Finally, Houdini stops bucking. On groaning, overheated motors, the huge machine settles down. I see my brother’s hand silhouetted against the sky. Thumbs-up. Time to go.
Thank you, Jesus.
Out of nowhere, Cherrah grabs my face with both hands. She pushes her forehead against mine, bopping our helmets together, and smiles wide. Her face is covered in dirt and blood and sweat, but it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. “You done good, Bright Boy,” she says, her breath tickling my lips.
Somehow, my heart is beating faster right now than it has all day.
Then Cherrah and her flashing smile are gone—darted away into the grass for our retreat back to Gray Horse.
One week later, Gray Horse Army heeded Paul Blanton’s call to arms and mustered a force to march on Alaska. Their fearless response likely occurred because none of the soldiers truly understood how close they had come to utter destruction on the Great Plains. Postwar records indicate that the entire battle was recorded in great detail by two squads of military-grade humanoid robots camping two miles outside Gray Horse. Mysteriously, these machines chose to defy Archos’s orders and did not join the battle.
4. AWAKENING
The great akuma will not rest until I am gone.
Relying on incredible engineering skills and rather odd viewpoints regarding human-robot relations, Takeo Nomura managed to build Adachi Castle in the year after Zero Hour. Nomura carved this human safe zone into the heart of Tokyo with no outside help. From here he saved thousands of lives and made his final, vital contribution to the New War.
At long last, my queen opens her eyes.
“Anata,” she says, lying on her back and looking up into my face. You.
“You,” I whisper.
I imagined this moment many times as I marched across the dark factory floor, fighting against the endless attacks that came from outside my castle walls. Always I wondered whether I would be afraid of her, after what happened before. But there is no doubt in my voice now. I am not afraid. I smile and then smile wider to see my happiness reflected in her features.
Her face was still for so long. Her voice silenced.
A tear tickles my cheek and drops from my face. She feels it and wipes it away, eyes focusing on mine. I notice again that the lens of her right eye is spiderwebbed with thin cracks. A melted patch of skin mars the right side of her head. There is nothing I can do to fix it. Not until I find the right part.
“I missed you,” I say.
Mikiko is silent for a moment. She looks past me, at the curved metal ceiling that soars thirty meters above. Perhaps she is confused. The factory has changed so much since the New War began.
It is an architecture of necessity. Over the years, my factory senshi worked ceaselessly to rivet together a defensive shell. The outermost layers are a complicated array of junk: scraps of metal, jutting poles, and crushed plastic. It forms a labyrinth built to confuse the swarms of small, wriggling akuma that constantly try to creep inside.
Monstrous steel beams line the ceiling like the rib cage of a whale. These were built to stop the greater akuma—like the talking one that died here at the beginning of the war. It gave me the secret to awakening Mikiko, but it also nearly destroyed my castle.
The scrap metal throne was not my idea. After a few months, people began to arrive. Many millions of my countrymen were led out into the country and slaughtered. They trusted too much in the machines and went willingly to their destruction. But others came to me. The people without so much trust, those with an instinct for survival, found me naturally.
And I could not turn the survivors away. They crouched on my factory floor as akuma beat down the walls again and again. My loyal senshi wheeled across the broken concrete to protect us. After each attack, we all worked together to defend ourselves from the next.
Broken concrete became metal-riveted floors, polished and gleaming. My old workbench became a throne set atop a dais with twenty-two steps leading to the top. An old man became an emperor.
Mikiko focuses on me.
“I am alive,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Why am I alive?”
“Because the great akuma gave you the breath of life. The akuma thought that this meant you belonged to him. But he was wrong. You belong to no one. I set you free.”
“Takeo. There are others like me. Tens of thousands.”
“Yes, humanoid machines are everywhere. But I do not care for them. I care for you.”
“I… remember you. So many years. Why?”
“Everything has a mind. You have a good mind. You always did.”
Mikiko hugs me, tight. Her smooth plastic lips brush against my throat. Her arms are weak but I can feel that she puts her full strength into this embrace.
Then she stiffens.
“Takeo,” she says. “We are in danger.”
“Always.”
“No. The akuma. It will fear what you’ve done. It will be afraid that more of us will awaken. It will attack at once.”
And indeed, I hear the first hollow thud against the outer battlements. I let go of Mikiko and look down the stairs of the dais. The factory floor—what my people call the throne room—has filled with concerned citizens. They stand in groups of two or three, whispering to each other and politely not looking up the steps to Mikiko and me.
My rolling arms—the senshi—have already gathered in a defensive formation around the vulnerable humans. Overhead, the master senshi, a massive bridge crane, has silently rolled into position over the throne. Its two mighty arms hang in the air, poised to defend the battle floor.
Once again, we are under attack.
I rush to the bank of video monitors that ring the throne and see only static. The akuma have blinded me to the attack outside. They have never been able to do this before.
This time I feel the attack will not end. I have finally gone too far. Living here is one thing. But to compromise the entire humanoid portion of the akuma army? The great akuma will not rest until I am gone—until my secret is crushed where it lies inside my fragile skull.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The rhythmic beating seems to come from everywhere. The akuma are relentlessly battering through our meters-thick defensive fortifications. Each soft thud we hear is the equivalent of a bomb exploding outside. I think back on my moat and chuckle to myself. How much has changed since those early times.
I look down onto the battle floor. My people are cowered there, afraid and helpless to stop the coming slaughter. My people. My castle. My queen. All will perish unless the akuma regains this horrible secret from me. Logically, there is only one honorable course of action possible now.
“I must stop this attack.”
“Yes,” says Mikiko, “I know.”
“Then you know I must give myself up. The secret of your awakening must die with me. Only then will the akuma see that we are not a threat.”