Ion 417: Raiju (25 page)

"I was trying to find the place my mother had been, and ran into an angry bear. He bit me and clawed pretty good."

"And that's why you got the shirt with the bear on it?"

"My clothes had gotten torn up and covered in blood. The clothes they give in hospitals just don't protect very well. Plus I was trying to hide from some FBI's that were coming for me."

She just stared at me for a few minutes. I kept expecting another question, but instead she grabbed my arm to shove through the other riders and we made it off the bus at the next stop it made. For a moment I thought my story had upset her, but her attention shifted straight to the row of shops we now faced.

I couldn't believe how many different shops there were in the one row. This world was getting bigger every time I blinked. The one we stood before held hundreds of different flowers. I heard her talking, but my attention had wandered a bit to sniffing all of the different bundles of blooms that adorned the racks around us. I couldn't help myself; there were so many new and wonderful things around me to see and smell.

Her soft laugh drew my attention back, "Just when I have my mind set about how alien you are, you go and smell the lilies."

  I hurried to catch up, and we continued on past a few more shops before she finally paused in front of an unusual one. She leaned over to whisper to me that we had arrived. Sakura suggested that I let her do the bartering, and I should look throughout the shop as though I was interested in the things they had for sale.

I think she was partially joking as she said it, from the smile that turned the corner of her mouth. Being interested was not a problem as the shop was full of everything one could imagine. It was similar to the starship salvager on Rage's moon, but these weren't starship parts.

Glass cases held jewelry and body ornamentation, right next to a hundred different versions of personal communicators. Sakura headed for the counter at the back as I perused an aisle of basic tools. Panzo would have laughed at such simple implements.

They bartered for several minutes before the exchange happened. The gold was taken into the back of the shop, and he returned with a very large stack of the paper currency. She even got him to include the bag he carried the currency in.

With the money exchange completed, we walked back toward where we had stepped off of the bus. I did my best not to run up to every shop that had merchandise set out by the windows, trying to imitate Sakura's indifference to our surroundings with little success. The shops on Reliance Station would have cringed at the selection available here.

On Reliance they had the grassy areas arched over by walkways, but this place held more life to it. Everywhere I looked there were people, and more people. All of them added to the feeling of this being a lively place. And all along the walkways here were trees planted to shade the walks with green light.

I nearly walked right into one such tree before Sakura's hand pulled me into a shop full of plastic heads. Well, actually they were selling the hair hats on the plastic heads.

The man tending the shop came rushing to help her, but she waved him back with a flip of her hand. I thought her hair looked nice; I didn't know why she would be looking for a replacement until she lifted one to set on my head.

She had selected one that was long enough to reach down to my knees. Sakura smiled at what she saw, and led me to a small room barely big enough for the two of us. The scarf came off, and the wig settled in place. With a little adjustment all of my hair tucked up leaving no trace of the greenish-black. I looked completely different in the very long black.

I tried to argue that most of the women that we'd passed on the street had much shorter hair, and this would just bring extra attention when I was trying to avoid that.

She shook her head, "This is attention that you want. They will see the hair and look no further."

She handed me a pair of darkened glasses as well. Looking in the mirror I could see the resemblance to my mother even more so with tan coloring on my skin. With her help I purchased the items from one of the smaller stacks of currency. All of them had numbers in the corner that denoted value.

We were continuing back to the bus stop when she suddenly stopped before a shop that advertised for tanning. She laughed and changed course to drag me through the door to this shop where a girl that didn't look much older than Sai stood behind the counter in a small outfit consisting of a few triangles held in place with tiny straps.

As I looked around the shop I noticed several of the plastic people used for displaying clothing, although unlike on Reliance Station, these were all Human shaped. All of them wore clothing very much like the shop keeper, in various colors and patterns.

The tan coloring on my face only extended to just below the neck of the shirt I wore. If she expected me to change into something like the triangles, I'd stick out like a nova. Even the long wig wouldn't hide that.

"Sakura?"

"You really could do with a tan, but we should get the instant kind."

Sakura pulled a few of the currency from the stack, and purchased a few cans of what the girl called Tan in a can. As soon as she had the small disks of change, she led me through a beaded curtain into the back room.

Here there were several machines that could easily be confused for a bio bed, save that they did nothing more than bathe the person in bright lights.

Along the side wall were a few small cubicles for changing clothes. She closed us in one such booth, and helped me strip off the disguise she had so carefully crafted this morning. Even the wig came off, leaving me naked from the waist up.

"Now close your eyes without scrunching them, and hold still."

Sakura sprayed my whole face, and even down my arms. Turning a few times so that she could reach all of the spots got me covered nicely in only about five minutes.

This time when I put the shirt back on, she had me roll up the sleeves a little bit so they came only to my elbows. That way I'd be a lot more comfortable in the thirty degree weather outside.

"Nobody wears long sleeves this time of year, and you can even cry in this stuff without smearing it like the makeup would. They make it so people can swim in it without it coming off."

The tanning spray felt odd, but if it helped me blend in with everyone else that was a good thing, right? It helped a bit more when the shopkeeper told me that I looked better too.

She pointed out one of the plastic people, "You'll look even better in one of the new Totoro suits that came in last week. Everyone raves about the wicked metallic look."

I didn't have anything like these suits, so I picked out one in gold; I thought it would match my eyes. As soon as it was paid for Sakura hurried me out of the shop.

"Just where are you going to wear that?"

"I uhh..."

I looked around and realized that there wasn't a single person in view that wore anything like it. The men all wore pants and shirts, many of them with jackets over the shirt as well. Not a single bare chested man in sight. I saw one woman with a short blouse that allowed a strip of her belly to show, and a skirt that was well above the knees, but nobody wore the triangles.

"Maybe when you find your family they can take you to a secluded beach where you can wear that. For now we need to get something other than a bear shirt."

Across the street was another shop that specialized in more substantial clothing. Even before we were all the way into the shop, a young woman approached offering to find anything we desired. It was like being back on Reliance Station, browsing through a shop that went deep into a freighter hold. The big difference was that all of these were styled for women. Everything had color too. Sakura waved the disappointed girl away, telling her we needed a bit of time.

After pulling a few things off the rack, only to have Sakura put them back, she had me stand still while she did the selecting. The third one that she held up against my chest looked cute, and she paused for a moment. The next thing I know, she grabs my hand and lifts it to hang the dress there like it was an extra clothing rack. A giggle drew my attention over a few racks where a younger girl was posed just like I was. Her mother was holding a dress up to her with an expression mirroring the one Sakura had. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I think the sniffle caught Sakura's attention.

"Is that getting too heavy on your hand? What brought the crying?"

"This is something my mother would have done, isn't it?"

She glanced over to where the mother was measuring a blue and yellow dress that clearly the girl didn't like. Sakura gave me a nod, "This is how I shop for Hiro and Sai."

With the dresses in hand, our next task was to ensure that they fit me. I started to pull the shirt off, and Sakura hurriedly shoved me to the back of the shop. I should have known that just like the shop across the street, you get undressed in a booth toward the back of the shop.

There was a mirror so that I could see myself, only it wasn't me that looked back. It was like staring at my mother. With the tan skin I looked like she had in the images, only less bruised and battered.

At first she wanted to get just one set of clothes, and I couldn't decide between seven. We settled on four. When we paid for them, Sakura told the girl to mark them as her sales. This brightened her mood considerably, and she dropped in a tiny bottle in the bag with the clothes as an extra gift.

The other three sets of clothes were packaged to be sent to Sakura's home. The bear shirt and pants I gladly dropped in the recycler bin. I was done with bears.

We stepped forth from the shop ready for the next thing on Sakura's list. I left it up to her to know what we needed to do because this was all new to me. With the new flowered dress and long black hair, Sakura pronounced me ready to face the challenge of my identity.

Not far from where we had stepped off the bus was a place to board another form of transport; this one on long rails to guide it. It was only about ten minutes before the next train bound for Sendai arrived, and whisked us off toward the government offices there. Mr. Motogawa had created my identity in the computer, and now I needed to transfer that into the world of people.

She had planned this whole trip out in a matter of minutes, or at the most, overnight. So far it was working better than my escape plan that had taken years to set up. In just a few hours I had gained an identity, and altered my appearance to blend in with the rest of my fellow Humans.

If it had been just me planning, I probably would have tried walking into the city alone and green. I have no idea how far that would have gotten me before the police caught me like they had with Panzo. I could just imagine Traxel trying to bargain my freedom then.

Riding the train energized me. I could feel the electricity in the wire above it powering the motors below my feet. It was nearly the same sensation I had felt while I was crawling through the innards of the zeta field assembly. I resisted the temptation to pull some of that power to me. I didn't know if I could, but the urge was there.

The train stopped right in front of a very grand looking plaza, filled with trees and flowers. It was what I would have expected of a planet that boasted so much life on it. Everything was green, except the people.

Our destination was a tall building at the far end of the plaza; it held the prefecture offices. The train ride had brought my mood to near bubbling, and Sakura tried not to laugh too much as I danced around a fountain. When I jumped into the water to splash through it, she shrieked. Dancing in the fountain would bring attention I didn't want she said. It was still fun even though it was the bland water.

Inside the big building there seemed to be hundreds of people all rushing about as though they were late getting to where they needed to be, and all of them wearing the dark suits of businessmen. Most of them seemed to know precisely where they were headed, though others stood staring at the directory board like we were.

"They have a department for foreign affairs, is that where I need to go?"

"Third floor, resident registration."

This was like trying to solve a puzzle equation in four dimensions. Everyone we talked to needed something from someone else. Eventually we found the right person to materialize a paper copy of the birth record Mr. Motogawa had created.

I had to wonder why they would banish such an important personage to the second basement vault. The man we met there seemed to have access to all the information on everyone that had ever been born in Miyagi Prefecture. Unfortunately his expertise ended at births; we had to return to the fourth level up to locate the record keeper for driving.

They had difficulty finding a record of my driving license, mostly because it didn't exist in their filing drawers. I started to explain about Mr. Motogawa's work, but Sakura poked me.

"He is not here to say that he saw your license."

With the record of my birth and kind words from Sakura, they filled out a form granting me a temporary license until the mess could be fixed. Somehow I had graduated from a driving school six years ago. Sakura shushed me when I tried asking her about why I needed a license to drive.

Three hours had passed by the time we left the prefecture offices. But now I had traded half of a stack of currency for paper identification proving that I lived in Sendai. I guess officials aren't happy till they have papers for everything. The lady on the seventh floor glared when I asked if I needed to fill out a form to ask her a question.

Two blocks of walking brought us to a money broker where I could store the stacks of currency that I didn't want to carry. The sign in the window suggested that I open a savings account for my education.

Sakura led the way inside where we met a woman who happily agreed to open an account for me. All I needed to do was to fill out fourteen different forms, but when I started setting the stacks of currency on the desk, she gasped and called over an older man to replace her.