“And the swords? What do they have to do with it?”
Han figured Oni would have put it together by now. “These weapons were crafted by the masters of Japanese swordmaking. Based on the legends that describe their strength, flexibility and resistance to corrosion, it’s possible they were made with trace amounts of that alloy. If we’re right and we detect the alloy in the swords, all we have to do is find out where the ancient swordsmiths mined their ore and we’ll be on the right track.”
As he spoke, one of Han’s men was using a device known as a plasma mass spectrometer to analyze the blade on one of the swords that Oni had recovered.
The plasma torch flared behind a dark pane of glass, still bright enough to illuminate the room in a garish light. The sample was subjected to several seconds of the high-temperature torture before the beam was extinguished.
When it was removed from the spectrometer, the tip of the weapon was glowing red, melting and deformed. As it cooled, the computers analyzed the particles melted and blasted from the surface of the blade and printed out a report.
“So that’s why you wanted Masamune’s journal?” Oni said.
Han nodded. “It was rumored to contain the secrets of Masamune’s craft. His endless quest to create the perfect weapon. We’d hoped it would tell us where he obtained the ore he used to forge the blade.”
“And does it?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Han said. “Most of his journal is filled with philosophical nonsense about creating a weapon that would punish evil and not harm the innocent.”
Oni laughed. “A fool’s conscience.”
“Perhaps,” Han said. “But he believed he had achieved just that with the weapon you’re holding now.”
Oni narrowed his gaze and then glanced at the shimmering sword.
Han explained. “By chance, or because you have a fine eye for craftsmanship, you’ve chosen the most valuable sword of all for your memento. That’s no simple antique you possess; it’s the Honjo Masamune itself.”
Oni grinned. He knew. Or suspected.
Han picked up another of the swords; it had a darker, thicker blade than the one Oni held. The steel appeared to have a reddish tint to it. Not rust, but closer to the color of dead roses or dried blood. “This is the weapon for you. It’s known as the Crimson Blade. It was created not by Masamune but by another swordsmith, known as Muramasa.”
Oni held his ground for the moment. “Muramasa?”
Han nodded. “Muramasa was alleged to be Masamune’s protégé, though there is some debate about that. At any rate, it’s well accepted that Muramasa spent his life trying to outdo the great Master, to forge a better weapon—a more powerful, more resilient, more deadly weapon. And in that last category, he undoubtedly succeeded. This weapon, this Crimson Blade, was by far his greatest creation. Throughout Japanese history, it has been renowned for its ability to take life and build wealth. It has brought power, fame and fortune to all who possessed it. Even the legend—meant to discredit Muramasa—tells the true story of its superiority.”
“What legend would that be?” Oni asked with a suspicious glint in his eye.
“Muramasa had tired of being considered an apprentice to the Master,” Han said. “He challenged Masamune in an effort to prove who among them was the finest swordmaker. Masamune agreed and both men consented to be judged by the monks of a local order. They crafted great swords and, under the watchful eye of the monks from the temple, lowered their blades into a fast-running stream, with the sharpened edges facing the onrushing water.
“As the monks watched, the Crimson Blade cut through everything that came its way—crabs, fish, eels—anything the force of the stream brought to it was sliced cleanly in two. Across the stream, the Masamune, perhaps the very sword you hold now, divided the waters without a ripple, but it cut nothing that was living. Only leaves and other inanimate debris that floated past.”
Han continued. “As the contest wore on, Muramasa laughed at the old man’s weapon. In one version of the legend, he calls it an impotent blade. When the monks motioned for the weapons to be raised, the Crimson Blade of Muramasa came from the stream stained with blood. The Masamune dripped only crystal clear water.”
“A clear victory,” Oni said.
“You would think,” Han said. “Muramasa certainly did. But when the monks pronounced their judgment, they chose the old Master and not the apprentice. Muramasa’s Crimson Blade was deemed bloodthirsty and evil for destroying all it touched while the Masamune spared the life of the innocent. Is that really the sword you wish to keep for yourself?”
“‘The innocent,’” Oni scoffed. “There’s no such thing.”
“Perhaps,” Han said. “But you hold the weapon of a saint, not a sinner. Understanding true power the way you and I do, we both know which blade is truly superior.”
Oni studied the blade in his right hand and then stretched out his left. With a flip of his fingers, he beckoned for the other sword.
Han tossed it too high and Oni snatched it out of the air, grasping the hilt in a perfect catch. With a weapon in each hand, he compared them, swinging them this way and that, moving them in circular and then slashing motions.
“There is a heft to this weapon,” he said, looking at the Crimson Blade. “It feels . . . more substantial.”
“It suits you,” Han said. “You know it does.”
“Fine,” Oni said. Without warning, he tossed the Honjo Masamune in the air toward Han.
Han grasped for the hilt of the sword, catching it awkwardly with one hand and bringing the other up to stop it from dropping to the floor. In doing so, he accidentally wrapped two fingers around the blade. He drew his hand back instantly, with blood streaming from a pair of razor-like cuts.
He grunted in pain, shook the hand and grabbed a towel to stanch the bleeding.
Oni laughed. “Too bad you’re not a fish or an eel,” he chided. “The pretty blade would have left you unbloodied.”
Han handed the weapon carefully to his lab technician. “Analyze it,” he said, “but it’s not to be damaged.”
“A souvenir for yourself?” Oni said.
“A symbol,” Han replied. “One the Japanese people will respond to with zeal. Much as you did. The Honjo Masamune is the sword of your ancestors. It has always represented Japanese power and independence. Its reappearance at this very moment will galvanize the Japanese public and help them to throw off the American shackles they’ve worn since this sword disappeared.”
Oni laughed. “And I suppose they’ll never notice the Chinese shackles replacing the American ones.”
So Oni had guessed at least that part of the plan.
“That’s the great thing about symbols,” Han said. “They shine in the sky like a brilliant light. People fixate on them, mesmerized and unable to see what’s going on right beside them.”
50
KURT AND JOE had been taken deeper into the mine where they were chained to a cast-iron pipe, thicker than a man’s arm. The pipe ran downward into the depths of the pit beside them and upward until it disappeared through a grate in the ceiling.
Facing each other with their hands chained around the pipe and the opening of the pit to the left of them, they were secured in a very effective jail. It was good enough that once Han’s men had double-checked the locks, they walked back up the tunnel, leaving Kurt and Joe to themselves.
“Kind of weird to see you wrestling with yourself in more than a metaphorical fashion,” Joe said.
“Even weirder to lose,” Kurt admitted. “Humans: one. Robots: one.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Kurt said. “Just keeping score.”
Joe studied the surroundings. Only the dim glow of the distant LEDs lit the tunnel, but just enough light to see by. “I’d say we’ve been in darker spots, but I don’t think that’s literally true. N
ice of them to leave us alone, though. They must think there’s no escape from this.”
Kurt placed his feet on the wall and pulled with all his might. The pipe moved a few inches, but it didn’t come loose. “Probably anchored every ten feet or so.”
“In which case, you’ll never pull it free,” Joe said.
Kurt could not disagree. “Brute force isn’t the only way to get out.”
He stood up, studying the grate above them. Even though it was clogged with debris, water dripped through it, falling here and there and running down the wall in a sheet.
“Rainwater,” Kurt said. “This is an air shaft. It goes all the way to the surface.”
He found a foothold and climbed up the side of the wall to test the strength of the grate. Using the pipes for leverage, he leaned across the pit and stretched upward, putting his shoulder into the metal lattice and pushing.
Like the cast-iron pipe had, the grate moved just enough to tease him before jamming against some obstruction. Kurt pushed again, but his footing gave way. He dropped awkwardly, his shackled hands sliding down the pipe. If not for a deft move to the side, he would have dropped into the shaft.
Scuffed and scraped, Kurt sat back down. “If only General Lasalle were here.”
“I don’t remember any Lasalle on our payroll,” Joe said.
“He works for the French,” Kurt said.
“Then we’re out of his jurisdiction.”
Kurt laughed. “He’s probably long gone anyway. The last time he showed up was to rescue the narrator in ‘The Pit and Pendulum.’”
“Ah,” Joe said, suddenly getting it. “Is that the one where the rats chew through the ropes?”
“That’s the one,” Kurt said. “Don’t see any rats around here, though.”
“Wouldn’t be much use against these chains,” Joe said. “But it’s a nice thought.”
Kurt gazed downward, but it was so dark in the pit he could see nothing past the first twenty feet. He kicked a stone off the edge and listened to it fall.
Click . . . Clack . . . Clunk . . . Splash . . .
“Flooded,” Joe said.
“I expect the lower levels are all flooded,” Kurt said. “Without the pumps running all these years, the seawater would seep in. If all else fails, we could risk going down and swimming through the tunnel.”
“You’re forgetting the iron pipe we’re chained to.”
“It’ll be rusted to nothing down there, especially if that’s saltwater.”
Joe shifted position and looked down. “Let me get this straight. You want to drop into a flooded mine shaft, search for a flooded horizontal tunnel, swim through it in pitch-black conditions, with our hands in chains, and no idea where it leads or whether it’s caved in or blocked by debris. All on the chance it comes out somewhere advantageous.”
Kurt feigned offense. “I didn’t suggest there was a high probability of success. Just that it was an option.”
“Try zero probability,” Joe said. “In fact, if there’s such a thing as a negative probability, I’d go with that. Even if we made it through and found another vertical shaft, we’d have to scale the walls with our bare hands.”
“I was thinking we could come up in the elevator we saw on the way in,” Kurt said. “I realize the machinery doesn’t operate, but the framework would make for an easy climb. If we can find the air shaft we passed on the way in.”
“Another big if,” Joe said. “We’d be more likely to swim ourselves into a dead end, drown down there and never be found.”
“At least Han wouldn’t be able to dress my body in the clothes those robots are wearing and frame us for the most blatant assassination since the Archduke of Austria in 1914.”
“Hopefully, this one won’t start a new war.”
“The war is already on,” Kurt said. “It’s all about influence. And Han is going to pull off a masterstroke if we don’t do something about it.”
“Come up with a better plan than suicide and I’m with you.”
Before Kurt could reply, the beam of a flashlight appeared in the tunnel as two people came toward them dragging something along the ground.
Only when the glare of the flashlight was pointed away did Kurt recognize Ushi-Oni’s jaundiced face and another of Han’s men. Carried between them, held up by the arms but with his legs dragging on the ground, was the lifeless form of Superintendent Nagano.
They tossed Nagano down and chained his hands around the pipe. The jailer with the keys unlocked Joe and pulled him to his feet.
“Am I first for breakfast?” Joe asked. “Fantastic. Steak and eggs will do just fine.”
Oni backhanded Joe, striking him across the face and sending him to the ground. Before Joe could spring to his feet, something sharp and cold jabbed him in the back. He felt it split the wetsuit right between his shoulder blades. He dropped back flat on the ground, the tip of a sword up against his skin.
“Han ordered me not to kill you yet,” Oni said. “But if you stand too quickly and impale yourself . . . that’s on you.”
Kurt could see the sword plainly; it was a different weapon than the one Oni had been carrying earlier. “Don’t get up,” he warned Joe. “It’ll run you through.”
“Quite content to lie here,” Joe said, as he waited until the sword was pulled back and then slowly got to his hands and knees. When he turned around, he was face-to-face with a figure of malevolence.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” Oni said. “Every time I move, I feel agony. Every time I sweat from this endless fever, I blame you. I will pay you back for the pain you’ve caused me. Count on it.”
“Technically, it was the Komodo dragon’s fault,” Joe said. “I was just an innocent bystander.”
“The plan is for your facsimile to die in a car crash,” Oni said. “That means I get to burn you alive. You won’t be so funny when you’re screaming for death.”
Joe was dragged off and Kurt could do nothing but watch him go. He hoped Joe had caught the clue that Ushi-Oni had inadvertently handed him.
When Joe and his captors had vanished down the tunnel, Kurt turned to Nagano. “Superintendent, are you all right?”
Nagano looked up through a mask of pain. Kurt saw no overt injuries to his face, but his hand was bandaged.
“He killed the monks,” Nagano said. “He slaughtered them.”
“Ushi-Oni?”
Nagano nodded. “They had the swords. We thought we’d trapped him, but . . . He killed my men. He took my fingers.”
Nagano seemed almost delirious. He spoke without looking at Kurt.
“They ask many questions,” he continued, “most of which make no sense. But if you don’t answer, they shock you. It comes through the chains. They shock you until you fall and then they start over.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Everything,” Nagano said. “Then they ask you to read and talk and speak, angrily or quietly. It was like a mind game instead of an interrogation.”
Kurt sat back. “They wanted to hear your voice and record how you formed your words.”
Finally, Nagano focused on him. “Why?”
“So they can make a duplicate of you, like they made one of me.”
“A duplicate?”
“A robot that walks and talks and looks exactly like you. Did they take your ID?”
“Everything,” Nagano said, “even finger and thumbprints.”
Han did not miss a trick. With Nagano’s Federal Police ID and a thumbprint for authentication, he could get into a lot of places that the Austin facsimile alone would not be able to access. “They’re taking Joe for the same treatment.”
Nagano’s eyes opened wider. “They will torture him without remorse until he answers.”
Kurt didn’t doubt it. All the more reason he had to act. “Can you
stand?”
Nagano tried to get up but dropped back to his side. “I don’t think so.”
Kurt helped him to a sitting position. “Your strength will come back. Just relax for now.”
As Nagano took deep breaths and tried to accelerate his recovery, Kurt eased his way out over the pit and started a cautious descent. “Warn me if someone’s coming.”
“Where are you going?” Nagano asked.
“To find a rat with metal teeth.”
51
JOE STOOD in the center of another modern room. Bright lights came on, sending sharp pains through eyes now accustomed to the dark. He squinted.
“What is your name?” a voice asked via a hidden speaker.
Joe recognized the voice. It belonged to Gao, Han’s right-hand man. He studied the room. White plastic walls and reflective one-way mirrors on all sides of him.
“Please state your name or we will have to harm you.”
He was being recorded. From every angle. Cameras behind those one-way mirrors were taking three-dimensional measurements of him. Digitizing him. Enabling a likeness of him to be created to pair with Kurt’s. It was obvious. Oni had given him the key when he’d mentioned how Joe’s facsimile would die.
Joe didn’t feel like playing. Anything he gave them could be twisted and used. All the sounds of his voice could be digitally spliced and remixed to make new sentences. Even arguing with them or cursing them would give them something.
“Name!” Gao demanded.
Joe had to say something. He affected an exaggerated Texas accent for his reply. “Well, pilgrim, you can call me whatever you want. Just don’t call me late for dinner.”
Before the last word had left his mouth, an electrical shock fired through Joe’s body. It was excruciating and he crumpled to the floor.
“The next shock will go for twice as long,” Gao replied calmly. “Now stand up and tell us your name.”
Joe stayed down longer than he needed to. Han and his people were pressed for time. That’s what the guard had told them. This was Joe’s chance to make the delay worse.