A young, robe-clad Japanese woman emerged from the darkness, bending down to feel for the survival suit and boots, fingers sweeping the floor until the edges brushed against the still-damp synthetic fabrics. The attendant stood up, her face briefly towards Freya as she retreated to the shadows once again. Freya tried to meet her gaze, but saw nothing in the young woman’s eyes but a white film— the attendant was blind.
“Please come closer,” said the voice, beckoning her to proceed.
The voice. Freya knew the voice now. How could she not? Although he’d refused to give her his name, she’d spoken to him for months, the soft, reassuring voice on the other end of her carefully-hidden satellite phone, gently pushing her forward at every moment of doubt. But she’d never before met her mysterious benefactor.
Recess lighting slowly glowed to life as she approached the end of the immense chamber, illuminating a single, sitting figure behind a mahogany art-nouveau writing desk. The man was wheelchair-bound and massively overweight, with long, dark hair dropping straight from a thinning part and cascading over his shoulders. His aging skin was puffy and pockmarked; his sickly aspect almost more a doughy mask than a natural face. And like his attendant, he was blind. Thick, pinched eyelids covered sunken, useless sockets.
Startled, Freya realized she recognized his face. The soft voice belonged to Yasua Himura, chemical engineering magnate turned electronics billionaire and infamous recluse. His wildly profitable corporations had long since dominated Japan’s military contracting system, and every drone, military avionic, and guided missile in the nation were stamped with his logo — SABC Electronics and Industry. Ten years ago — at the apex of his power, no less— he’d all but disappeared, withdrawing from friends, family, and business partners alike to live at sea aboard an expanding fleet of ever more-impressive oceangoing yachts.
But rather than fading into lavish obscurity, Yasauo Himura began to write the largest checks of his life. Vast swaths of his impressive profits were diverted wholesale into bleeding-edge alternative energy research, investing heavily in algae fuels, biological hydrogen production, hydrokinetic energy, and fissionable thorium. Freya had once admired his commitment to the future, back when she went by the label activist — not terrorist.
“You admire my collection,” said Himura. It was a statement, not a question.
“I do,” said Freya. “You have so many beautiful pieces.”
“Do you understand their significance?”
“No,” said Freya, shaking her head even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “All I know is that they look old and really expensive.”
“They’re artifacts and weaponry from the Meiji Restoration,” said Himura. “It’s the most important period in Japan’s three-thousand year history. Within four short decades, we emerged from an isolationist kingdom to the most powerful imperial force in the Asian sphere, conquering Korea, and routing the Chinese and Russians alike. Most importantly, our ancestors accomplished this despite treachery from within the restive, backwards elements of our own ranks.”
“Cool,” said Freya. “I didn’t know that — I can’t say I know much about Japan’s history.”
“It was an awakening, unlike the world had ever seen before or since.” Grunting, Himura rolled his wheelchair back from the writing desk, pushing himself around it to approach her. She stood before him, uncomfortable, as though she were being stared down and evaluated — impossible, given his blindness.
“Tell me of your mission.”
“What do you want to know?” Freya shifted her weight from heel to heel in the too-long silence before answering his question. “Haven’t you spoken with your people? Didn’t they fill you in on how it went down?”
“I would much prefer to hear it from you.”
“No prob,” she said with a shrug, clasping her hands behind her back and leaning against the edge of the antique desk as her benefactor listened intently. “I did everything you asked. I caught up with the environmental activists when their ship docked in Brisbane. Half the crew was out with serious food poisoning — just like you said. The captain and first mate were so desperate they were signing up anybody with a pulse. Getting a job in the kitchen was easy. The resume your people gave me checked out, and the fake passport went through their online background check with no problems. I got a few questions, but nothing I couldn’t answer. We were back out to sea a couple of days later, catching up with the Japanese whaling fleet as it transited south through the Bismarck Sea off the island of New Britain.”
Freya paused, collecting her thoughts, reflecting on how she’d ended up on this space-age yacht chatting with Yasua-fucking-Himura himself. After all, she knew she owed him a lot more than a fudged resume and a fake passport. And she knew she’d designed that fucking bomb perfectly, goddamn it. But that was the thing about bombs, they tended towards a mind of their own. The blast didn’t just take out the computer servers holding the design for a next-generation Arctic oil drilling platform, it also killed a night janitor and an overachieving intern who’d taken it upon herself to be the last drone out of the Seattle-based nautical architecture firm that night.
And then somebody in her cell talked. It wasn’t long before Seattle SWAT smashed in the front door of her Delridge Way commune, throwing flash-bang grenades and tear gas as they tore apart the flophouse room by room, arresting everyone inside.
Probably didn’t even matter that she and her friends had been manufacturing highly toxic semtex explosives within. As soon as the yellow police tape came down, some institutional investor would snap up the graffiti-ridden, slummy property and flip it into marble-countertop, aluminum-appliance yuppie bait for the tech set. Fuck ’em all—the whole city of Seattle could burn as far as she cared, her now-incarcerated friends included.
But Freya wasn’t inside when the raid went down. She’d watched from the comfortable rear seats of a black-on-black Chevy SUV parked across the street. The driver— another expressionless Japanese minder — then handed her a new passport issued under an unfamiliar name, a stack of walking-around money and plane tickets to Melbourne. She didn’t know how they knew about the imminent SWAT raid, but somehow they’d known, three burly men expertly snatching her from a bus stop no more than five minutes before the armored police vehicles came roaring up to the curb. She took her chances with the gifted plane tickets. Between SWAT, local SPD foot patrols, ATF, FBI, and the US Marshals, she wouldn’t have lasted a day on the street.
Freya wasn’t sorry to see her friends in jail. After all, they were the ones who fucked up her flawless plans. Hell, they could have easily set off a dozen or more bombs before the cell was rolled up, explosions and assassinations rocking the core of the cadre of imperialist corporate executives and oil-barons, inspiring new recruits, copycat bombers, maybe even shaking the sleepy masses out of their complacency.
It was not to be. Not with the weaklings who made up her group: hippie know-it-alls more comfortable with pedantic discussions of Marx, Foreman, and Abby than true direct activism. They sat around and drank microbrews and smoked pot and argued with strangers on Twitter while she honed her mind and her body. So why not leave them in prison and take the plane ticket to Australia, save some whales under the guidance of a mysterious voice?
Or at least that’s what she first thought. Over the weeks, Himura’s anonymous tele-presence had become so much more to her — an inspiration, guardian angel, even an odd father figure of sorts. In whispered conversations over the satellite telephone, she’d told him secrets about herself she’d never told anyone. “You found the fleet,” Himura prodded. “Please continue.”