“Japan is the first,” whispered Himura, “the first among the world, the… how might you say it? Yes, the canary in the coal mine, the harbinger of things to come. We were the first to run out of resources, out of energy, out of living space, out of youth, and first among nations to fall into irreversible decline.”
Freya tilted her head back and looked through the greenhouse ceiling to the starry sky. The fighter planes still circled above, their engines rendered silent by the thick glass.
“In the past decade, I came to realize my investments in alternative fuels were a waste,” Himura continued. “Japan can no longer be saved by a new energy source; the search is all but fruitless. The world has reached a tipping point, one that will inevitably consume us all. The methane of the Russian permafrost has already begun to erupt, and soon their great northern forests will burn. The drought in the American southwest will only worsen, draining the last of their ancient aquifers and turning their bountiful farmlands fallow. Islands in the South Pacific will drown; Africa and Asia will starve. And the Home Islands of Japan will weather typhoon after typhoon as the world around them crumbles into resource-sparked conflict and chaos.”
“We exist at the mercy of our planet,” said Freya, a faraway look in her eyes. “I’ve always known humanity must live in harmony with nature, or not at all.”
Himura nodded. “The fickle mercy of Gaia indeed. We must all embrace a new ideology, an ideology that already burns within you. Destruction. And with it, reinvention and harmony. But blows must first be struck, devastating blows against every false god of profit and power.”
Himura again guided her gaze toward the fighter planes, the unassailable symbols of domination and imperialism.
“We cannot allow anyone to feel safe, not anymore. No industry or military will be immune. We will strike without explanation, with no manifesto or creed. We’ll leave them to deduce the common thread, discover for themselves what they must do to survive — or they will perish in our new world.”
Freya stared at the fighters as they circled above. “Cast them from the heavens, Meisekimu,” whispered the old man. One after another, the indicator lights of the planes flickered and died off as the frozen aircraft spun and dropped from the starlit sky. A geyser of water erupted as the first slammed into the deep harbor, a second and then a third transformed into blossoming fireballs on the beach, the final planes disappearing behind the low forested hills of Okinawa as they fell.
Distant flames glinted in her dark irises, and tears sprang into Freya’s awestruck eyes as she watched with unimaginable joy.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said. “It’s all so beautiful.”
CHAPTER 5
The Scorpion glided beneath thick pack ice, her engines softly churning dead slow under battery power. Alexis stole a glance at the digital map from her post in the command compartment, their position plotted by a clever electronic combination of inertia sensors and dead reckoning. Masked by the ice above, the submarine drew closer to the outskirts of North Korean territorial water.
Vitaly carefully steered along an invisible maritime boundary between North Korea and Russia, aiming for the sliver-like border between the two. Alexis took off one glove and pressed her palm to the interior of the metal hull, shivering as the cold of the sea pushed against the other side. The surface was slick with moisture, bleeding water in thick rivulets of condensation as the interior heaters struggled to keep out the sucking winter chill.
Outside their fragile craft, the pack ice twisted and cracked with high-pitched groans and rumbles. The sound was hideous, like cracking bones. Normally so attuned to the minutia of engines and machinery, her ears now betrayed her. The fearful sounds were inescapable, filling her with anxious anticipation.
Jonah caught her frown and furrowed brow. “The pack ice is breaking up,” he said. “Arctic explorers used to call it the Devil’s Symphony.” He reached over to give her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. The gesture felt a little strange, like it was something he ought to do but had never tried before. Still, she appreciated it.
“The name fits,” said Alexis with a shudder. “It sounds positively awful.”
Jonah shook his head as he smiled. “It’s music to my ears,” he said. “We could be within thirty feet of a North Korean listening array and they still wouldn’t hear us go by over this goddamn racket. If it’s the Devil’s Symphony, he’s playing our song.”
Alexis nodded, not entirely convinced, and glanced over to Hassan for reassurance. The surgeon leaned against Vitaly’s helm console, arms crossed and lips pursed in deep concentration, as though the slightest display of emotion might somehow endanger the entire ship.
She was familiar with his stoic act, knew it inside and out, despite only having met the surgeon a few short weeks ago. She also knew how thin it was. Despite being a man who unhesitatingly did whatever the situation required, the surgeon clearly worried about everyone and everything constantly. Her in particular.
Hassan could be quite the mother hen. It was kind of cute, really. And yet the surgeon scared her. Not in the way Jonah did with his alpha-male, the-only-way-out-is-through, damn-the-torpedoes braggadocio, but in the other way. She was scared by how she felt with him, how the days spent talking with him felt like minutes, how she felt that she’d known him for years and not weeks. His smooth olive skin, sharp jawline, and kind eyes — all terrifying.
Maybe they were each other’s distraction. After all, she was the only woman on the crew, and he was the only man who wasn’t gay, crazy, or whatever Jonah was. She supposed everybody found their own way to cope with the long voyage from Puget Sound to Fukushima. Jonah took his comfort in silence and solitude, often pacing the quiet corridors of the submarine. Vitaly and Dalmar had their dramatic, on-again, off-again flings, either relationship status manifesting itself with loud arguments in three languages.
All she really knew about Hassan was this: every morning, she returned from brushing her teeth and washing her face in the ship’s single bathroom sink to find the tiny cabin bed they shared already made, clothes carefully folded, and deck swept. With little to do in a medical capacity, Hassan had taken on the role of the ship’s chef. Everyone ate well from the ample stocks, but few were aware the meals were typically designed around Alexis’ favorite foods. Hassan never missed an opportunity to tease out one of her fondly remembered dishes, teach himself the recipe from the small galley library, and make a batch for the whole crew.
Alexis used to play a silly little game early into a new relationship. She’d ask herself what their house would look like, who their friends would be. And if she really liked him — or to prove to herself she didn’t — she’d even imagine what their family might look like some day.
But she couldn’t do it with Hassan, couldn’t bring herself to even try. With him, the only possible future was a vast, dangerous void, colder even than the Sea of Japan in winter. Life on the fringes — their life — was dangerous. She’d brought him back from the dead once already, and she didn’t think she could bear to do it a second time.