Good Luck, Yukikaze

“I’m surprised. I always figured you were an atheist, like everyone else in the SAF.”

“Whether gods exist or not, we can still live, all the same. That’s what I think, and I believe it’s the same with the JAM, whether they exist or not.”

“I beg your pardon?” Foss said.

“If you don’t agree, then you’re telling me that you’ve accepted the JAM as gods with an objective existence; you’re preaching the religion of JAMism.”

“Hold on there, Major. Then what is it that you’re doing here?”

“I’m explaining to you that if the JAM can’t be directly perceived by humans, then I believe that we can’t fight them without bringing up certain philosophical questions. If the JAM are not physical entities, you can’t simply say that they exist whether you believe in them or not.”

“So how do we make this more definite, Major Booker?”

“We search for exactly what the JAM threat is. If we find that it’s an illusion, then we don’t have to fight.”

“The SAF can’t just abandon the battle now, surely.”

“That’s General Cooley’s job to decide, not yours, and your profacting report on the JAM will be used by her as a major ingredient in determining what decision she makes. Now add in data Yukikaze has brought back. It may be possible now to verify the threat the JAM pose. I have a feeling that we won’t be able to immediately verify your suspicions about the JAM’s true nature. And even if humans in the future judge what we do here as a complete waste of time and history decides that we made a mistake, it’s all we can do now. History’s verdict has nothing to do with us. Either way, we won’t be alive to see it, and that’s true if we die content or cursing our bad fortune. I couldn’t care less about the future. All we can do now is what we believe is best, and that’s how anyone with a brain in their head has lived and died throughout all of history.”

“You think the JAM are like gods, huh?”

“The same way that humans must appear to them,” Booker said. “We’re equal in that respect, and there’s nothing to fear from it.”

General Cooley stopped reading there and took a sip of her tea.

Even if the JAM were like gods, it was nothing to fear — How very typical of Major Booker, Cooley thought. The JAM and humanity were equal in his view. If the JAM are gods, then so are we, he’d told Captain Foss. He’d explained that she should leave out the god angle as much as she could. And even when Captain Foss had still brought it up, he’d told her not to be afraid. Don’t fear the JAM, don’t blindly accept them, just determine the true nature of the threat they represent. That was his way of lending the young doctor support.

But the truth was that their relationship with the JAM wasn’t equivalent, because humans formed collectives. Indeed, Captain Fukai and Yukikaze had fought the JAM on equal terms and had returned to tell about it. Major Booker, too, could argue with the JAM on equal terms with his philosophy. But there was no way that every human was capable of such accomplishments. I put the SAF together to place us on equal footing with JAM, General Cooley thought, and to do that I created a group of individuals with a single purpose, just I supposed the JAM to be. There was no way they could equal the JAM unless not a single person in the group defied her.

Almost from the day she was born, General Cooley had wanted one thing: power. Overwhelming, unquestionable power. Power that would let her declare that the world was hers, that would allow her to argue on equal terms with the gods. From the typical desire for authority most people have, the feeling grew into a palpable sensation inside her. It was probably a base instinct in humans, born out of being social animals. If she were like a cat, a natural loner, then she’d only rely on herself to hunt for food or defend herself from enemies. But wolves and humans weren’t like that. Without a good leader, the entire group would be threatened. We create gods out of our desire for an external leader. A life-form that lives independently has no gods because it doesn’t need them.

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.