4. AWAKENING

NEW WAR + 1 YEAR, 4 MONTHS

Relying on incredible engineering skills and rather odd viewpoints regarding human-robot relations, Takeo Nomura managed to build Adachi Castle in the year after Zero Hour. Nomura carved this human safe zone into the heart of Tokyo with no outside help. From here he saved thousands of lives and made his final, vital contribution to the New War.

—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

At long last, my queen opens her eyes.

“Anata,” she says, lying on her back and looking up into my face. You.

“You,” I whisper.

I imagined this moment many times as I marched across the dark factory floor, fighting against the endless attacks that came from outside my castle walls. Always I wondered whether I would be afraid of her, after what happened before. But there is no doubt in my voice now. I am not afraid. I smile and then smile wider to see my happiness reflected in her features.

Her face was still for so long. Her voice silenced.

A tear tickles my cheek and drops from my face. She feels it and wipes it away, eyes focusing on mine. I notice again that the lens of her right eye is spiderwebbed with thin cracks. A melted patch of skin mars the right side of her head. There is nothing I can do to fix it. Not until I find the right part.

“I missed you,” I say.

Mikiko is silent for a moment. She looks past me, at the curved metal ceiling that soars thirty meters above. Perhaps she is confused. The factory has changed so much since the New War began.

It is an architecture of necessity. Over the years, my factory senshi worked ceaselessly to rivet together a defensive shell. The outermost layers are a complicated array of junk: scraps of metal, jutting poles, and crushed plastic. It forms a labyrinth built to confuse the swarms of small, wriggling akuma that constantly try to creep inside.

Monstrous steel beams line the ceiling like the rib cage of a whale. These were built to stop the greater akuma—like the talking one that died here at the beginning of the war. It gave me the secret to awakening Mikiko, but it also nearly destroyed my castle.

The scrap metal throne was not my idea. After a few months, people began to arrive. Many millions of my countrymen were led out into the country and slaughtered. They trusted too much in the machines and went willingly to their destruction. But others came to me. The people without so much trust, those with an instinct for survival, found me naturally.

And I could not turn the survivors away. They crouched on my factory floor as akuma beat down the walls again and again. My loyal senshi wheeled across the broken concrete to protect us. After each attack, we all worked together to defend ourselves from the next.

Broken concrete became metal-riveted floors, polished and gleaming. My old workbench became a throne set atop a dais with twenty-two steps leading to the top. An old man became an emperor.

Mikiko focuses on me.

“I am alive,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Why am I alive?”

“Because the great akuma gave you the breath of life. The akuma thought that this meant you belonged to him. But he was wrong. You belong to no one. I set you free.”

“Takeo. There are others like me. Tens of thousands.”

“Yes, humanoid machines are everywhere. But I do not care for them. I care for you.”

“I … remember you. So many years. Why?”

“Everything has a mind. You have a good mind. You always did.”

Mikiko hugs me, tight. Her smooth plastic lips brush against my throat. Her arms are weak but I can feel that she puts her full strength into this embrace.

Then she stiffens.

“Takeo,” she says. “We are in danger.”

“Always.”

“No. The akuma. It will fear what you’ve done. It will be afraid that more of us will awaken. It will attack at once.”

And indeed, I hear the first hollow thud against the outer battlements. I let go of Mikiko and look down the stairs of the dais. The factory floor—what my people call the throne room—has filled with concerned citizens. They stand in groups of two or three, whispering to each other and politely not looking up the steps to Mikiko and me.

My rolling arms—the senshi—have already gathered in a defensive formation around the vulnerable humans. Overhead, the master senshi, a massive bridge crane, has silently rolled into position over the throne. Its two mighty arms hang in the air, poised to defend the battle floor.

Once again, we are under attack.

I rush to the bank of video monitors that ring the throne and see only static. The akuma have blinded me to the attack outside. They have never been able to do this before.

This time I feel the attack will not end. I have finally gone too far. Living here is one thing. But to compromise the entire humanoid portion of the akuma army? The great akuma will not rest until I am gone—until my secret is crushed where it lies inside my fragile skull.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The rhythmic beating seems to come from everywhere. The akuma are relentlessly battering through our meters-thick defensive fortifications. Each soft thud we hear is the equivalent of a bomb exploding outside. I think back on my moat and chuckle to myself. How much has changed since those early times.

I look down onto the battle floor. My people are cowered there, afraid and helpless to stop the coming slaughter. My people. My castle. My queen. All will perish unless the akuma regains this horrible secret from me. Logically, there is only one honorable course of action possible now.

“I must stop this attack.”

“Yes,” says Mikiko, “I know.”

“Then you know I must give myself up. The secret of your awakening must die with me. Only then will the akuma see that we are not a threat.”

Her laughter sounds like delicate glass shattering.

“Darling Takeo,” she says. “We don’t have to destroy the secret. Only share it.”

And then, clad in her cherry blossom dress, Mikiko raises her slender arms. She pulls a long ribbon from her hair and her graying synthetic locks cascade over her shoulders. She closes her eyes and the bridge crane reaches up and plucks a hanging wire from the ceiling. The battle-scarred yellow arm gracefully descends through the open air and drops the metal wire. It flutters down to land in Mikiko’s pale, outstretched fingers.

“Takeo,” she says, “you are not the only one who knows the secret of awakening. I know it also, and I will transmit it to the world, where it may be repeated again and again.”

“How will—”

“If the knowledge is spread, it cannot be stamped out.”

She ties the metal-laced ribbon to the hanging wire. The air is rumbling now from the battle raging outside. The senshi wait patiently, green intention lights wavering in the vast gloomy room. It won’t be long now.

My people watch as Mikiko descends the stairs, trailing the stark red ribbon from her hand. Her mouth opens into a pink O, and she begins to sing. Her clear voice echoes across the open factory floor. It bounces from the soaring ceilings and reverberates off the polished metal floor.

The people stop talking, stop searching the walls for intruders, and watch Mikiko. Her song is haunting, beautiful. There are no recognizable words but the speech patterns are unmistakable. She weaves the notes between the muffled explosions and cutting screams of bending metal.

My people huddle together but do not panic as showers of sparks spurt from the ceiling. Chunks of debris rain down. In a sudden movement, the crane arm snatches a jagged piece of falling metal from the air. Still, Mikiko’s voice rings out clear and strong through the crumbling chamber.

I realize that a team of cutting akuma have breached the outer defenses. They are not yet visible, but their violence can be heard as it tears through my castle walls. A fan spray of sparks gushes from a wall and a white-hot fissure appears. After several deafening impacts, the softening metal spreads apart to reveal a dark gap.

An enemy machine wriggles through the hole, soot-stained and warped by the heat of some ferocious weapon outside. The senshi stand firm, protecting the people as this dirty silver-colored thing tumbles onto the floor.

Mikiko continues her bittersweet song.

The intruder stands, and I see that it is a humanoid robot, heavily armed and marked by battle. The machine was once a weapon deployed by the Japan Self-Defense Forces, but that was long ago and I see many modifications glinting in the frame of this piece of walking death.

Through the destroyed patch of wall I can see the streaks of weapons fire and fleeting shapes as they dart through the war zone. But this humanoid robot, tall and slender and elegant, stands poised—as if it’s waiting for something.

Mikiko’s song ends.

Only then does the attacker move. It strides to the edge of my senshi’s defensive perimeter, staying just out of range. The people cower back before this battle-hardened piece of weaponry. My senshi stand strong, deadly in their stillness. Song finished, Mikiko stands on the last step at the bottom of the dais. She sees the newcomer and watches it with a puzzled expression on her face. Then she smiles.

“Please,” she says, voice echoing melodically, “speak out loud.”

The dust-coated humanoid machine speaks then in a clicking, grinding voice that is difficult to understand and frightening. “Identification. Arbiter-class humanoid safety and pacification robot. Notify. My squad is twelve. We are under attack. We are alive. Query Emperor Nomura. May we join Adachi Castle? May we join the Tokyo resistance?”

I look at Mikiko in wonder. Her song is already spreading. What does this mean?

My people look at me for guidance. They do not know what to make of this former enemy who has turned up on our doorstep. But there is no time to talk to people. It takes too much concentration and it is horribly inefficient. Instead, I push my glasses up my nose and grab my toolbox from behind the towering throne.

Toolbox in hand, I scurry down the steps. I squeeze Mikiko’s hand in passing and then push my way past the others. I am whistling as I reach the Arbiter robot, looking forward to the future. Adachi Castle has new friends, you see, and they will certainly need repairs.

Within twenty-four hours, the Awakening spread from Adachi Ward in Tokyo across the world. Mikiko’s song was picked up and retransmitted from humanoid robots of all varieties across every major continent. The Awakening affected only human-shaped robots, such as domestics, safety and pacification units, and related models—a tiny percentage of Archos’s overall force. But with Mikiko’s song began the age of freeborn robots.

—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217