Hakusan Angel (2 page)

*~*~*

Mariko sighed and blew out a smooth stream of smoke, letting it curl up from her mouth and rise in front of her eyes in tendrils. Today had been tough, and no doubt everyone was going to be smoking twice as much as usual from stress alone.

"Hey, got a light?" Matsura asked as he made his way toward her.

She dug into the pocket of her bomber jacket and dug out her lighter, offering it to him. He reached into his own pockets, patting himself down before raising his gaze sheepishly.

"Um. Got a smoke?"

Mari laughed and pulled her packet out to give him one. Never let it be said that pilots weren't generous with their things. They shared almost everything they had without a second thought.

They smoked companionably for a few moments before Matsura broke the silence.

"So are you one of the lucky ones?"

Mari grinned and tried to hide it behind her hand. "Maybe," she said.

"I knew it. You always were one of the better pilots. Don't let Honda know I said that, but you deserve the position more than he does," Matsura said, leaning against the building.

"Honda does have a high opinion of himself," Mari shrugged lazily.

"And a low one of you," Matsura added.

"Really. I hadn't noticed. I start training tomorrow. They're putting me on Level 1 Operating Sims along with a couple of other Level 2 Pilots. You know, I've always wanted to drive one of the Level 1 machines."

"Only one of them still works properly. We can't really repair the other two unless we have a Level 1 Source to power them up," Matsura said.

"I know. And I know that I can't actually drive a Level 1 machine without a Level 1 Source, but actually having the training to do it ... it's like a dream come true."

"For you, maybe," Matsura laughed and took a drag of his cigarette. "I think I'd rather get a promotion to Level 2, cause at least you have a chance to drive a real machine and not just a simulator."

"It's been twenty years since we've had a Level 1 Source. We're bound to have another one soon," Mari said optimistically.

"So you've always said," Matsura laughed, reaching over to ruffle her caramel-coloured hair. "Let's get inside, I'll bet all the sources are in a panic over the news."

"At least if they're panicking they don't have time to be aloof and condescending," Mari said, dropping the butt of her cigarette on the ground and grinding it out with her heel. "I swear, with them, sarcasm is a language."

The bar was packed when they got in, and the sources were all clumped at one end glaring at the pilots with suspicion. The pilots, for their part, were ignoring them in favour of getting their habitual end-of-the-day drink. The poor bartender had completely given up taking orders and was just pulling pints and passing them out.

Mari swooped in and scooped one up as she passed by on the way to her usual table, Matsura right behind her. It wasn't the beer she usually drank, but any beer was better than waiting for the mad rush to be over. She clinked her glass with Matsura's and took a swig.

"So where have you been, then?" a table of Level 3 Sources were watching them, gathered up in a tight group and wrapped up in summer yukata.

"What do you mean?" Mari asked, looking them over.

She couldn't help but notice that none of them were drinking beer. It wasn't that she thought that everybody had to drink it, but all of them had drinks one might consider more refined. Sources sometimes thought of pilots as boorish and rough, but as much as she didn't want to play into stereotypes, she liked beer, and that was that. Maybe they liked their classy mixed cocktails and high-end wines too. Mari just hated it when the differences were so obvious.

"The bar was actually quiet for once," said one, and her words were bitten out concisely and pronounced with conscious precision, like she put effort into shaping every syllable perfectly.

"It's been so long that we've been without a Level 1 source, that we pilots have fallen behind on training new Level 1 operators. The last batch are nearing retirement. So this latest uproar has drawn attention to the fact that should
we
find a Level 1 source, we don't have any new pilots ready and waiting. All Level 2 and 3 Pilots were tested again so that we could find some new stock," Mariko said.

"But that's important!" burst out the source next to her, waving her drink at them. "How do you get behind on things like that?"

"It's not as if we had any control over it," Matsura snapped. "Don't blame us."

"It's a wonder pilots have control over
anything
."

"And there's the sarcasm," Mari sighed and tugged at Matsura's elbow. "Let's get out of here. No time to waste on source hypocrisy, seeing as they aren't even properly awake when they're in their trance. Really, they're no better than a walking battery."

"Battery?" the source hissed, standing up and slamming her drink down on the wood tabletop. "I'll show you battery!"

"Sae, no!" the source next to her pleaded.

The source apparently called Sae shrugged out of her yukata and her friend put an arm out to grasp her shoulder.

"Don't do this."

"You better let go of me, Kaede, or you're going to get caught up in it."

"Sae––"

Sae closed her eyes, and her brows lowered in concentration. A moment later, all the ports down her limbs started crackling with energy. Her hair, which had been loose around her shoulders started floating upwards in twitching tendrils.

Mari took a step back. She had never seen a source instigate anything while not connected to a machine, and she had no idea what to expect.

"Now you've done it, Mari," Matsura said from beside her.

The crackling increased, and suddenly the tension burst, sending arcs of blue energy racing over the surface of her skin and connecting at the ports, like a web of light. As soon as that happened, the place where Kaede was touching her arm sparked, and she cried out. It must have triggered something in her as well, because a moment later, her ports started crackling too.

"I'm not a battery," Sae said, and her voice had become distorted with energy. "I'm a
weapon
."

The arcs of light danced over her skin, growing stronger and throwing up a field around her which caused another reaction in Kaede.

"Sae ..." Kaede said, her hoarse voice echoing. "Stop it. I mean it, stop!"

Sae ignored her, raising her arm up in front of her, spreading her hand out and curving her fingers in. There were tiny metal studs inset into the skin of her hands––not ports, but conductors. The energy raced down her arm and collected in the cupped shape of her hand.

"Something tells me that's not good!" Matsura stumbled back, tripping on a chair in his haste and falling to the ground.

"It's not," one of the other sources at the table gasped. "We should get everybody out, there's no telling how much damage a Level 3 Source could do, never mind two!"

"I'm not trying to––" Kaede said, hand grasping Sae's shoulder so tightly her knuckles were turning white. "Her energy field has drawn me in!"

The both of them were glowing now, and Kaede visibly struggled for control. Mari hadn't ever seen anything like it. Could all sources do this, light up with energy and become a walking livewire? This was trouble for sure. She knew how big Level 3 machines were and how much power it must take to run them. How much of that power could be emitted when a source wasn't hooked up to a machine? Apparently a lot.

The light in Sae's palm intensified to the point that Mari couldn't look directly at it without blinding herself. Their war machines were weaponized, and she knew what it meant when energy gathered like that.

"Hit the deck!" she yelled, slamming herself to the floor and putting her hands over her head.

The air lit up above her head, energy arcing in lightning patterns around the room. Luckily, they all missed her, but the blast left a scorched smell on the air and Mari could feel the residual energy in the room rippling over her skin.

She lifted her head cautiously and looked around to survey the damage. Mostly everyone had managed to hit the ground in time to avoid the blast, but a few pilots were groaning on the floor and holding their heads. Sae had slumped a bit as her energy output had drained her slightly, but the field around her was still swirling with light.

"Sae, stop it," one of the sources pleaded. "You're making my ports buzz!"

"You're hurting Kaede!" another source, a tall, willowy girl added. "You know we're not supposed to link up like that; you could interrupt the regular flow of her energy."

"She's power-drunk, we need to knock her out."

"We can't knock her out, her energy field will draw us in and cause more links to form! One of the pilots has to get close enough to do it."

Mari considered it. With all the power running rampant above her, it looked as if getting close enough to knock Sae out would be difficult. Not to mention, the penalties for causing damage to a source were steep. Who knew whether High Command would see this as a breach of her contract?

"We should just get everybody out and wait for her to stop," Mari said, drawing the attention of the sources arguing around her.

"It'll take hours for her to become drained enough to power down again, especially linked with Kaede. Oh, poor Kaede, I hope this hasn't damaged her internal energy web too much," the tall source said.

Kaede did look as if she were in pain, while Sae hardly seemed to notice that she was causing her friend damage.

"I don't think we can get near enough to stop her," Mari said, starting to edge backward on her knees and elbows in a reverse army crawl. "I say we get out of here before she starts doing that to other sources too!"

"So much power!" Sae screamed, her voice vibrating through the whole room.

The space exploded with light and roaring noise. Mari was hit with a wall of energy, and for a moment it was so intense that she swore that she could feel her every atom crackle. There was nothing in her head but whiteness, and as she fell into unconsciousness, she could see energy patterns dancing on the inside of her eyelids.

*~*~*

Kaede woke up with her head pounding as if every pump of blood through her system was a resounding drum beat. Her limbs ached and her skin felt tight and over-sensitive. She blinked and groaned; even the dark was too bright, and so she closed her eyes again. She tried to figure out what had happened without moving too much, because every motion sent pain careening through her body.

Even thinking caused the ache in her temple to twinge.

Kaede was lying on the wooden floor of the bar, and she could feel the tiny cracks between floorboards against her cheek. Her yukata was in tatters and hanging off her body in ragged strings. It was night time. The cold air encased her, but moving in order to cover herself was beyond her at the moment.

She blinked again, and the night flared against her open eyes. Kaede blinked again and again until her vision cleared enough that she could see around her. Everyone that had been in the bar was laid out flat much like her, although at least their clothing was intact. It was late enough that the moon had risen and all the stars were out.

The entire base was dark and silent. Not just the bar, but the docking bays, guard posts––everything. The energy surge that Sae had released had knocked out the power for the entire base.

Sae.

She turned her head slightly and found Sae next to her, their hands still clasped together. Kaede could hardly feel her fingers where they were twined with Sae's. She remembered it. Sae had linked up their energy and then been overcome with it, because having that much power at one's control would override conscious thought. So instinctively, she must have gotten rid of it all at once, both Sae's power and Kaede's.

Hopefully those investigating the incident would attribute the widespread damage to the fact it was two linked sources and not the real reason.

It hadn't been very long since she'd woken when she heard voices and people walking around outside the bar. She turned her head towards the door just as it banged open, and several officers marched inside. They were regular military, not pilots and sources.

"Sir, the scanners say that this was the centre of the blast. It had to have originated in this building."

"Take them all in. We need to question the pilots and sources separately. Make sure you don't miss anybody."

Someone was lifting her up, and it felt like she was floating. She closed her eyes again and let herself be borne away.

Time became intermittent after that. She kept drifting in and out of sleep, too tired and drained to struggle to stay awake. Faces passed by above her, some military and some medical. A lot of them seemed to be worried, but she couldn't see why. She was only sleeping.

Kaede wasn't certain how long it took for her to wake up properly, and even after she did, her head still buzzed slightly. The medical personnel fussed over her, checking machine readings and poking at her with their instruments. She couldn't wait for them to be gone and to be released, but when they finally did release her, she wished she could have stayed.

They took her to an interview room. She was still dressed in a flimsy, white hospital gown and the nurses had provided her with a chair, but that didn't change the fact that this was an interrogation. A military investigation was taking place to find out what happened during the incident at the bar.

"Name."

"Nomura Kaede."

"Position."

"Source."

"Level."

"Three."

There were three of them, all standing around the room with her in the middle. She couldn't watch them all; they kept moving, walking around her in circles. It was disorienting.

"Where were you the night of the incident?"

"The Level 3 Bar."

"Who were you with?"

"Ikeda Sae."

"Anyone else?"

"Other Level 3 Sources, I don't remember who else was there. Some pilots."

"What happened?"

She told them the best she could. Sae was going to be in huge amounts of trouble, and no doubt everyone else had already been questioned. They all knew Sae had caused this, so telling what happened would only confirm their stories. They already knew that she and Sae had linked up, and if they'd done their research, they knew that it was dangerous for sources to do so, because it could upset the balance of energy within them.