Thinking back, the general realized that she’d been defying, even fighting, godlike beings since childhood. Back then, her father had seemed like a supreme being. Whatever he said was right and had to be obeyed. She was the middle child between two brothers, and when she’d complained that he treated her differently, his reply was that it was because she was a girl. Her mother said the same thing. It wasn’t as if being a girl was something to be ashamed of, but the reasoning just seemed so absurd to her. She wished to grow up as quickly as she could but found that things weren’t very much different as an adult.
“General Cooley,” Captain Foss had once asked her, “what did you do before you joined the FAF?” The doctor had been gathering data on the SAF members, and she made no exceptions, even for her own commanding officer.
“I did a number of things, all of them related to finance. Right before I joined up, I was aiming to be a top-level broker in a securities firm.”
“Tough work, but rewarding all the same. Is that the career you wanted, and then the FAF grabbed you?”
“No, I came here of my own accord. You wouldn’t expect someone whose skills lie in finance to be assigned to a combat unit, but it was what I wanted.”
“What was it that brought you here seeking a new world, Lydia?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me by my first name here, Captain Foss.”
“I beg your pardon, General Cooley.”
“What was it? I think young Lydia Cooley just decided to abandon her old world because she found it irrational.”
“I’m not entirely familiar with what goes into being a stockbroker, but the really high-level ones can move the world on their say-so, can’t they?” Foss said.
“Money is just numbers. None of it is real, although that may be an extreme position to take. Still, money does have practical power. It can disrupt an entire nation. To control it, to manipulate it freely, can be thrilling. And when things go well, it can even be fun. But I couldn’t reach that level. I don’t think it was a question of my abilities, but the world wasn’t kind enough to let me get by on just those. I finally understood. You might say that I saw the limits of my world.”
“You experienced sexual discrimination?”
“Oh, naturally,” General Cooley said. “Plenty of that. But that wasn’t what made me abandon it.”
What young Lydia Cooley had realized was that the true source of the irrationality she’d always experienced wasn’t from her being born a woman, but from her having been born a human being.
“Humanity is divided into two classes: bosses and everyone else. Even if a woman controlled the world, no one would accept it. I was being a fool in trying to be a boss that no one would accept.”
“A fool…”
“Yes. Where would be the fun in becoming the boss of people who’d treat me like that?” Cooley replied. “I realized how empty it would be. However, I didn’t want to resign myself to being one of ‘everyone else,’ either. So what was I to do? For a while there, I was seriously considering becoming a nun.”
“So in the end, you began to doubt the rat race and the values of the harsh world of the money game.”
“I suppose so… When I think back, there were all sorts of paths I could have taken. I might have become a researcher, like you, or a talented psychologist who’d make a fortune and win acceptance from the world. Or I could have married and become a mother. But there before young Lydia were beings called the JAM, who threatened the whole of human society.”
“And you felt that a job fighting invaders from another world, ones with values completely different from our own, would be a rewarding career?” Captain Foss asked.
“Maybe I did. It’s ancient history now.”
Captain Foss had nodded, jotted down something in her notebook, and asked nothing more about it.
She had thought it would be a rewarding job, but as General Cooley looked back at the person she was at that time, she realized that she hadn’t been burning with hope. The FAF had been an escape for her. Yes, just like a convent. The JAM were there. The JAM, which she could believe in in place of God. She’d never been aware of it until now, when she’d realized that what Major Booker had said applied to her. Then, she asked herself, did I come here to learn that overwhelming power was a necessity? And with that, I could oppose the JAM?
No, that wasn’t it. The JAM’s attitude had made that clear.
True, it would be an ideal situation to gain absolute authority over the FAF and fight the JAM that way. While humans did operate as collectives, it was necessary to win power struggles within that collective. That fact put them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the JAM, and they’d be sure to exploit it. The JAM must have understood humanity’s Achilles’ heel. Their analysis must have also shown them that a weak point could be turned into a strong point. For example, conflict within a collective might be necessary to replace a bad boss with a superior person.
The JAM had admitted that the SAF was beyond their understanding. They might as well have said that it was Cooley herself that they didn’t understand, since she was the one who’d set the SAF up in this way. That was the JAM’s weakness. The FAF and the JAM might not be equally matched, but it could be said that the SAF was now in the same position as the JAM. It was a position she couldn’t abandon. The one thing she couldn’t afford to do was behave as her opponents expected.
What she needed to make clear to the JAM was that humanity didn’t merely consist of the types of people that they could comprehend.
“The JAM are like gods?”
Major Booker had said that regarding the JAM as an unknowable enemy called to mind words and concepts like god. Booker told Captain Foss that he’d prefer to avoid seeing the JAM as gods, but also feared that it might be impossible. General Cooley understood how he felt. But, she thought, a part of her hoped that they literally were godlike beings. Because to stand up and fight against the gods was something that young Lydia Cooley had always hoped she could do.
4
AFTER CHANGING CLOTHES, Rei and Lieutenant Katsuragi joined Captain Foss and Major Booker on their way to see General Cooley in the command center.
In response to General Cooley saying that she hadn’t summoned the two pilots, Major Booker whispered in her ear to explain about Yukikaze’s discovery of two unidentified humans within the Systems Corps—men who were claiming to be Lieutenant Burgadish and another dead man. How Yukikaze had recognized them as JAM, and how Rei felt that her concerns were likely a JAM trick. The general betrayed little surprise as she listened. After brief consideration, she ordered First Lieutenant Eco, the chief of fighter plane maintenance operations, to begin repairs on Yukikaze at once.
“Yukikaze won’t resist our moving her to the repair bay now.” There had been some fear of her self-destructing. “However,” General Cooley continued, “we need to keep her linked to the tactical computer while she’s in the repair bay. Can you do that?”
“Of course we can.”