can you?”
Rei tried to get out of bed, but the major held him down. He was strong. Marnie slid a hypodermic needle into his arm again. A terrible weakness spread across his body.
“You... What are you...?”
“We’re your friends,” Marnie answered. “The same organic life as you.” Both she and the major laughed.
“A bit different, though,” Yazawa said. “We made a small mistake. A stupid one, really.”
“We realized it when we gave you that liquid food. It was the D-type alpha-amino acids,” Marnie added. “Lieutenant, did that chicken broth taste good? I imagine it was to your taste. You can digest that.”
They were voices in a dream.
Once more he fell into the white void.
HE AWOKE TO the same room. Yukikaze was still displayed on the computer the major had brought to him. He saw she had been fitted with a new canopy.
His head felt hollow. He remembered being given some sort of drug and that he’d heard something very important just as he was sliding into sleep, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He gathered his strength and ventured out into the corridor. One direction led to a dead end. He turned around and backtracked to a T- intersection. To the right was a nurse’s station. To the left was a short passage that ended at a metal door. He thought it might be an emergency exit but couldn’t budge it.
He heard Marnie approaching, her footsteps making that awful squeaking noise.
“Do you need something, Lieutenant?”
“Where’s Lieutenant Burgadish?”
“I’m afraid he’s — ”
“Dead? Let me out of here. This isn’t a hospital, it’s a prison.”
“Please return to your room, Lieutenant. You don’t look well at all.”
Seeing no other option, Rei went back to the room. Yukikaze glowed on the computer screen. As Rei looked at her, he grew more and more agitated by the feeling that he’d forgotten something. Why was Major Yazawa so concerned about Yukikaze? If he wanted to activate her comm system, all he had to do was turn it on, right? If they tried to force their way into her internal systems electronically, she might activate her self-destruct protocol, but she couldn’t stop a human from flipping a switch. He assumed she couldn’t, anyway. So in short, the reason must be that Major Yazawa didn’t know how to turn on the system or to use Yukikaze’s instrumentation. But if he was in the FAF, how could he not...
Once again a chilling unease swept through Rei’s body, bringing with it a powerful sense of deja vu. He clutched at his head.
Were they human? Were they JAM? Externally, they looked no different from any other human. Was that the JAM’s real form? A human form? He didn’t believe that. He was sure he had the answer. They’d given it to him. They said that they were his friends. No, after that. After...
Yukikaze. If he had access to Yukikaze’s data file, he might be able to find proof. He reached out for the computer’s keyboard. He knew it might be a trap. Major Yazawa had to be somewhere monitoring the link between this computer and Yukikaze. Even so, Rei figured that freeing himself from this paralyzed state had to take priority.
He spent a few minutes familiarizing himself with the device. He then composed a pulse code on the same frequency as the SAF emergency tactical line and transmitted it. It worked. The link with Yukikaze opened up.
SEARCH FOR JAM.
The message seemed to leap out at him from the screen. It was the same message that appeared on Yukikaze’s display during battle. That was all he needed to know. Rei quickly switched the computer off.
This was a JAM base. It had to be. But he doubted that Marnie and Major Yazawa were JAM. So what were humans doing in a JAM base?
“Why did you turn it off ?” Marnie asked, entering the room. “Lieutenant, you look tired.”
“I’m not tired at all.”
“How about shaving at least? You look awful. You should see yourself in the mirror.”
Mirror. Something stirred in his ragged memory. Mirror. Mirror image. D... alpha-amino acid. The optical isomer of the L-type. He remembered now. He remembered what she had said. He looked at her. What if this woman’s body wasn’t composed of L-type amino acid proteins, but rather D-type polypeptides, making her a mirror image of a human at the molecular level? Is that what she was?
She approached the bedside, a syringe in her hand.
“Come now, Lieutenant. You should get some rest.”
If she gave him that shot, he might never wake up again. If she wasn’t human, how could he find out for sure? Check her body, her cells, her molecules with equipment he didn’t have?
“Lieutenant, you have Faery Fever. This injection will lessen the anxiety you’re feeling. You’re hallucinating, Lieutenant. Get a hold of yourself.”
“I’m not crazy.”
Still smiling, Marnie took hold of his arm. Rei was tempted to just let go and obey her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he was sick, and this paranoia was a result.
Yukikaze’s warning message flashed in his mind. Just before she plunged the needle into his arm, Rei slapped her hand away and gripped her other wrist, squeezing with enough force to make her drop the syringe.
“What are you doing?!” she gasped.
He threw her down onto the floor and tore open the front of her uniform. Her heavy breasts spilled out. She screamed as he sank his teeth into one of them, biting into her flesh.
He pushed away from her, spat out the piece he’d bitten, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t taste like blood. It tasted like the liquid food that she had brought him. It wasn’t protein.
“Fucking JAM!”
He looked down at her as he drew his pistol and fired a single shot. Her body jerked once, then stopped moving.
He had to get to Yukikaze. He ran out of the room. The adrenaline dumping into his system was clearing his head and returning some strength to his limbs.
The bittersweet flavor of the blood that wasn’t blood lingered in his mouth. The soup Marnie had given him didn’t have that same taste. As Rei ran, he suddenly realized what they must have made it from and felt like vomiting.
Before he could think about it any further he rounded a corner and ran into Major Yazawa. The major immediately reached out and knocked the gun out of his hand.
Keeping his grip on Rei’s arm, he followed through with an outside shoulder throw. His strength was incredible. Rei went with the fall and hit the floor on his left shoulder, feeling a bolt of pain rip through it. Ignoring it, he grabbed on to Yazawa’s arm with both hands, kicked his legs up, locked them around the back of the man’s head, and used the momentum of his body to throw him over onto the floor.
Rei released the hold and scrabbled forward, reaching for his fallen gun. Just as his fingers closed on the grip he felt the major’s powerful hands wrap around his shins.
Before he could even turn to look, he was flying through the air. Straining his abdominal muscles, he twisted his body, just barely managing to get his back around before he slammed into the wall. The shock of the impact momentarily blinded him. He couldn’t breathe. Lying sideways on the floor, he looked up to see the major leaping at him. Two shots. The report echoed down the corridor. The 9mm 205 grain rounds blew Yazawa’s head off.
Rei lowered his arms, gasping for air. After a few seconds he slowly levered himself up into a crouch and rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head to work out the stiffness. He cautiously flexed his limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken, at least.
He stood up and surveyed the scene. Major Yazawa’s body was sprawled out on the floor. The back of his head had been splattered across the wall and ceiling, dyeing their surfaces red. But there was no smell of blood.
Massaging his solar plexus with his left hand, Rei aimed his gun at the lock on the metal door and fired a
