Chapter Seven—A Friendship Born

Uchimaya was a district on the outskirts of Kyoten with the sea located on the other side of the city, but because of the compactness of the city, was still visible from the residential areas.

The district was mainly made up of residential homes, most of those being town houses, though apartment buildings were littered throughout. The district only had a population count of thirty-thousand.

Ichiro stalked though a field of wheat, the ground under his feet soft and wet as he pushed his way through the cereal grasses. With each step he squelched through the field.

Behind him, Dawson kept pace, but his breathing was now heavier than it had been before. “How do you keep up such a long run?”

“Training,” Ichiro breathed.

“Training?! What training?”

“Every day is training.”

They came near the road as a car passed by, its tires splashing across the cement. Up ahead, something cracked—weapons fire—and Ichiro thought he saw black smoke, but through the downpour it was impossible to say.

His throat tightened and something lurched inside his stomach. His feeling was not a good one—and yet he didn’t want to believe what he knew he saw—if even just barely.

Two military ATVs drove by, their headlights bright and their gun turrets occupied. Ichiro ducked down into the wheat. “Get down!”

“Ichi,” John said. “What’s going on?”

Had their situation not been an immediately serious one, Ichiro might have rebuked John for his overfamiliarity toward Ichiro.

But as Dawson had pointed out, they had killed people together.

They crossed the road, the other side leading down in a slope toward a residential patch of farmland surrounded by houses, apartment buildings, and the warehouse where they had stored the stolen foodstuffs.

As soon as Ichiro crested the road, he saw the fires and the soldiers.

His eyes widened.

“What is this?”

“Gods!” Dawson hissed.

There was a line of people, some of them women and children. Squinting to better see, Ichiro realized Mamaia was one of them—and the children were there too.

“NO!”

He lurched forward.

“Stop!” Dawson hissed, and threw his arms around Ichiro before he could rush down the slope.

“Get off me!” Ichiro growled as he struggled to get free, but Dawson held him firmly in his arms.

Ichiro pushed his head forward so he could get enough momentum to head-butt Dawson in the face, but the other man knew what he was doing and pushed his forehead against the back of Ishiro’s scalp.

“Don’t! Just stop!”

Unable to hit Dawson, Ichiro flung his bodyweight to the side and broke free of his grasp.

As he got up, he picked up his assault rifle and pointed it at Dawson.

Still on the ground and laying in the muddy grass, the other man blinked against the rain landing in his eyes. “Ichiro! Don’t!”

He glanced back.

They were about to be executed!

I have to do… something!

The other man shook his head. “The only thing you will accomplish is dying with them.”

And as if to echo the strength of those damned words, a mech hovered in a roar of jets that filled the air. It came swiftly over the building tops from an area unseen and landed in the yard.

Then the soldiers fired their assault rifles.

It felt to Ichiro like he was the one being shot—in the stomach. His legs went to mush and he stumbled back and fell next to Dawson.

As the soldiers shot their prisoners, Ichiro squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his fists into the muddy dirt.

Time passed. Ichiro wasn’t sure how much. He didn’t care.

“I’m—I’m sorry, Ichiro.”

“Dammit!’

Then Dawson hissed out his own curse quietly. “Fuck!”

The servos of the mech whined and hissed as it stamped about.

“I want them dead,” Ichiro said. “John… I want them dead.”

John nodded. “I know.” He grabbed Ichiro by the arm. “I know you do!”

John leaned over Ichiro and looked at him solemnly. Ichiro saw that John too felt as strongly as he did—perhaps not as hotly in the moment, but it was clear to Ichiro that John hasdexperienced loss as well.

Without the strength to stand, Ichiro rolled over and glanced through the grass into the residential area. Two men were being corralled into the back of a transport truck.

It was Harlan and Joji.

He ground his teeth. “We’re going to break them free!”

John nodded. “I’ll help you, friend.”

Weather he liked John or not, Ichiro and the other man were now bonded in so far that they had a common goal. To fight—for justice and freedom. In this regard, they were now friends.

Ichiro nodded. “Thank you.”