Hakusan Angel

Chapter 1-2

Mariko sighed and blew out a smooth stream of smoke, letting it curl up from her mouth and rise in tendrils in front of her eyes. 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 pulled out her lighter, offering it to him.

He reached into his own pockets before sheepishly raising his gaze. “Um. Got a smoke?”

Mari laughed and pulled out her packet 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.”

“I knew it,” Matsura said, leaning against the building. “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.”

Mari shrugged lazily. “Honda does have a high opinion of himself.”

“And a low one of you.”

“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.”

“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 ruffled 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 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 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.

A table of Level 3 sources were watching them, gathered in a tight group and wrapped up in summer yukata. “So where have you been then?” one asked

“What do you mean?” Mari asked. 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, her words bitten out concisely and pronounced with conscious precision, like she put effort into perfectly shaping every syllable.

“It’s been so long that we’ve been without a Level 1 source,” Mari said, “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.

“But that’s important!” burst the source closest to Mari, waving her drink. “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 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 and slamming her drink on the wood tabletop. “I’ll show you battery!”

“Sae, no!” the source next to her pleaded.

The source called Sae shrugged out of her yukata.

Her friend grasped her shoulder. “Don’t do this.”

“You better let go of me, Kaede, or you’re going to get caught up in it.” 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, hanging 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 Sae’s 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, her voice 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 and curving her fingers. 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 hand.

“Something tells me that’s not good!” Matsura stumbled back, tripping on a chair in his haste and falling.

“It’s not,” one of the other sources said. “We should get everybody out. There’s no telling how much damage a Level 3 Source could do, never mind two of them!”

“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!”

They glowed now, and Kaede visibly struggled for control. Mari hadn’t ever seen anything like it. Could all sources light up with energy and become a walking live wire? 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 the residual energy in the room rippled over her skin.

She cautiously lifted her head and surveyed 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!” a tall, willowy source 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. 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 out Sae 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?

“Get everybody out and wait for her to stop,” Mari said, drawing the attention of the sources.

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

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, edging 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 room.

The space exploded with light and roaring noise. A wall of energy hit Mari, at one moment so intense, she swore she could feel her every atom crackle. Seeing energy patterns dancing on the inside of her eyelids, she fell into unconsciousness.