit delayed. When he turned to knock it away, Sousuke used the moment’s distraction to rush the man and kick the gun out of his hand. It hit the wall of the warehouse and fell to the ground, but his opponent wasn’t shaken.

The officer grunted as he reeled back, then lashed out with a full-powered punch. Sousuke blocked it with a hand; the blow was heavy and sharp, and it threw him off balance. Before he could even catch his breath, it was followed by a spin-kick aimed at his head.

Sousuke managed to deflect it, but the man’s combos were merciless. Strike, kick, elbow—a fluid mixture of hard and soft attacks. The man was skilled, and he had power to boot.

“You thought you could beat me if I was unarmed, you brat?!” the officer demanded.

Sousuke didn’t answer, but took a few steps back, jumped off a concrete block and snapped a dropkick right to the man’s jaw. The man grunted, arched back, and toppled; the back of his head hit the asphalt. Sousuke wasted no time. He straddled him, drew his stun gun from his belt and jabbed the man with it.

The man moaned, writhing and convulsing under the electricity. “D-D-Damn... y-y-you...”

Not as effective as I thought... Sousuke tilted his head. Maybe the battery was low?

“Y-Y-You... wh-wh-who are... y-y-you?”

“I’m the trash duty officer,” he answered.

“T-T-Tra...” At last, the man fell silent.

Sousuke carefully bound his arms and legs with wire from the storehouse, then checked to see if his transmitter had survived: the outer shell had broken in the fall, and the innards were exposed. The LCD panel was cracked, too. He pressed the power switch, but it wouldn’t boot up.

“Drat...” He couldn’t contact the de Danaan, now.

Sousuke picked up the man’s gun, checked to make sure there were no more soldiers around, then took out his pocket medical kit. Packed into a box the size of his palm were antidotes, sulfuric acid, aspirin, morphine, syringes, and other tools. Among them was a small bottle, filled with alcohol.

Kaname had been stuck for hours in the stuffy drum thing. She couldn’t move due to her restraints, and her shoulders and butt cried out for relief. She had begged repeatedly for a chance to rest, but the doctor turned a deaf ear to her pleas.

Meaningless images continued to scroll past her. When she tried to close her eyes, the doctor seemed to notice it. She would scold her, telling her to keep looking forward; a refusal to focus would just prolong the tests.

Suddenly, without warning, the parade of images stopped, and the world around Kaname went black. “Are we done?” she asked hesitantly.

“Not yet,” the doctor told her.

Soon, she heard a strange noise. Thump, thu-thump... a low, distant, throbbing. She felt like she was watching a movie with surround sound, and it filled her with a strange anxiety.

“What’s going on?” Kaname cried out. There was no response. Something new was on the screen in front of her now—words, written in English letters. About every two seconds, they changed.

[sea]

[campaniform sensillum]

[tree]

[intrinsic coercivity]

[decagonal phase]

Words that she couldn’t even pronounce, let alone recognize, were mixed in with words that anyone would know. This incomprehensible content flashed before her, on and on, seemingly without end. The pace gradually picked up, until the nonsense words were blinking in and out at a rate of ten per second.

Eventually the simple English words were phased out, replaced almost completely by specialist jargon—chemical formulas and numerical expressions. At some point, Kaname found herself enraptured.

What’s going on? she wondered. Then, it occurred to her: I know this. I’ve... seen this before? She knew what these words meant. She hadn’t really seen them before, yet she understood them well... better than anyone in the world, better than the greatest scientists...

2D quasicrystal-structured alloy, something in her head told her.

rgon and ninickel∩titaQtanium. ノ“naαframe’s Ｉth structural material. partpar stabilizing zingzirconia リヤ2 magnetic anisotropy 8in rare earth ion directionaΓity in toskna nonlinear キA deviatEK. prasiodymium, terbium, dyspδrosium. NOチteY polyΦpolyalamide gel and mfome, flexRGze sechC flexible naficial musclcle—

On and on, her mind raced. ΔD-TfeDfeGPfpalla palladididium reactor YP sealed at GsectiontGフ cubebical lattice triple hydrogen℃ JHI—electromagnetic hologramam camouflage. 130 one thir tee ＩIIIＸ□MGOｅ maximum magnetic energy compres essionP stage KイW former partial derivative BB ラ—barium titanate, perovskyte-type tyRpe, reversible phase transmission. carboKKδUn composite armor, naNANnonanocompoWPCJζ. dome sensasation-based pressKaure detectionR bium, dysp. halt elemnt in 1O0 sqsqsquare mete—

Knowledge burst into her head like an erupting volcano, setting her consciousness aflame. She had never heard any of this before. Yet she knew it—she understood it. It was like someone was there in the back of her mind, whispering it to her. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“Ah... ah...” she moaned.

Then, the deluge cut off as abruptly as it started. The display went black and the strange, low throbbing stopped. The drum lifted off her head, and the platform on which she was lying slid out of the device.

She felt exhausted. Her face was on fire. She struggled for breath. What was it she’d been looking at? Had it all been a dream? She felt like she’d been thinking about something extremely complex...

“How do you feel?” The doctor removed her head-mounted display and peered into her face.

Kaname found herself squinting against the ceiling lights. “Like shit,” she said at last.

“I see. Well, I’m sorry to say this, but we aren’t finished,” the woman said, without the slightest hint of sympathy.

“Please, just let me go,” Kaname pleaded. “I don’t wanna do this sleep-learning stuff...”

“Learning? Ridiculous... You’ve known all of this since before you were born,” the woman said cryptically, then pulled out a syringe...

28 April, 2205 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)

1st Briefing Room, Tuatha de Danaan, Periscope Depth, Yellow Sea

“We need to act quickly,” Major Kalinin said, turning away from the screen. “We need to regain the initiative before things get any worse.”

The briefing room was nearly at capacity, with over 30 personnel present: AS operators, helicopter and VTOL pilots, and infantry, all comprising a variety of races, ethnicities, ages, and sexes. Melissa Mao and Kurz Weber were there, too; they’d rushed back to the de Danaan when they heard about the hijacking.

“Mithril typically prefers to avoid incidents so in the public eye, but the unfortunate truth is that we failed to prevent this. We are responsible. Therefore...” The major paused to look out over the group. “The Tuatha de Danaan will now run a rescue operation. I will explain how things are to proceed.”

The large screen now displayed a satellite view of Sunan. It was their most recent image, taken at 1530 hours that day. It was overlaid with symbols and letters providing detailed information about the placement of enemy forces, as well as the hostages’ jumbo jet.

“We’ll deploy a six-AS team, to be preceded by air support: attack helicopters, transport helicopters, and VTOLs, in that order. First...” Kalinin went on to describe the operation in great detail: where the helicopters were to land, how the ASes were to deploy; the timetable he gave went down to the second. “The ASes will employ XL-2 emergency deployment boosters to launch directly from this submarine. If any of our operators have imbibed alcohol in the past eight hours, tell me now.”

“Emergency deployment boosters” were a one-way, expendable launch system that could propel a single AS up to 40 kilometers. They were used to rapidly deploy an AS into a theater to catch the enemy off guard.

At the mention of alcohol, Mao and Kurz exchanged a glance. Kurz whispered, “That was ten hours ago. We’re safe.”

Kalinin fixed his eyes on them a moment, but continued on with his explanation; “Our greatest issue is this large explosive device.” The screen switched to a transparent CGI rendering of a Boeing 747; the location of the giant bomb that Sousuke had mentioned was highlighted in red. “We expect it to employ a remote detonator with a VHF band frequency. After your initial assault, you’ll need to regroup quickly, then disable this bomb before the terrorists can trigger it.”

“How do we do that?” one of the attack helicopter pilots asked. Kalinin gave a rough outline of how the bomb would be dealt with, at which point the soldiers exchanged glances; some grinning, others nervous.

“But that’ll mean Flight 903 is grounded,” one protested.

“Correct. But it’s out of fuel regardless, and refueling during a firefight is out of the question. The solution is to move the hostages to another craft, but that raises another issue: the sheer number of them.”

The passenger and crew manifest scrolled across the screen: four hundred and twenty people, the largest hostage count in modern terror history.

“Even if we sent every transport helicopter we have, we wouldn’t be able to carry them all,” Kalinin explained. “That’s why we have two C-17 transport aircraft from the Merida Island Base in the air right now. They’re already en route, and they’ll have a midair refueling over the Yellow Sea just before the operation begins.”

“Don’t those have a recommended seating of 150?” one of the squad asked.

“‘Recommended’ is the key. We’re not running a pleasure cruise,” Kalinin deadpanned, then resumed the briefing. “The second the operation begins, those transports need to hit the runway. You have five minutes to transfer the hostages, then take off.”

“Five minutes? That’ll be tight,” the corporal tasked with directing the hostages grumbled.

Nearby, Kurz spat out, “It’ll feel like forever to the people guarding the damned things...”

“There’s a reason for the tight timeframe,” Kalinin said as he pulled up a map of the base’s surroundings. “Sunan Airfield is adjacent to a highway, and it’s close to their capital, Pyongyang. We can expect a prompt arrival of enemy reinforcements. The capital guard are well-trained, and we need to avoid engaging them. The de Danaan will be laying smart mines along the road, but that won’t hold them off for long.”

“What if one of the transports is destroyed on the runway?” Mao asked. “Or it’s prevented from taking off?”

“Then get the other off the ground, empty seats or no,” the major said coldly. “Pack as many of the remaining hostages as you can onto the transport helicopters. Abandon the ASes if you have to—but if you do, make sure they’re destroyed first. This is a crucial detail that takes priority even over your lives... though, of course, we hope that it won’t come to that.”

The room fell into heavy silence.

An operator from the 2nd AS platoon raised his hand. “Any word from Sergeant Sagara?”

“No. That’s another reason we need to hurry. The longer we take to execute our plan, the more likely it is that circumstances will turn on us. Weather, intelligence, enemy readiness, the safety of the hostages—there are countless elements at play. We don’t have time to do a dry run.” Kalinin explained further the details of the operation, how the withdrawal should proceed, and other issues they could expect to encounter. Then he turned the screen off and began the wrap-up. “As you may have realized, this plan contains very little redundancy; the slightest slip-up could be fatal. But if there’s any team in the world who could make it work, it’s ours. I have faith in your abilities.” He looked over the room. “Any other questions?”

The soldiers of Mithril said nothing.

“Then start getting ready,” he ordered. “Noise regulations are in effect. Dismissed.”

The group stood up, all at once.

28 April, 2229 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)

Sunan Airfield, People’s Democratic Republic of Korea

Hidden behind a rusty container, Sousuke surveyed the vehicles parked on the apron: a high-powered generator truck and two large trailers. Is that it? he wondered.

The officer Sousuke had captured had told him that Kaname was in the trailer with all the power cables running to it. He had injected the man with enough alcohol to intoxicate, and then talked the location out of him (not the most reliable form of interrogation, he knew, but it seemed to have yielded results in this case). Then, once he was done with the officer, he’d knocked him unconscious and thrown him into a nearby manhole, still bound in wire; he wouldn’t be found for some time.

The area was brightly lit by mercury-vapor lamps, and Sousuke had a clear view of everything. Security was three men with submachine guns; there was a man resting in the trailer’s cabin, too. They were all wearing suits or casual clothes, which suggested that they weren’t part of the airfield staff.

He looked at his watch: 2230 hours. It was past the time he was supposed to contact the de Danaan. What should I do? Sousuke thought.

The safest thing would be to stay here and lie low; then, when the rescue plan kicked off, he could storm the trailer and save Kaname. That would give them the best chance of meeting up with the others.

But what’s going on in that trailer? he wondered. He thought back to the girl he’d saved in Siberia two weeks before. They’d pumped her with drugs full of alkaloids and other dangerous chemicals; substances often used in truth serums. Sousuke knew the kinds of scars they could leave on a person’s mind.

He thought of Kaname’s face, her brow furrowed in anger. Her disgusted look, her disappointed look, her thoughtful look... and that smile she’d shown him on the station platform. That smile, like a cloudless blue sky, now crushed to bits, never to return... In its place, sunken eyes, a slack jaw, unattended drool and snot... Tormented by hallucinations, she’ll gnaw her own skin raw. They might not kill her, but they will tear her very being to shreds...

Sousuke felt a burning impatience rising up inside of him; the urge to rush to her rescue. He couldn’t remember feeling anything so strongly before. It surprised him, and confused him.

Calm down, he told himself. Your priority is the safety of the hostage group. Kaname is a secondary mission objective. Besides... those men might be monsters, but they’ve gone to great lengths to get her here. They won’t destroy her in just one night. They’ll experiment on Kaname, but they won’t destroy her. It will be more like... a slow strangulation with a silk cord...

“Dammit...” he found himself whispering. Just then, he was drawn out of his thoughts by a sound from the trailer—a gunshot, from a medium caliber handgun.

You want to jump out now, but that’s not necessarily the right move, his instincts as a professional soldier reminded him. Your interference now will make things worse. You don’t know when the operation is scheduled to start. You don’t even know if the rescue will happen. Just grit your teeth and watch for now. Don’t sabotage your comrades’ plan. Remember your mission priorities.

That’s right, he reminded himself. Only a fool and an amateur would leap out now. That isn’t who I am. But. But...

But what if Kaname was just shot inside that trailer? Sousuke found himself wondering. What if she’s badly hurt? If I go in and treat her now, she could still pull through. I must know more first aid than whatever quacks they have here... His thoughts began to spiral. And what if those terrorists plan to shoot her a second time?! What if she’s in that trailer right now, crawling along the floor. What if Gauron points a gun at her head and—

“Kaname would... She’d...” A feeling he’d long forgotten began to coil around his heart. He’d left it behind so long ago that he’d almost forgotten its name.

What Sousuke felt in that moment... was fear.

Still, you can’t just run out there. You’ll just get yourself killed. Don’t forget your mission, his reason commanded him. But...

A second gunshot came, and the next thing he knew, Sousuke was flying out from behind the container; he wasn’t even thinking. For the first time in his life, he was ignoring his mission priorities.

Two minutes earlier...

Kaname kicked and screamed inside the stuffy drum.

“Settle down! Open your eyes and look at the screen!” The doctor called to her, but Kaname continued to writhe, flapping her arms and legs and jerking her head against its restraint. She was drenched in sweat, her breathing was ragged, and her ears were ringing.

“Shut up! Let me out of here!” Kaname hadn’t lost her mind; she was simply enraged. She still didn’t know what was going on... but did they really think she was going to lie there, trapped in this nightmare, hopped up on strange drugs, following orders forever?! She was sick of being trapped in her thoughts. She was sick of being docile. If she didn’t get to cry out, move her body, and vent, she really was going to go insane. “Put me back with the others!” she screamed. “Do it before I break your stupid machine!” She was struggling so violently that the goggle display slid off of her head.

“Enough! That’s enough!” The platform Kaname was lying on slid out of the drum once more. The doctor ran up to her, irritation on full display. She pressed Kaname’s head down and shouted, “You conceited little brat! I should never have been nice to you!”

“There’s nothing nice about you, you hag!” Kaname retorted.

“What did you say?!”

“I finally remembered who you remind me of!” Kaname ranted. “You’re like my science teacher in middle school! She got so focused on her experiments that she got too old to get married, so she took it out on us and gave us the meanest homework! But when we had a student teacher in she’d get all dressed up and flirty...” She hit the woman with a barrage of abuse, struggling all the while. One of her arm restraints had started coming loose, so the doctor tried to refasten it. She held her down by the wrist, used her free hand to remove the belt, and—

“Eek!” All the sweat caused her hand to slip, allowing Kaname’s right arm to go flying. Momentum slammed her elbow into the chin of the doctor, who staggered, hit the back of her head on the medicine cabinet, and then slid slowly to the floor.

“Ah...” Kaname sobered immediately. “Hey... you’re not dead, are you?” No response came. It was then that she realized that her right arm was free. Slowly, she tried removing the nylon strap that was holding down her left arm. “Wow,” she mumbled, “easier than I expected...” With her hands liberated, she removed the strap holding down her head, and sat up. From this position, it was easy to free her legs. Once she was out of her restraints, she checked the floor and saw the doctor, who was just coming to, moaning and trying to sit up.

Wh-What should I do? she wondered. Run away? But where to? She took one step toward the trailer door, then another. She managed to make it in front of the door, but then...

“Where do you think you’re going?” The doctor, standing up with great effort, pointed a small pistol at her. “Come back here. Do as I say, or you’ll regret it.”

“N-No way,” Kaname told her shakily. “I’m not doing any more of your tests. I—”

The woman fired, putting a bullet hole in the trailer wall.

“H-Hey—”

The doctor fired again. This time, the shot cracked an LCD screen behind Kaname, who realized that the woman’s face was locked in cold anger; she really might shoot her.

Suddenly, the door opened. Two men charged in, both of them wielding submachine guns. “What’s going on here?!” A man in a suit—probably one of the guards outside—held Kaname at gunpoint as he surveyed the condition of the trailer.

“We had a little bit of trouble,” the doctor explained. “I needed to teach the brat some manners.”

“So you shot at her? Don’t you know how much this equipment—”

“—Costs? 580 million yen. I don’t need you fools to remind me of that.” She turned back to Kaname. “Now, come over here.” The doctor put her gun away and beckoned to Kaname. The man snorted, and gave her a push.

The woman took a bottle out of the medicine cabinet and sucked some of its contents into a syringe. “Hold the girl on the bed, would you?”

The men forced Kaname down on the dais, and she watched the woman squirt some clear fluid from the syringe. “Wh-What are you going to...”

“A little change in tactics. This is medicine that makes people compliant,” the woman explained, as if enjoying her fear. “It can also cause various impairments—especially to a growing young girl—so I had planned to hold off during the testing stage, but...”

“P-Please, no...” Kaname begged.

“Don’t blame me,” the doctor gloated. “I tried to be nice...”

This time, Kaname knew there would be no struggling her way out of it. The men holding her down were too strong; they could snap her arms like twigs. “No, please,” she tried again. “I’ll be good, I...”

The woman chuckled. “Too late.”

But just as the needle touched Kaname’s arm, the men holding her—first one, then the other—both collapsed with a cry.

“What?” Kaname looked up, stunned by her sudden freedom. The first thing she saw was the doctor, who was drawing back in panic; she wasn’t looking at Kaname, but at something behind her. Curious, Kaname turned around, and was stunned by what she saw. “S-Sagara-kun?”

It was indeed Sagara Sousuke. He had a pistol in his right hand (which was pointed at the doctor), and a stun gun in his left. A submachine gun hung from a strap around his neck. Beneath his open uniform jacket, he had two spare magazines stuck into his belt. “Were you hurt, Chidori?” Sousuke asked, his voice shockingly calm.

“Huh?” she stammered, disoriented. “I... N-No, but...”

“I see,” he said. “Then get behind me, and stay close.” With Kaname behind him, Sousuke carefully approached the doctor.

“You... You’re one of the students from the plane, aren’t you?” she asked, weakly. “When... did you...”

“I’m the one asking the questions here,” he told her abruptly. “Talk: what is this facility? Why did you kidnap her?”

“There’s no way I would tell—”

Sousuke put two shots into the electrical equipment beside her. It sparked and shut down. “Talk,” he demanded. “The next one goes into you.” He pointed the gun at the woman’s head.

The doctor’s hands shot into the air. “Don’t!” she screamed. “I’ll talk! This equipment... it’s to determine if she’s a true Whispered or not.”

“‘Whispered’?” Sousuke asked. “What’s that?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” the doctor answered him. “Whispered are storehouses of ‘black technology,’ knowledge that could shift the power balance of the world. It’s still difficult to draw it out on command but, someday, we’ll form a living database to—” She’d only gotten that far when, suddenly, Sousuke grabbed Kaname by the hand and dove behind the CT scanner.

A split second later, a thunder of gunshots rang out, sending sparks and shards of plastic flying all around them. Kaname and the doctor both screamed. Sousuke turned over, stuck his gun over the lip of the machine, and unloaded the clip at the trailer’s entrance.

Kaname heard another scream; this time, it was from an unknown man. Sousuke tossed aside the emptied pistol and, while pulling and releasing the submachine gun’s cocking handle, stood up and checked on the state of the man at the entrance.

Kaname gasped as she saw the doctor, who was now lying prone on the floor. She must have taken a stray bullet—she was moaning weakly, as a pool of blood spread out from her body.

“We need to go, Chidori,” Sousuke said.

“I-Is she dea—” Kaname started to ask.

“She’s alive,” he cut her off. “But we have no time, and no obligation to treat her.” With one hand holding hers and the other readying his submachine gun, Sousuke began running to the entrance.

Kaname, still completely disoriented, asked him, “Hey, why are you—”

“I’ll explain later. The enemy will be coming.”

There was a man collapsed just inside the door to the trailer. He was clutching at his side, struggling desperately to get up. Hands trembling, he tried to point his submachine gun in their direction, but Sousuke mercilessly kicked him down. The terrorist fell out of the trailer, his gun clattering away helplessly.

“That looked like it hurt...” Kaname observed.

“Let’s go,” Sousuke ordered.

“W-Wait. I can’t go around like this,” Kaname said in protest. “Let me change first.” The gown’s hem ended halfway down her thighs and was incredibly flimsy; even a little running around would put her underwear on full display.

“We don’t have time. Forget it,” Sousuke told her.

“Don’t order me around!” she insisted. “And don’t leer at me like that!”

“I wasn’t,” he said obliviously. “I was examining your outfit to identify the problem—”

“Liar! You’re gonna take advantage of this craziness to do stuff to me!”

“I’m not. Now, you need to follow me—”

“No way!” she shrilled. “Who even are you, anyway?! This goes way beyond panty theft!”

“Listen to me, please. I’ve gone to these unwise lengths to try to save—” he was interrupted by another gunshot from outside. The bullet ricocheted off the trailer door, and Sousuke threw himself at Kaname. He slammed her to the floor, where they ended up, entangled, with him on top of her.

She shrieked. “G-Get your hands off of me!”

“I told you,” he bellowed, “it’s not like that!”

“Get off me! Pervert! Groper! Rapist!”

“Enough!”

It was a truly pathetic sight. In spite of the enemy gunfire outside, inside the trailer, the two of them continued to grapple and argue.