Chapter 1
Nothing: The absence of objects – animate or otherwise – or people. I.E.: “…We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing.” Quoted from “Duma Key” by Stephen King.
That would be my definition of the word “nothing” if I had a say in what was written in the damned American dictionary. Yes, it would be that simple, that easy to remember. In the dictionaries in Japan, my homeland, words have simple definitions instead of long, drawn out ones that are in the American dictionary. Would it really be so hard to give words simple definitions so that one wouldn’t have to find the definition for words in the definition of the originally looked up word?
Oh, I bet you’re wondering when I’ll stop rambling on and on about dictionaries and actually get to the point. Well, the point is quite simple actually; I’m being hunted. To those who are hunting me, I am nothing – hence why I would change the definition of the word. Though most humans would look at me in disgust or fear, the Emperor of Japan looks at me and my comrades and sees nothing but an infantry of monsters: robotic monsters.
We were created for the current world war – World War Three – so that Japan could become the unquestioned rulers of the world. For the most part, we succeeded at that. The only country left to conquer is the United States of America, and they’re just too damn stubborn to back down like the others did. I’ll be honest, though this war is costing my country so much money, I really did enjoy it while I fought.
Yes, I said did. Some years ago, the infantry I served in broke away from the Japanese before we disbanded to protect ourselves from the Emperor and the new androids he created to destroy us all.
Recently, they discovered my position in Miami, Florida and came to shut me down. So, currently, I’m on the run.
I must stop writing for now so that I can run, for death is eminent if I’m caught.
Sergeant Takeshi Mizuhara
1st Soldier Infantry Division (the Lightening Infantry)
Nothing: The absence of objects – animate or otherwise – or people. I.E.: “…We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing.” Quoted from “Duma Key” by Stephen King.
That would be my definition of the word “nothing” if I had a say in what was written in the damned American dictionary. Yes, it would be that simple, that easy to remember. In the dictionaries in Japan, my homeland, words have simple definitions instead of long, drawn out ones that are in the American dictionary. Would it really be so hard to give words simple definitions so that one wouldn’t have to find the definition for words in the definition of the originally looked up word?
Oh, I bet you’re wondering when I’ll stop rambling on and on about dictionaries and actually get to the point. Well, the point is quite simple actually; I’m being hunted. To those who are hunting me, I am nothing – hence why I would change the definition of the word. Though most humans would look at me in disgust or fear, the Emperor of Japan looks at me and my comrades and sees nothing but an infantry of monsters: robotic monsters.
We were created for the current world war – World War Three – so that Japan could become the unquestioned rulers of the world. For the most part, we succeeded at that. The only country left to conquer is the United States of America, and they’re just too damn stubborn to back down like the others did. I’ll be honest, though this war is costing my country so much money, I really did enjoy it while I fought.
Yes, I said did. Some years ago, the infantry I served in broke away from the Japanese before we disbanded to protect ourselves from the Emperor and the new androids he created to destroy us all.
Recently, they discovered my position in Miami, Florida and came to shut me down. So, currently, I’m on the run.
I must stop writing for now so that I can run, for death is eminent if I’m caught.
Sergeant Takeshi Mizuhara
1st Soldier Infantry Division (the Lightening Infantry)
…
“Yes, Colonel…Right away, sir.” A man with short dirty blonde hair and silver eyes so bright they could’ve been made from crystal – which, in fact, they were – leaned back gently against one of the glass walls of the payphone booth. “Believe me, sir, I understand the danger.”
He sighed heavily, his huge shoulders moved up and down with the gesture. “Yes, Colonel, sir, I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point ASAP.” He looked over and smiled at a couple of children who were staring at him like he was Superman, but they ran away once they saw his eyes. He sighed again. “No, sir, I’m not sighing at you.” He held the phone a bit away from his ear as this came from the other end:
“DON’T YOU LIE TO ME! YOU MAY BE AN ANDROID, LIKE ME, SERGEANT MIZUHARA, BUT THAT GIVES YOU NO AUTHORITY TO—“
“Sir, I was sighing at a couple of American children. They seemed fascinated by me, but then reacted as all others do. They ran away, scared.” The Sergeant had cut off his formerly highly respected superior, so had hardly anticipated the conversation to continue civilly. When it did, the two briefed each other on what had happened since they last talked, nearly three years before.
“Yes, sir, that’s what I believe too. It’s just hard to imagine the American’s are beginning to give up their incentive for protecting their freedom to protect those who are free within the country’s borders.” The Sergeant waited a moment before saying, “Alright, sir, I’ll speak with you later then. Sergeant Takeshi Mizuhara, signing out.”
Takeshi hung up the phone and turned to open the door of the payphone booth. As he did, one of the two children from earlier hit him on his shin with a large stick. He hadn’t felt the blow, but had heard a faint duuum sound in his ear. He looked down and sighed at the two kids again, both with large sticks in their hands, and pots on their heads like helmets.
“What’d you two want?” Takeshi sighed at the two boys as he crossed his “muscular” arms across his chest plate, covered by a camouflage t-shirt. He spread his legs out shoulder width for a traditional battle stance to try and scare the kids away again, the only thing he succeeded in doing was almost getting his baggy blue jeans pulled down by one of the boys.
He grabbed the one who had tried to de-pant him by the neck of his baggy blue shirt with a picture of some wrestler on it. “Listen, you brat! Get away from me!” He glared down at the other boy with the glossed over silver eyes that had once pierced through even the most hardened human soldier. “That goes for you too!”
Takeshi dropped the boy he had in the air and watched as they scrambled over each other trying to get away. He turned and began to walk towards the bus station a block away. He put on the dark purple sunglasses he used to hide his eyes while traveling as he approached the station. He walked up and bought a ticket to New York City, the rendezvous point his Colonel had set up for the infantry. Considering he was in Louisville, Kentucky, it wouldn’t take too long for him to get there.
Takeshi paid for his ticket and sat down near where the bus would pick him up in an hour time. He leaned back, reclining in the plastic seat. He was staring at the ceiling, not paying attention, not expecting anyone to approach him and say:
“Hey there.” A young woman who looked like she could’ve been Takeshi’s age if he were human sat down next to him. “Where’re you going?”
He glanced over at her, only seeing the same color sunglasses on her face. He deemed her to be human so he replied, “New York City.”
“Oh, the Big Apple! That place is the best in the whole country!” She giggled. “Judging by your accent, I guess you’re not American-born…?”
“No, I’m not.” Which was somewhat the truth, he wasn’t really anything-born. If he had to really say how he was “born”, he’d simply reply, lab-born. (Unless he was talking to a human, that is, then he’d be Japanese-born.)
“Are you Japanese?”
He nodded once. “Yes.”
“Oh…!” She got really close to his face. “Say something in Japanese! I’m taking a class at the University of Louisville, so lets see if I can understand you!”
“Alright then.” Takeshi straightened in his seat and faced her. His eyes going directly to the sunglasses she wore, he didn’t even notice her long dirty blonde hair or her small yet muscular frame. No, he was more interested in the sunglasses. “Watashi wa no anata onajiyō na imasu ka?” (Are you like me?)
She chuckled twice menacingly and looked over the top of her sunglasses, staring at him with neon green eyes. “Hai. Watashi wa no onajiyō na anata desu.” (Yes. I am like you.)
Takeshi didn’t hesitate, he moved as she tried to stab him with a special knife given to all Japanese androids by the Emperor in case one of them encountered another country’s androids. The blade was specially tuned to adjust to the wiring in the android and caused them to short circuit. This woman android – the first Takeshi had ever even heard of being created – had been given the knife to destroy him.
“Damn!” He cursed himself for not seeing it earlier. If the Emperor really wanted the infantry destroyed, he’d do everything possible, even something as crazy as creating women androids to trick them. “Who are you anyway?!”
The woman android giggle and tossed the purple sunglasses away. She straightened out her light pink kimono top as only a self-conscience girl could do. She patted down her skinny blue jeans with her free had and looked back up at Takeshi. “I’m First Lieutenant Chikara Kigurai of the Thirtieth Soldier Infantry Division – also known as the Deadly Flower Division.”
“The Deadly Flower Division?” He glared at her. “It was said that that division was put out of commission for disobeying orders. How is it that you are from there?”
Chikara giggled yet again – which was starting to get on Takeshi’s nerves a bit – and said, “The old Deadly Flower Division was decommissioned.” She smirked; snake-like fangs grew from her teeth. She bared them and hissed at him. “We were created to replace them. The Thirtieth Soldier Infantry Division has been reborn.” She swayed from side to side as she slowly walked towards him. “And our orders are to destroy the Lightening Division for going AWOL.”
Takeshi couldn’t move, surprised at what he saw. The Emperor had been discussing human-animal androids shortly before the Lightening Division went AWOL, but no one had thought he would go through with it. Chikara looked into his eyes, catching him in the deadly gaze of a cobra. Yes, she was definitely a human-animal android.
She jumped at him, keeping her grip on his gaze. She jumped onto him and bite into his metal neck even easier than human flesh. Takeshi finally came back to reality and managed to push her off of him. He grabbed the area where she had bit him with his hand and looked at what was on his fingers; acid. But it didn’t eat through his fingers, and that in itself was confusing, he knew it was acid. Even his enormous brain/computer had told him so.
“What is this?” He demanded.
Chikara giggled again as she returned to a full-human android. “Acid, as I’m sure you know. The difference between this acid and true acid is that this stuff is natural. Emperor Ayaui found it in the countryside outside of Kyoto.”
“What does it do?” His eyes narrowed, he didn’t like where this was going at all.
“This particular acid will find the motor skills part of your body and shut them down. You will fall uselessly to ground in about thirty seconds.” She smirked again. “And then I can kill you easily.”
Takeshi took a breath and tried to brace himself for the coming shut down of his motor skills, believing that he could weather it and escape. He was wrong. After twenty seconds, he fell to the ground, useless, as Chikara had told him he would. She walked over to him and knelt down beside him, pointing the knife at his throat for only a half second before shoving it completely through.
She stood up and watched as Takeshi convulsed and short-circuited. Smoke came out of the area of his neck where he had been stabbed. She grabbed the knife and slipped it back into the hidden holster she’d been carrying it in. She smiled triumphantly as his eyes turned to a faded blue, signaling his destruction.
Chikara pulled a cell phone from her pocket as she grabbed Takeshi’s ticket to New York and walked towards the bus. Anyone who saw him from a distance would think he was a bum with a smoke. She put on her sunglasses as she climbed onto the bus and dialed the first speed dial on her phone.
She waited for a moment before saying, “Major Kosui? …Yes, this is she.” She waited a moment to be told to give her status report. “Sergeant Mizuhara of the Lightening Division has been dispatched of this world.” She waited again for a question from the Major. “Yes, he did give me some information… He was heading to New York City. If I’m lucky, then that means that our runner from the Lightening Division was meeting his comrades there. I’m going there to intercept them.”
She waited as she was given a firm “no” and given more orders. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be sure to meet up with her when I get there… Yes, ma’am.” She nodded as if her superior was in front of her. “I’ll be sure to give her your orders… Okay then, goodbye. First Lieutenant Chikara Kigurai signing out.”
Chikara clicked the “end” button on her cell phone, disappointed that her job was over, but at least satisfied that she took down one of the Lightening Division’s best. One down, twenty to go.
