"Could I talk to her for a bit?" It was the
male speaking this time. Ichiko no longer felt like talking, but he was
addressing Gumi, not her.
"Sure," said Gumi. "There's some things
you can explain better than I could."
The man stepped forward, placing a hand on the railing at
the side of Ichiko's bed. "Ichiko… look at me," he said. He tried to
sound gentle, but with the metallic quality of his voice, it sounded more like
a harsh whisper. It began to dawn on Ichiko exactly why his voice sounded like
it did. Even so, however, she still could not bring herself to face him.
"I can understand if you don't want to look at
yourself," the man continued. "Neither did I, at first. But please,
at least look at me."
Reluctantly, Ichiko rolled over in bed, wincing a little,
to gaze upon the man standing beside her. He was wearing all black, and had
short black hair with a piercing gaze. His mouth was covered by a balaclava,
but as he pulled it down around his neck, Ichiko saw that his entire lower jaw
was constructed from a dull grey metal. She then realized that the hand
clutching the bed rail was also bionic: a grey, skeletal model, with the inner
workings visible inside. Her first thought was that it was rather disturbing,
but then she remembered that her own hands - both of them - were now exactly
the same.
"I was also killed by the Rising Sun," said the
man. "I found it ironic, in a way. I'd spent three years fighting for this
nation, I'd survived the bloodiest conflict of the 21st century, and then a
bunch of domestic terrorists go and blow me up. But I was lucky. Professor
Toriyama had noticed my potential, and he rebuilt me just as he rebuilt
you."
That answered that particular question. This was indeed
the Toriyama Institute, and the man who had saved her was indeed Professor
Satoshi Toriyama, the inventor of the Cyborg System. But there were still so
many other questions left unanswered. "But… why?" she asked.
"What potential? What is it about us in particular that… made him…"
As her pain began to flare up yet again, Ichiko winces, inhaled sharply, and
replaced her oxygen mask, trying to relax.
"Professor Toriyama wants to atone for what his
research was used for during the South China War," said the man. "He
also wants to protect Tokyo from the new menace of the Rising Sun. To that end,
he is putting together a team of gifted Cyborgs to protect the city from acts
of terror, as well as other criminal activities. There are already four of us,
and you, Ichiko St. Clare, make five. Your intellect, supplemented by the computers
built into your bionic eye, will prove invaluable to us."
The man's robotic hand tightened around the bed rail, his
expression growing uneasy. "I'm afraid that this is non-negotiable,"
he continued. "You are obliged to join this task force. I can understand
if you don't want to, but at the same time… you can feel it, can't you? The
desire to avenge yourself. The desire to stop the Rising Sun from hurting
anyone else the way they hurt you. I felt it too, after I learned what had
happened to me. In time, we will both get our revenge. The Rising Sun will
fall. Trust me on that."
Ichiko nodded. It made sense. A task force made of
Cyborgs, even a small one, could solve and prevent crimes much faster and
easier than a conventional human task force, what with their robotic
augmentations. That being said, Cyborgs were viewed as little more than
unethical biological weapons by the vast majority of people, so there was no
doubt that people would get in their way. But
that can't be helped at this point, thought Ichiko. I'm already a Cyborg. No matter where I go now, or what I do, people
will look at me the same way they'd look at a nuclear warhead or a sample of
anthrax. If I'm going to be a weapon, I might as well be a weapon of good. If
there even is such a thing.
In any case, she
thought, he's right. I want to get
revenge against Rising Sun for what they've done to me. I want to make it so
that nobody else ever has to go through what I have. And not just the dying,
but the rebuilding. I'm used to being stigmatized, being half-American, but
that's nothing compared to what I'll face now that I'm a Cyborg. I can't blame
the professor for rebuilding me, so I'll blame the Rising Sun for making him
have to. We can destroy them. Together, we can destroy them. I know it.
Finally, Ichiko removed her oxygen mask, and nodded.
"Okay," she said. "I'll join you. Even if I don't have a choice,
it's still what I want to do."
The man nodded, and extended his bionic arm towards Ichiko.
"My name is Ryuto Murakami," he said. "Welcome to Cyborg Team
Alpha."
Ichiko reached up, and for the first time she took notice
of her own bionic hand. Sure enough, it was identical to Ryuto's, though a little
smaller and slimmer. After a moment's hesitation, she gently took hold of his
hand. The sensation in her bionic limbs seemed to have finally kicked in, for she
could feel the coldness and hardness of Ryuto's hand in hers. She knew it was
only bionic sensors giving her this information, not her own nervous system,
but even so, the sensations in her robotic fingertips were as real as though
she had never lost her hand at all. If not for the steel-grey, skeletal
appearance of the prosthetic, poking out from beneath her bed sheets like a
ghastly wraith, she could forget that it wasn't the real thing.
"Thank you, Ryuto," she said, shaking his hand.
"You too, Gumi. And, also… if you could… please bring Professor Toriyama
here, so I can thank him personally. He did save my life, after all… in a manner
of speaking."
Ryuto nodded, his half-metal mouth twisting into
something that may have been a smile. "Of course," he said. "I
imagine he'll want to see you as well; he'll be glad to know that the reconstruction
was a success."
"He's over in his office," said Gumi. "I'll
go and fetch him."
Ryuto nodded, and
Gumi left the room. As she did so, Ichiko noticed that her footsteps sounded
rather metallic, and a little heavy. From this, she could surmise that Gumi had,
at the very least, had her feet replaced. She had, after all, mentioned that
she was also a Cyborg. Ichiko couldn't help wondering for a moment what had
happened to her, and what the full extent of her rebuild was, but she knew better
than to ask. It was most likely a touchy subject, and she didn't want to pry
into the personal history of a woman she'd only met five minutes ago. Instead,
she replaced her oxygen mask and closed her one remaining normal eye, resting a
little while she waited for the professor to arrive.
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