Chapter 1 - Vantage

 

Arriving home from Oslo, Peder stepped back over his doorsill with a relieved sigh, as if he had finished the leg of a long mountain ascent. The house presented him with the backlog of notifications accumulated during his trip: power consumption, robot cleaning rounds, deliveries made ... The most recent item, however, read, 'Mizz Mukhina arrived at 0815 today, made a tour of your wardrobe, and is presently down in the ASAPR.'

Peder headed down to the basement to investigate. Entering his ASAPR, he saw Zuzanna wearing an evening dress, and she was bent over the divan where one of his tuxedos was laid out. She was putting something back into her purse, but Peder could not see what it was. Before he could speak she turned and said,

"Thank God you're back-we need to go to Tokyo. Now."

"Uh ... " Peder stalled. "Do I at least have time to-"

"No, you don't." Zuzanna pulled him over to the couch. "Change," she ordered, pointing at the tuxedo.

Peder stared at her for a second. But Zuzanna gestured vigorously and he obeyed.

"What is this about?" he asked while stripping down.

"I got that meeting-the one with the Yakuza contacts. Of course we have to meet them in person-and in Tokyo - and tonight. So I got us opera tickets as a cover."

"Oh, the Yakuza contacts ... This is, uh ... This is for that ISSO job, right?"

Zuzanna's gaze sharpened. "Yes, Peder, the one you insisted you come with me on?" she flustered.

"Forgive my dimness, it was out of my cache." He was down to his underwear and began dressing back up.

"But the opera's tonight," Zuzanna continued, "so, with the time difference, I had to get us reservations on the 1100 maglev from Stockholm down to Warsaw. From there we catch the WorldRail and take the Asian Spur all the way in to Tokyo, and we arrive just in time."

He had finished the basics of his clothing and was now fiddling with zippers and buttons.

"Deal with those on the way," said Zuzanna. "I have your car waiting for us upstairs."

***

For any given world city, A, it could generally be said that, 'Vidprints are to A as leaves are to a forest.' Thus, if one went to New York, Hong Kong, Paris, etc., one could count on every facade, sidewalk, floor, wall, and ceiling to be covered with vidprints pumping out warring cacophonies of photons and sound waves. Impressive, but, if that was what every world city were doing, then obviously Tokyo had to take it to an even more ludicrous extreme.

While regular world cities paved their roads with asphalt and put vidprints on the sidewalks, Tokyo paved everything with vidprints. And, even when there were no ads to show on them, they still pulsed with lava lamp-style undulations excited by the foot and vehicle traffic running atop. Regular world cities sometimes wrapped entire buildings in vidprints, but Tokyo wrapped every building in vidprints, and floated kilotons of nanites between them to render 3-D sky images. Regular world cities put vidprints on their bike paths and park benches, but Tokyo had paved over its parks entirely to create 'vidparks'-showcases of far superior, computer-simulated nature. Knit together, Tokyo's vidprints formed an astounding, electronic skin that entirely insulated the city from the dirtworld.

The moment Peder and Zuzanna stepped off of the WorldRail in Tokyo, they were deep inside of this magical experience. Peder was instantly overwhelmed, as every surface was a pulsing plasma canvas demanding attention. And, once they climbed up through Tokyo Station and surfaced in the middle of Chiyoda-one of the capital's tributary sub-cities-, he saw that the only free surface area left was the sky.

As they walked towards the cabstand, Peder's OHUD began pulling all of the Japanese characters out of his vision and tagging them with German translations. But he quickly turned this option off. Without translation, the symbols remained ineffable and mysterious, like listening to an aria in a strange language. Unfettered by meaning, the words assumed a melting air of pure emotion, and they touched something more than could be achieved with the crass grasp of comprehension. He felt awash in a sea of profundity as he treaded those kanji- and kana-wafting streets. And, with Zuzanna at his side, they seemed to be the protagonists of some phantasmagoric modern opera. Subsumed in a score that was devoid of meaning but bursting with sensation-just as the modern world was bursting with motions, thoughts, words, ideas, dreams - far too many to ever stop and digest, that one could only echo back in endlessly rejoining permutation.

Peder and Zuzanna grabbed a taxi, gave their destination, and were off. Low-rise buildings-here metered in mere 'tens' of stories-boxed in every street. High-rises-up to a hundred stories-appeared severally to every block. But peeking in from between those, standing impossibly high, were the matchless arcologies. As they drove, Peder fixed his eye on those far-off spires, but they refused to flinch to parallax, seeming to live on an infinitely distant background plane. The arcojungle was so dense that Peder did not see their destination-the two-kilometer-high Sakai Arcology-until they were turning the corner onto it.

The Sakai's design was roughly inspired by the Eiffel Tower, only the Sakai was six-strutted instead of four-, reached seven times higher, and had a base a kilometer wide. Their taxi took one of the many expressway exits bound for it and was soon sucked into the elaborate traffic circles and overpasses that played Möbius-like around its base. They were swallowed by a tunnel leading into one of the Sakai's feet and embarked on a labyrinthine tour of its bowels.

Their tunnel eventually dilated and merged with others, and their taxi shot out along the outer edge of a great dome. This was one of the transit hubs at the heart of the arcology, sitting under the main spire. At the dome's center was an island elevated by a curb, and this served as the terminus for the many lift stalks that reached down from the ceiling. Around this island the dome floor was an unmarked avenue, full of cars circulating ice skater-like in the same direction, gradually curving in and out. Their taxi wove its way through the traffic and deposited them at the curb.

After flashing their tickets to the hub's net, arrows appeared in their OHUDs directing them to a specific lift. It appeared to be reserved exclusively for concert guests, as it was collecting people dressed in black tie and evening gowns. The floor was also planted with many holo-women in Sakai uniforms, who bowed to patrons and echoed the OHUD arrows with their own arm motions.

Peder and Zuzanna joined the crowd at the lift, and a three-story car descended noiselessly down the trunk. A Japanese woman exited-a Sakai employee but dressed in a ball gown herself-and gestured them inside.

The lift began its ascent, quickly piercing the transit hub's roof and driving up the arcology's spire. The car and lift tube were transparent, so they saw the arcology's levels winking past dozens a second. All these flickering glances of people and places teased their vision like a schizophrenic zoetrope.

A minute later Peder felt his stomach crest as they decelerated, and the car came to a halt in an immaculate transit bay. This was the receiving station at the peak of the arcology. They disembarked and followed the final escalators upwards.

When they stepped out onto the Sakai's roof, Peder heard Zuzanna gasp at his side. Before them was a sky of vibrant red streaked with purple and violet, and it hung so close and rich it was consuming. Peder had heard about this 'Tokyo Sky.' The city was always breathing out an exotic mixture of chemicals and pollutants that was as proprietary as the formula for Coca-Cola. When sunset shone on that canvas, it produced colors and effects that were unique in the Human universe. And, with the Sakai's unchallenged height, there was nothing to obtrude the scene. Where the roof fell away there seemed to be the very end of the world.

The change for them was wondrous. They were in the heart of one of the most crowded, strident cities on the planet. Every second till then had been dominated by pulsing photons, screeching sounds, and a glut of people. But suddenly they were alone and all was still. At this peak there was nothing but silence and the infinite sky.

For some reason he found himself turning towards Zuzanna. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye. ... And he saw her glancing narrowly back.

He turned a little farther. ... And she mirrored his action again.

This time he looked at her fully. She returned his eyes. And there ... they paused.

He could not read her look precisely. She merely seemed to be ... noticing him. Re-appraising. As if, when such a rare new light were shown on a long-familiar object, it was only fair to examine it afresh.

And she did seem to find something new as her eyes traced over his face. -And in a moment there flashed some spark between them that caused her to turn away. Yet she was carrying something subtly more with her.

Inside Peder grinned.

He placed his other hand over Zuzanna's, fastening her arm gently but more securely into his. She relaxed a little more at his side. Then he turned them around and they walked into the opera house.

 

 

 

Chapter 2 - Too

 

Townsend awoke with a start. "-What? Where are we?"

"Just arriving at the Sakai," said Zhang.

"The Sakai?"

Townsend thought back ... He remembered getting the flash back in Stockholm that Mukhina and Kjaerstad were headed to Tokyo for their meetup with the Yakuza. He and Zhang had grabbed their own seats on the WorldRail, and Townsend had slept the whole way. Next was a dim memory of Zhang getting him up long enough to transfer to a police hover, and now he saw the great arcology ahead. Zhang looked to be angling for a docking bay at 1500 meters' height.

"Oh, right," Townsend muttered, yawning.

After landing they were met by Commissioner Yoshitada, commander of the arcology's internal security forces. He was accompanied by a quorum of peons. Zhang handled the introductions with his mannequin-trusty Japanese, and Townsend followed along in his OHUD translation pane. But he soon felt he must be missing something because someone would speak for a full ten seconds, and then all his translator would give him was a terse 'Thank you, Commissioner' or a 'Very honored, sir.'

After a round of bowing, they set off towards the security center. Zhang now deferred to Townsend, as it was Lontan protocol to let the 'native' take point in any Human-Human interactions.

"Well-" Townsend began, and he immediately heard the coarseness of this English syllable. "We explained on our way over that we just need to keep an eye on Mukhina while she's inside. We doubt she'll meet the Yakuza here in the arco-it's too public. But we can't be too cautious."

"Of course," said Yoshitada.

"Any assistance we can give the ISSO," added his second-in-command.

 

 

 

Chapter 3 - Third

 

Willoch was asleep when the alert message arrived. Before even opening her eyes she saw a flashing red window dominating her OHUD. She entered her access codes to clear the alarm and bring up the attached message.

One line into it she was already scrambling back into her uniform.

A third pirate hypercomm signal had been detected; cast from the Earth; again no response from the Hezokeen fleet.

Invasion.

Once she was out the door she did not head for Gateway's situation room, though. She had only spent the last alert there because she had arrived late on the scene. But, if this were to be the finale, she could not bear it sitting around in HQ. She had to be out in the field.

She headed for the nearest docking bay and called ahead to reserve a shuttle. She found this awaiting her, and she gave its autopilot a course to rendezvous with the Norwegian flagship, the Yggdrasil. The great carrier was assembling with the other fleets around Persephone orbit, and it would take the shuttle an hour to get there from Gateway.

The shuttle sliced its umbilicals and pulled out of the bay. After a minute of wading through Gateway's space traffic, it transited to hyperspace immediately.

Once underway, Willoch logged into the admirals' channel. She ran the sim in double-vision mode: whenever her eyes were open, she saw the inside of the shuttle where she physically was; but, whenever she closed her eyes, the sim took over and she saw her virtual self sitting in the situation room.

"I'm with you, Lene," said Admiral Lightman as she appeared. "Can't sit this one out."

She saw that he was telepresenting from another shuttle and was on his way out to the US flagship, the Yorktown.

Reviewing the room's minutes, Willoch saw that the essentials had already been covered: the leaders were informed, the fleets would be collected in half an hour, and planetary evacuation forces were gearing up. New civilian space traffic was restricted, and it could be recalled to port the instant the first Hezokeen ship was sighted.

There was only one thing missing from the list.

"Have the Lontans gotten a fix on the third signal yet?" Willoch asked.

"Oh, yes," said Suvorov, and he forwarded her the report from the Lontan Governate. Willoch would have received a copy of this herself, but in her hurry to leave Gateway she must have missed it.

She opened Suvorov's link and skipped down to the localization map. It showed the plots of the two previous intercepts, plus now a third oval. The latest one was only half the size of the last, but it still spanned an unhelpfully large area. Its center lay off the coast of the Low Countries, with the southeastern UK, northern France, and a sliver of Denmark and Scandinavia still up for contention.

"Damn," said Willoch. "Still can't nail it down."

"But it wouldn't have told us much, anyway," said Admiral Cao. "Even finding the city where the Hezokeen's agents are, that would still leave us a city to search. And then they've now just sent their last signal, so what's the use of arresting them?"

Some of the admirals shrugged in agreement, but Willoch frowned. It worried her that the Hezokeen agents had the ability to repeatedly confound the Lontans.

She only said to Cao, "I hope you're right."