Ion 417: Raiju (27 page)

Her gasp also drew Akita's attention, and she snapped at him to keep staring at the wall. I couldn't tell what she was thinking. She was in one of her 'planning everything' moments.

"It... It looks fine. Let's just get your arms fixed so you can be seen. We can even spray that spot in case someone looks close."

TOC

JU ICHI

She was right, now that the immediacy of the situation was done, it was time to take care of the minor things. I could manage most of the spraying, but she saw a spot that she wanted to touch up better. When she cried out in pain at lifting a simple spray can I knew her injuries must have been a lot deeper than they looked.

Akita turned around ignoring her protests, and helped her sit back down in the chair. Then turning back to me I could see the anger in his eyes. His voice echoed off the walls of the office.

"If not for you she would never have been in that crowd. Now she may need stitches for that cut, and who knows how bad her arm is."

Part of me wanted to lash out at his harsh words, while the other half could feel his concern and quelled the impulse to let loose with bolt of energy. Add to that the fact that I was hungry from all the energy I'd used on the crowd, and the healing where I'd been shot.

"I didn't know that she was this fragile. I tried protecting her when the crowd got angry, then I got shot. That's when I stopped them to get her out."

"What do you mean you go shot?"

"Right here, but it's fine now. She's the one that's hurt. We need to get her to a medical place."

He picked up the phone on the desk, and with the pressing of a few buttons was telling someone to have a car ready in two minutes. I was surprised that he managed to adopt a bit of calm as he talked into the phone, though it evaporated with the slamming of the phone back into its cradle.

"Now then."

"Akita! Please, I can't spray her arm. You will need to do it. You can save the yelling until we get home."

With restrained anger he took the can from her to complete the spraying of my arm. The task of getting it right seemed to calm him, as he slowed to focus on making sure all of the green was covered. Even his voice had softened as he stepped back to actually look at me for the first time since bringing us to this office.

"You look very different like this. Sakura's doing?"

I nodded, "She wanted to ensure that I wouldn't bring shame to you. I am now real person in Japan. I have resident card, and driver paper, and..."

Sakura gasped in pain once more, drawing our attention back to her. With our help she managed to stand and make her way to the door. Every step she took brought with it a tiny gasp as she battled to keep the pain down. Akita led us as far as an elevator before bidding us goodbye.

"Duty demands that I lead my men on taking care of the mess out there. I will be delayed getting home. I am placing her care in your hands. The driver will see that you make it to the hospital, now go."

As the door closed, I had to ask her, "Does the FBI come for everyone at hospitals, or only green people? I will not let them take you away."

She actually laughed at that remark, and then winced as the laugh brought pain, "The FBI is an American special police. They will not come to Japan, even for you."

"I did not know that you were injured so gravely. You will not cease functioning on me, will you?"

"I will get better, but it will take a few weeks I'm afraid."

When the elevator door opened once more, we were in an underground area full of hundreds of cars. One of them was sitting right in front of us with the door held open by a man.

"I'll have you to the hospital in no time. I owe your husband a favor, but I would do this anyway."

He pulled the car around and up a ramp into the open air. The paved path took us around to the front of the building where many of the local police were rounding up the members of the crowd. I only saw one body still lying on the ground, surrounded by orange tape. I guess my fan of lightning worked like I had hoped and only stunned them.

Our driver had to tell one of the police that he needed to get us to the hospital before they would move a barricade out of the way. As soon as he was beyond the milling people, he accelerated. In moments we were dodging back and forth between the other cars on the street, with occasional screeching tires as we came to intersections.

This hospital was far different than the one they'd taken me to in Yellowstone. For one thing, there were quite a few more medical staff running around working with the people that had all sorts of minor injuries, and some not so minor. While our driver was yelling at the lady behind the desk, they wheeled in a man that looked as though his chest had been torn open.

Blood had already soaked through the bandages wrapping him, and his wheeled bed had a bottle to drip blood back into him. The lady who was clinging to the corner of his bed wailed at him to not die on her.

"You promised me, ya was done with them masks. Them Shinjin Oni gonna make me widow before ya marries me."

I turned to Sakura, who was leaning half her weight on me to keep standing, "I thought you said the Oni were imaginary? How could an imaginary thing shoot that man?"

"The Shinjin Oni are not imaginary, nor are they really Demons. They just took the name of Demon Masks. They sow fear and pain to steal money and worse. I'm sorry to say that not all Humans are good."

Our driver had grabbed a nurse that he brought her back over to look at Sakura. The woman had been protesting until she caught sight of the bandaged head and swelling eye. The nurse turned on our driver, telling him to get out of her way and go do something useful like move his car so the ambulances could get in, "They are on the way with the first victims from the terrorist attack at Saikou Industries."

I had to hurry to keep up as she shoved Sakura ahead of her through the doors going deeper into the building in a wheeled chair. Between yelling at people to move out of her way, she was talking soft assurances to Sakura that everything would be fine. We ended the mad rush at a door marked with the same tri-foil symbol as the scanner room from the Yellowstone hospital.

Immediate panic set in as I recalled my bout with the scanner, "Those machines are dangerous!"

The nurse looked right at me, "Miss, this is just a simple X-ray. We do them all the time. It'll let us see about her arm.

Despite her assurances it worried me that I was shoved out of the room so they could scan her. The way she described it was taking images of the inside of the body by sending energy pulses through. Maybe that had been my problem.

In about ten minutes we were on our way to yet another room -- this time with a bed surrounded by monitor machines. Somehow they managed to fit two more guys in that room to lift her from the chair to the bed. As the men turned to leave, one of them turned on the view screen in the corner of the room. It brightened to a man discussing the near disaster still happening at Saikou Industries.

'While nothing is certain now, I have just received word that a statement had been delivered to our station mere moments before the explosions rocked through the crowd. Sakari Jinteki, the anti-robot group that made news with the hacking of two industrial dozers last year, claimed that they would prove how dangerous the Saikou robots were.

We now know that the blast which claimed the life of a security man, and injured Mr. Atsuura himself, was due to an explosive device hurled out of the crowd. It had been coordinated with a rush toward the building that was stopped with the aid of Sendai Police Department's latest crowd control gadget.'

The image on the screen changed to one taken just before the initial surge. It was focused directly on the new robot as it walked out of the doors and across the platform. Even as we watched, a slightly wavering line stretched out to connect to the robot's head in a fiery explosion.

'It will take some time to pick up the pieces because the prototype in question was destroyed by what seems to be a rocket propelled grenade. Another man died when he fell on the explosive device strapped to his chest. It is believed that the crowd control taser had paralyzed him, as he was running through the mass of people.

Police are still denying any knowledge of the taser; most likely trying to keep their newest toy secret. Several others have joined in with cheering their timely action that certainly saved many lives today.'

It was hard to read Sakura's face, "You did that, didn't you? You shocked that whole crowd. And your dress..."

"You fell down, and the kicking, and screaming, and then getting shot, and people running, and... And I tried not to hurt them. I didn't know about any explosives. I had to keep you safe. You're the closest I have to a mother now."

"So you used some wacky alien device to zap everyone? If you really got shot, where's the wound? Huh? The bullet must have just torn your dress a little."

"This blood stain is mine. The bullet went right through me. Luckily it hit nothing vital, and healed quickly. Remember how I told you I ran into a bear? That bear bit me, and tore up my side pretty bad. When I fell down in that camp it was from blood loss. I told you that I had other components used in the making of me. One of the minor ones was a Denevian snail that is named with a vulgarity due to its ability to heal so fast that they are nearly impossible to cut apart. Not one of my prouder claims to heritage, but still."

Sakura laughed a bit at that observation, causing another bout of pain. The images on the viewer kept cycling back to the one of the robot's head exploding. They weren't saying much that hadn't already been said. I was only partially listening to the announcer as my focus was on Sakura, but the next words drew both of us back to watch it once more.

'My wonderful viewers, we have just obtained footage from one of the cameras recording the event for an independent station. I'm told that it will be a shocking revelation about the reported crowd control device, and why the police aren't saying much about it.'

The view switched over to a scene obviously recorded before the crowd went wild. Panning along the front of the mass of cheering people until it caught one man pulling a pistol from his coat. It wasn't hard to see that we had been the people right in front of that man. The view was only a brief one, as his shove knocked Sakura over the cameraman. The image swung wildly before settling back toward the crowd as seen from the ground. In the edge of it was an outstretched yellow-green arm. A fan of lightning leapt from the fingers, spreading through the crowd. Then the image flared and died.

I heard the sharp intake of breath, and the gasp as it caused her pain. The narrator continued on, totally unaware of the shock that it had caused to Sakura. His overly excited voice rambled on to tell us that the image had been from a front line camera, burned out by the electrical surge.

The reporter rambled on with his story. 'It brings me back to stories I heard sitting on the steps of my grandmother's cottage in Takakura. She told us tales of the ancients, and how Raijin would send his pet down among the mortals. Nowadays such tales are thought to be nothing more than folklore, but can we be sure?'

Before she could say anything, the doctor arrived with black plastic pages in hand. She held them up to a light where it revealed images of rib bones, two of which had faint cracks showing. After poking Sakura's side for a moment, she finally spoke up with her thoughts.

"I'll need to wrap those ribs up good, but the eye will just have to heal on its own. Can you believe the mess out there? Terrorists right here in Sendai. I can hurry this so that you'll be out before they start bringing all of those guys in here. The ambulances will be arriving shortly."

She was given instructions to go home and rest. No cooking, cleaning, lifting, or intimate encounters for at least two weeks. While the nurse was waiting for the men to come help her stand, I lifted Sakura back onto her feet. That earned me another of her concerned looks. What had I done now? Everything I did seemed to be the wrong thing. At least once she was standing it was no trouble to walk. Back out at the main desk, we learned that Mr. Atsuura had called with instructions for the hospital to treat all of the victims on his expense. There was nothing more for us to do. The only ones exempted from that were the ones that the police arrested for causing trouble.

The trip home was hard on Sakura. We had to transfer trains along the way to make it back to where the bus would take us up the hill. It seemed like every jolt of the train brought a new bout of pain with it. When we stopped in the market place, she pointed out a shop that specialized in medicines.

"Let me stop in there to fill this prescription. I need something for the pain."

They had medicines for every type of ailment anyone could imagine. It made me wonder just how fragile most other Humans were. I couldn't ever remember a time that my intestines had moved without being cut open, so they were definitely not irregular. And just what was a wart? My fellow Humans needed a lot of special care.

Sakura was still explaining to the man behind the counter about which medicine she needed when Mr. Masema called. Her voice sounded totally relaxed as she promised to have dinner waiting for him, but as soon as she ended the communication she leaned on the counter. I could tell that pain was getting to her.

I insisted on buying the pills that promised to ease her pain with my own currency. It seemed the right thing to do after getting her involved in that mess with the mob. I knew it wasn't my fault, but Akita's words still rang in my ears. I had shortened the truth and trampled his hospitality.

"Can you really believe that?"

I turned at the voice to find some strange woman talking to me, "They actually want us to believe that the sorry excuse of a police force has some new weapon to handle crowds. They can't even handle the Shinjin Oni. Then they try to cover it up with a wild tale about some lightning god straight out of bedtime stories. I'm telling you it's them Saikou people making it all up. They don't want us to know their robot doesn't work."