Blood-red.
22
SKINNED
Sometimes a bowl of puke-warm slop can seem the greatest gift in the world.
The scarred, dark-haired gaijin sat across from Yukiko’s cot, feeding her heaped spoonfuls of seafood chowder, wiping her greasy chin with a rag. After four days on Buruu’s back with almost nothing to eat, even with her nausea, her ice-pick headache, the constant fear that every hour she spent trapped here was another hour Hiro’s wedding drew closer, the meal tasted more delicious than any Yukiko had eaten in her life.
The man loosened her restraints when he noticed her fingernails were purple, careful to do it one bond at a time. She watched him, eyes flitting over the insignia at his collars, the pistons and brace strapped around his crippled leg. A short knife hung from his belt, flanked by a tube of coiled copper and delicate glass globes that reminded her of Yoritomo’s iron-thrower. When he’d entered the room with her meal, his shoulders had been wrapped in an animal skin, but he’d shrugged it off and hung it up as soon as he’d shut the door. She looked at it now; shawl of dark fur, long tail dragging on the floor. Yukiko thought it might be a wolf pelt, but if so, it had belonged to the biggest wolf she’d ever heard of.
The occasional crack of thunder shook the walls, lightning flashing through the small glass window high above her. The room’s lights would glow brighter then, buzzing in their sockets as the building vibrated around her.
“Piotr.” The gaijin pointed to his chest. “Piotr.”
“Yukiko,” she said, pointing to herself as best she could.
Piotr brushed his fingers across the same cheek he’d slapped. She could feel it bruising. His touch made her skin crawl.
He seemed about to speak again when heavy footfalls rang down the corridor. The gaijin stood with a wince, pistons hissing. He snatched the animal skin off the wall and threw it around his shoulders, just as the blond boy who had saved her life appeared in the doorway.
The boy stumbled forward as if shoved, and a huge gaijin appeared behind him. The man looked in his mid-forties, as tall and broad as Akihito. A thick beard tied in three plaits, short copper hair, hint of gray at the temples, a tanned, windswept face, nicked with scars—chin, eyebrow, cheeks. He held a long cylindrical object wrapped in oilskin. A heavy dark red jacket was smeared with black grease, insignia on his collars trimmed with frayed golden thread. The skin of some enormous animal rested over his coat; bristling fur, front paws as big as Yukiko’s head, knotted around his neck. The pelt might have belonged to a panda bear once, save that it was rust-brown all over. A set of heavy welding goggles sat above pale blue eyes, dark lenses glinting the same color as the disembodied shapes mounted upon his shoulders.
Yukiko’s heart lurched as she noticed them. The helmets had been beaten flat, mounted on his shoulders like spaulders, but the snarling oni faceplates were still recognizable.
The big gaijin was wearing them like trophies.
Behind him stood the first gaijin woman Yukiko had ever seen. Her hair was so blond it was almost white, tangled into a series of long knotted braids interwoven with insulated wiring, reaching down to her hips. She might have been pretty once, but her face was marred by symmetrical scars; three on each cheek, four running from lip to chin in jagged, lightning patterns. Clad head to foot in dark leather, adorned with wiring and transistors and heat sinks; machine components of all shapes and sizes. Plates of burnished brass covered her torso, shins and forearms. An enormous pair of boots with thick rubber heels lifted her to average height, long fingernails and lips unpainted. Her shoulders were adorned with the remnants of insectoid helmets, severed breather tubes spilling from the mouths, eyes of red glass. Yukiko would recognize them anywhere.
It was as if she’d flayed the metal skin from their flesh and turned them into skin of her own.
The woman stepped into the room, her movements feline, minimalist. Her adornments swayed and shifted, making a clicking, hollow music. Yukiko would guess she was close to thirty, but it was difficult to tell; beyond the scarification and outlandish clothing, there was something altogether alien about her. She tilted her head and stared, and Yukiko saw her eyes were mismatched; one black as Kigen Bay, the other a strange, luminous rose, aglow like the choking moon. She spoke, her voice low, lilting and completely indecipherable.
The big man wearing the bearskin murmured a reply, nodded. Respectful.
A dog darted into the room, scorched copper fur, eyes to match. He jumped onto the bed and slobbered over Yukiko’s face before burying his nose into the chowder bowl. Piotr yelled at the hound, who promptly jumped off the bed and slunk into a corner.
She steeled herself, gathering her wall about her, pushing a tiny fragment into his mind.
A flare of pain. Brittle-sharp. Bearable.
He blinked at the knot of people in the doorway, speaking in hushed voices.
Red tilted his head to one side, blinking.
By the doorway, Piotr’s face was flushed, and he stabbed the air with his finger, pointing at Yukiko and making gestures not even a foreigner could mistake for friendly. Yukiko presumed the big man wearing the samurai trophies was an authority figure—when he spoke, Piotr stopped talking, listened intently. The woman in the flayed Lotusman skins simply stared at Yukiko, head cocked, running one fingernail along the helms on her shoulder. The boy who’d rescued her from the sea leaned against the wall and said nothing at all.
“She.” The dark-haired man spoke. “Pretty girl.”
The gaijin were all looking at her now. Red was eyeing the chowder bowl, wondering how best to steal it without catching someone’s boot. Her skull was pounding, stomach lurching, mouth dust-dry and tasting of salt. She felt as though she might vomit.
“Me?” she answered.
“Why here?”
The two gaijin men gathered around the bed, the woman lurking by the door, hands clasped as if in prayer, pale lips curled in a faint smile. The boy quietly shuffled away from her, standing against the opposite wall.
The dark-haired man who’d called himself Piotr pulled up a stool, sat down, wincing as he straightened his crippled leg. The pistons hissed, joints creaking despite the black grease smeared butter-thick on the metal. As he leaned closer, she smelled salt and liquor, chemicals and greasy smoke. His good eye was bloodshot.
“Who are these people?” Yukiko said.
The man blinked, taken aback. “Me asking in the question.”
“Yukiko.” She pointed to herself as best she could with bound wrists. “Piotr.” She pointed to him. “Them?” A nod toward the others.
The man growled, said nothing.
