Nara

  Nara

  the Complete Saga

  by

  M. L. Buchman

  Dedication

  To the lady who helped birth the idea

  and inspires me every day to strive.

  TRO

  A community is like a ship;

  everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.

  -Henrik Ibsen

  But O the ship, the immortal ship!

  O ship aboard the ship!

  O ship of the body – ship of the soul—voyaging, voyaging, voyaging!

  -Walt Whitman, Aboard, at a Ship’s Helm

  Part I

  The Nara Threshold

  Chapter 1

  “So, I’m dead, am I?”

  It was perfect. James Wirden’s voice started with all the power one would expect from the World Premier, but it ended the most delicious twist of uncertainty. Bryce looked down at the nearly empty champagne glass in James’ hand.

  “Yes, sad for you, but true. Poisoned, if you must know. By me.”

  “And you dare to tell me this?” Such indignation from such a small man. He turned toward the guards, but Bryce clamped a friendly hand upon his shoulder to belay the movement. Not that it mattered, all of the guards along the line of French doors were his hand-picked staff. The bright lights from within cast their tall shadows across the stone terrace pushing back the edge of the Bermudan night. His men would stop any stragglers from the party, not that any would dare interrupt when the Premier and his mighty right-hand man were in conference. But no point in misplacing trust when one staged a coup.

  “One of the many things you never properly appreciated, James, is the wonders of modern genetics. There is a tiny little code-alterer running through your system even as we speak. Your genetic code is even now shifting at an exquisitely subtle level. When you have a massive stroke in three days, none shall grieve as much as your lieutenant. None shall take power with as much trepidation as your Right Hand.” A nickname Bryce had carefully cultivated for years. Who better to be named to power than the man who knew the Premier’s every intent?

  The man struggled against his grasp just as pointlessly as a worm evading a short future pithed upon the hook that would send it into the fish’s belly. Bryce took the champagne glass from James’ nerveless hand and tipped the dregs over the broad stone seawall to splash into the eager waves below. Soon, he promised them, soon you may swallow this useless chattel as well.

  The Premier’s pale face twisted in such pain that for a moment Bryce feared the stroke would come too soon. He didn’t have everything in place yet. Of course, he could compensate, but having the man die in his arms would not look good at all to the World Economic Council.

  “You must remember to breathe, my good leader. Besides, in another few minutes you will remember none of this. Another wonder of genetics research you so despise is the revelation of how memories are stored. Your memory of these moments will shortly be erased. And when you pass on in three day’s time, your Right Hand will be there, the Premier-to-be, Bryce Randall Stevens, Sr.”

  James patted at the beads of sweat on his brow with his small hand as he looked up at Bryce. He always backed up when they spoke so that he didn’t have to crane his neck, but Bryce kept him in his place this time. The music surged through the open doors onto the broad patio. The orchestra had come back precisely on schedule drawing everyone’s attention inward. He didn’t want any to think his conversation with the Premier took overlong if the drug didn’t take effect as planned. Of course he knew it would, it had worked perfectly on the man who’d engineered it for him.

  “Do you hate me so?”

  “Stupid man, what does hate have to do with anything? You’re weak, James. Always were. If I hadn’t pulled every single string over the last four decades, Parvati and her temple of democratic fairness would still be in power. I have used you, because you are far more presentable than I. No one expects a small, rotund man to be vicious. Therefore, there were no curious eyes as I did what you were too weak to do behind the scenes. But now you are beginning to interfere. You should never have nuked Auckland.”

  The little man sputtered. “I had to Bryce. You and your damned gene labs. There is a reason we outlawed that horrible knowledge. We did it. You and I. Together. When I found you were dabbling in that dark road to hell, of course I had to blow it out of existence.”

  “Too little, too late, James. Do you think I’d have let you drop those bombs if I wasn’t ready? All you did for me was a little convenient housecleaning.” Actually he’d barely gotten the chief scientists and the data clear. Less than an hour warning had let him salvage only the most essential elements. But the continuing research on the uses of the Second Human Genome Mapping Project lived on, even if the researchers families hadn’t. And he’d gotten to look like the hero to the ones he had saved.

  The blow of his failure took the fight out of the Premier. Bryce gave James’ shoulder a jovial shake in show for any who might be watching.

  “On December 24th, three days after this birthday party, lovingly thrown by your second-in-command, I shall mourn at your side. I shall cancel Christmas throughout the planet. It shall be a splendid funeral. And by the New Year, the World Economic Council will place me in command and then things shall really start to move.”

  James’ little eyes squinted up at him for a long moment before turning to look out at the restless sea. He hung onto the rough seawall to keep from being toppled by the gentle night breeze and stared toward the dark waves.

  “They will suspect you.”

  “There will be no proof. The last of the drug has just been dribbled into the sea. The change to your genetic code has already been registered in your electronic medical records, by a fine hacker who has, alas, suffered a memory loss due to some bad fish he ate. Very bad fish. You don’t maintain paper files, so I’m safe.”

  Bryce leaned down to watch his face, but James was turned toward the night and he was totally in shadow. There was a long hesitation, then a twitch of his shoulders that Bryce could feel beneath his hand.

  “But I do. I was most careful.”

  Not careful enough, old friend. He knew when James’ was lying. It was for this that Bryce had risked telling him of his own death. The man was so naive that he hadn’t banked hard copies against his future. So, Bryce’s plan was going to go off without a hitch.

  The Premier hung his head and his voice was a mere whisper against the susurration of the surf on the rocky cliffs below.

  “What about my wife?”

  Bryce glanced back to the surging dance floor. What an odd final question to ask before certain death. Given a chance, what would be his last request? Not about some woman, that was for certain. Though if ever there were one…

  Even through the crowd Celia Wirden stood out. Her fountain of white-blond hair and the slender body beneath, shimmeringly not revealed by her gown of midnight-blue silk, did everything to distract from the brilliant mind that hid behind those green eyes.

  The three of them had plotted together since they were young. They had thrown Parvati out of power and when it came time to choose, Bryce had forced the milquetoast James to puppet the Premiership for him. And the Premier needed a First Lady. A fine and elegant First Lady she had made. Perhaps it was time to take that gift back.

  “She’ll be taken care of, James. You don’t need to fear for that.”

  James’ shoulders squared slowly as the man looked a last time at the dark Atlantic. He took up his empty champagne glass from the seawall.

  “Well, old friend. Seems that I am dry. Shall we go get a refill?”

  “I am right beside you to the end of your days
, James.”

  “Long may that be.”

  Bryce completed their old code, “Long indeed.”

  At the French doors, he checked James one last time. But he was filled with a bonhomie that even the finest politician couldn’t invent. When he refilled the same glass and drank from it, Bryce knew the memory of the last few minutes was safely gone.

  James was wrapped up into the flow of the crowd as Bryce waited upon the threshold. The broad squares of alternating black and white marble spread across the room before him like a grand chess board. The sycophants rushed to make what they could of the moment, shuffling like mad pawns, the tuxedoed livery of the government descended upon the wrong man. The short stature of the largest pawn of them all disappeared from view. Bryce would keep a close eye upon him, but not too close. Nothing must seem out of the ordinary.

  He scanned the room. The ladies, those dragged forward by their men, and those abandoned in the sudden rush toward the Premier, glittered about. Their 1920s flapper costumes revealing both the wondrous and the corpulent with an equal lack of sympathy. But they too were all either carefully watching the rush to the Premier, or carefully not watching.

  There were just four who were watching the Premier’s Right Hand instead. His Captain of the guard, meticulous in his waiter’s outfit, was nonchalantly poised to strike from his corner like a steadfast rook. The general commander of the World Economic Council’s forces waited like the good knight he was, not obviously aligned, yet always prepared to offer surprise support from unexpected quarters.

  Celia Wirden glittered like the queen that she was. The tight silk revealed a mature woman who had grown into her body the way a yacht grows into a World Cup racer. Her movements could light fire without ever striking a match.

  His body responded from the memory of that one tryst three decades gone, the same night he’d sent her to become James’ first lady. Her green eyes assessed him carefully from her position far across the room near the small orchestra. A chandelier blossomed above her in a font of crystal as if it had bloomed for her alone.

  And off to the side, behind the piano, hid a single junior pawn. Without even the boy being aware, Bryce had been moving him across the board, square by careful square. Perhaps it was time to move the lad one step closer to the far side of the board, where he too would become powerful. Together, many things could be achieved. He would kill the king, take the queen, and create a prince.

  Yes. It was time for the next move.

  Chapter 2

  Nara, Japan, February, 2082

  A hand descended out of the darkness and landed on Ri’s shoulder. She knew the hand instantly. Only Tinnai, of the whole cadre, dared touch her without warning. Others had learned all too well of her hair-trigger reflexes.

  “I’m ready, Tinnai.” Ri kept her young girl’s voice at a barest whisper.

  Tinnai’s nod was more felt than seen in the darkness. Taking her hand, the cadre leader placed something heavy in it. A pipe. The pipe! Tinnai had been sharpening it for weeks on the concrete. The constant grinding noise now a part of everyone’s dreams. The point shone wickedly. Even in the overcast, moonless night, she could see the glimmer of the steel-bright edge. It was almost as long as she was tall. A fearsome weapon.

  “Tonight. You guide us.” And then, impossibly, Tinnai bowed to her. A shadow upon shadow. Bowed deeply. Honor and respect from the cadre leader. If Ri had still been a young one, she’d have started to cry. But not tonight. Tonight, Tancho Cadre’s fate lay in her hands. There had never been a more important fight. And it was hers to lead.

  She returned the leader’s bow, hefted the pipe to the center of balance, the surface rust rough against her palm, and turned to face along the sidewalk. The cracked concrete beneath her bare feet made her feel more stable. She tried to breathe slowly and shallowly so that the vapor that escaped her mouth into the freezing air would be even less visible in the night.

  Tinnai rested her hand on Ri’s shoulder. In moments the signal passed up the line just as they’d rehearsed. A squeezed shoulder, from girl to girl up the entire line until Tinnai’s hand squeezed Ri’s and they were ready to go.

  Tonight she didn’t run with a small group of hunters. Tonight, the entire cadre hunted the streets of Nara together. Tancho Cadre. The Fighting Cranes. They owned this night. Nineteen girls strong from four to sixteen years old. In the last city of Japan. Maybe the last one on Earth.

  She touched the rough brick of the old wall beside her to make sure of her direction and moved forward. Each crack in the sidewalk an old friend. Walked but twice in a month of planning, once at the beginning to learn, and yesterday to confirm the memory she’d spent four long weeks honing until it sang as a part of her blood.

  Fifty-four paces before she reached out again and exactly touched the corner of the brick wall. Her finger traced the small pocket made by a missing chip at exactly the height of her elbow.

  She turned right and began a new count. The cadre followed in carefully rehearsed lockstep. The air so cold it had little smell. When it blew from the north, the scent of snow and mountains sometimes clawed into Nara. From the south, it smelled of the sea. From the east was the worst. The smell of cooking, of actual food occasionally rose from Daibutsu-den cadre or from the dark mystery of Nara-ken park. But not tonight. Tonight the air hung still and silent, the wind but another creature holding its breath in the dark.

  At fourteen steps, a scuffle by her foot then a squeak as a rat scurried off.

  Ri counted to fifty.

  All was silent.

  She counted to a hundred.

  Still nothing.

  Fourteen. Her foot had been raised for fifteen. She continued her count and the cadre followed in perfect silence.

  At thirty-two she reached out her right hand again and traced the vertical line of the Yen symbol on the steel plaque beside the bank’s missing door. She’d asked Tinnai, but no one knew what it meant, only what it was called and that it had been holy.

  She turned left and headed across the invisible street toward tonight’s target, the one they’d been training to attack for nearly three months. The bookstore lay three and seventeen and two paces ahead.

  One. Two. Three. At the curb, she lifted her shoulder high to warn of a change underfoot then stepped off the curb. Weeks of practicing “Follow the Elder” wearing blindfolds paid off. Tinnai’s hand shifted as the message passed shoulder to hand down the line of nineteen girls.

  Tinnai had berated her for her risks this afternoon. She’d cleared a narrow path through the debris on the street. A little girl, she stood small, even for a ten-year-old, chasing a pretend playmate up and down the street. Hawk Cadre’s guards had watched her with disdain. They’d made a fatal mistake and left the silly little girl alone. For once Ri was glad of her small size. In just four heart-stopping passages up and down the street, she’d managed to confirm her practiced distances and to clear tonight’s path for the cadre.

  She’d had to do it. Rani was clumsy. She couldn’t even do the simplest obstacles in the dark without messing up. She didn’t cry out after the first hunt she’d ruined. But tonight a stumble, even a scuffed foot, and the whole cadre might go down.

  And Tinnai would be far angrier if she knew that Ri had entered the tunnels of the Zenbu beneath the store. A terrible risk, but there she had locked the basement door of the bookstore from the outside, blocking escape. A risk that would cause her nightmares for many nights, if there were more nights.

  Seventeen steps, she raised her shoulder and stepped up onto the opposite curb. Only there was no crack in the concrete beneath her bare foot.

  Think! Had she veered left or right in the crossing?

  She started to slide a foot to the right, searching the surface slick with the night’s frost when she heard it. A rattle of teeth.

  The sacrificial shivering outside the bolthole. The bookst
ore’s only entry, a knee-high, circular hole. The sacrificial huddled against it for warmth, kept from running away by the chain about his ankle.

  She shifted left a half step, felt the concrete crack beneath her foot, took two steps and kicked out. High and hard. Crushing the sacrificial’s throat before he could cry out his warning. Leaning in and up at the end of the kick, his neck let go as only a break could cause.

  He flopped sideways and Tinnai dove past her into the bolthole. The entire cadre flowed in like a single, long, gutter snake.

  Ri ducked through last. By the time she entered, Tancho Cadre flew forward in full motion through the store. The sacrificial’s chainkeeper had no more throat to cry with than the one he’d held captive. A knife slash had left only the ability to stare wide-eyed as he bled out. Firelight flickered from the back of the store, the towering bookcases dark silhouettes.

  Some of the cadre ran down the aisles. Others had vaulted onto the cases and ran along the tops leaping over gaps at the aisles. At the back of the store, they were only beginning to suspect an attack in full flight. When the ground team met resistance from the Hawks, the high runners fell upon them from above like deadly rain, their long dark hair streaming out behind them.

  Ri raced toward the back of the store. Tinnai and Ninka, Tancho’s best hunter, were in pitched battle with a pair of boys armed with clubs. Then two more joined in, racing up from what must be the cellar. Stopped by the door Ri had locked against them.

  Now they were coming up the stairs behind Tinnai. Perhaps she should have left the door unlocked so that they could escape if they survived the tunnels of the Zenbu. But a free Hawk could seek revenge.

  With a cry, “Behind you!” she swung her pipe at the head of one of the attackers. The weight of it carried it so far into his skull she had trouble freeing it. As he collapsed, the man in front of Tinnai also went down. Even as he died, he lacerated her right arm and it dangled suddenly limp.