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flonnebonneSpoilers: No obvious ones.
Thank you to cryforthedream and
februaryfour for the language help!
The Language of War
If there was one thing Isumi had not expected to see at the Interplanetary Launch, it was a small, hyperactive, Chinese version of Waya.
"This is Le Ping, our resident evil child," said the officer giving the tour. "Le Ping, this is Isumi Shinichiro. Say, 'Hi, Mr. Isumi. I'm evil. Pleased to meet you.'"
Le Ping shrugged his shoulders.
The officer, not to be outmatched, shrugged with an equal degree of indifference. "Little Bugger didn't know any Common before he came here, if you can believe that. Still refuses to speak it."
As if to prove the man's point, mini-Waya stuck out his tongue at them and waggled his eyebrows luridly.
"No Common at all?" asked Isumi, frankly astonished.
"Yeah. His parents were, what's the politically correct word nowadays, non-compliant? When they found out about his big brain they whisked him away to the countryside and homeschooled him. Didn't speak any Common around him all his life, kept him away from other people as much as possible, that sort of thing. We found him anyway. A bit late, but not too late."
Isumi looked over at the boy, Le Ping, who seemed perfectly oblivious to the fact that his life story was being told to a stranger as part of a tour of the station. "What do you mean you found him late?"
"Too late to put a monitor on him, but not too late to do the regular aptitude tests."
"You mean..."
"For Battle School, yes."
Le Ping, as if channeling the spirit of his rebellious parents, started dancing around in circles like a demon out of a fairy tale. But Isumi looked at him now with new eyes; the boy had to be more than just smart, to be allowed to go to Battle School despite never wearing a monitor.
Well, he looks like Waya, so maybe they have the same genes...?
Okay, that was just nonsense.
(Or maybe it was just Isumi, missing his old friend.)
The officer was giving him a lazy, assessing look.
"What's he doing here at IPL?" Isumi gestured at Le Ping, trying to shake off the weird shivers that went down his back when he looked at the boy's face.
"The kid got sick right before his launch date," the officer said, after a moment, "just to be as annoying as possible. Dengue-3 fever, I hear. So the launch went without him, but after he got better, they put him on a routine supply tug headed to IPL, and here he is. When the next tug heads out to to Battle School, he'll be on it. Until then, he's confined to these quarters, just as you are."
"What?" Isumi turned to the man in surprise. "We're being confined? Together? Why?"
"Neither of you actually has proper clearance to be at Interplanetary Launch." The officer looked bored now. "You're just on a layover here because it's cheaper to transport you that way. The IF does this a lot, to tell you the truth. That's why we have these lovely guest quarters set up - for your waiting pleasure."
Isumi looked around the small living room, with its bare white walls and clean but unadorned surfaces. Three doors led to offshoot rooms, probably bedrooms and a bathroom. For a space station, this amount of square footage was ridiculously luxurious. The low table in front of the couch was actually a large electronic desk - there were control patterns faintly glowing on its surface. He could imagine a Terran ambassador, someone used to comfort and privacy, rooming here without complaint even with spouse and children in tow. "This place was built for a family, wasn't it?"
"Yep. You'll be a happy little one, won't you? The two of you."
Le Ping had lost interest in dancing and was now poking at Isumi's waist while saying something completely incomprehensible in Chinese. If this was a family, it was a dysfunctional one.
"I'm sure you'll hit it off," the officer said, as if reading Isumi's thoughts. "You're both Battle School, except you're a graduate and he's an entrant."
"We can't even communicate," Isumi pointed out.
"Then teach him some Common. It'll be good for him. And you." The man raised an eyebrow, and Isumi wondered if that was code for something. "Actually, that's a good idea, since you'll have nothing better to do with your time. His current teacher certainly isn't teaching him much."
"Who's his current teacher?"
"Me."
Le Ping drifted away at this point, like a bored zombie, toward the table/desk, where video games awaited.
"So. Have fun. Don't kill him, I'm responsible for him. And don't let him drive you to the nuthouse, Mr. Battle School Grad. We've invested a lot of money in you."
The officer was already turning to leave, but Isumi called out, "A moment, please, sir."
The man put on an oddly quizzical look. Or rather - no, that wasn't quite right, because after years of Battle School politics, Isumi knew when someone was playing dumb - the officer wasn't confused, he was expectant, he was waiting for something, and Isumi realized, suddenly, that he was being judged by this man, that just because he'd left Battle School it didn't mean he wasn't being watched, as he'd always been.
I want to ask you, sir, where I'm going from here, if it's Tactical or Support or back to Earth. Have I passed to the next stage of training or am I being iced? No one has has told me. Not that I've asked. Maybe I don't really want to know.
The question stuck in his throat, and stayed there.
"What's your name?" Isumi asked, instead of the harder thing. "And your rank? I've been completely insubordinate, I'm afraid, not calling you anything at all..."
"Yang Hai," the officer replied. "Just Yang Hai is fine. No need to stand on ceremony with me - I'm not really the military type." He paused, gave a thoughtful look at nothing in particular. And then he left.
Later, Isumi would go to bed wondering what the hell that meant.
- 0 - 0 -
The rest of the day was spent in communicative discord.
"Isumi! Isumi" This was Le Ping's new favourite word, and the only thing coming out of his mouth that Isumi understood. Everything else was incomprehensible. "Ni ting bu dong wo! Ha ha!"
Well. Actually, Isumi could now understand "I," "you," "good," and "video game" in Chinese. So far, the language lessons were working out great, if for the wrong person. Whenever Le Ping went to the bathroom Isumi took the chance to look up words he'd heard the boy say. The table's computer had an old fashioned searchable dictionary function in several languages, but the automatic voice translator had been disabled. On purpose, no doubt.
"Video game," Isumi said slowly to Le Ping, in Common, while pointing at the fancy holo display projected in the air above the table. "Can you say it? Video game."
Blah blah, I blah blah Isumi blah good! Ha ha ha! was Le Ping's answer, along with some rapid button-pushing.
As a result of Le Ping's button-pushing, Isumi watched one of his own troops - a worm carrying a bazooka - die a cute, explosive death onscreen. The kid certainly hadn't had any trouble figuring out the game even with all the menus in Common.
In response, Isumi sent a cluster bomb across the screen, detonating it in mid-air to create a shower of mini-explosions, doing a magnificent amount of jack squat to the cute, pixellated (it was a retro game) worm blobs huddled behind a convenient pile of junk on Le Ping's side of the map.
"Wa, ni zhen lan!"
This was getting embarrassing.
Isumi got up from the couch. "Can you wait a minute? I'm going to go...wash my face," he said, for lack of any other excuse he could think of.
Le Ping kept right on killing Isumi's worm soldiers, as if he hadn't understood a thing. Which he probably hadn't.
In the washroom, Isumi took a moment to think. He was good at thinking. Better than he was at video games, apparently.
Point one: Isumi had been locked up with a child he couldn't communicate with, ostensibly for security reasons but also possibly so that the teachers could observe his - their? - behaviour in a controlled environment. And perhaps to get Isumi to talk. If he had been locked up alone, with no one to talk to (well, "talk" to), the teachers probably wouldn't have been able to get the kind of data they wanted. Maybe they thought Isumi would be more prone to blurt out his innermost thoughts to someone linguistically incapable of understanding them? Kind of like how people talked to their pets.
Point two: Le Ping looked exactly like Waya at six years of age, aside from the chipped tooth and outie bellybutton that Isumi had unfortunately gotten a good look at earlier today. Psychological warfare? Trying to put him off balance? Or just a weird coincidence?
Point three: Le Ping's pronounced "Isumi" the exact same way a native speaker of Standard Common (not Chinese, or even Japanese) would say it. Isumi's name had been mocked often enough in Battle School ("Well, if it isn't assume-me shiny-cheerio!") for him to have a very good idea of how the Standard speakers said it. So then wasn't it strange that Le Ping, despite being brought up deep in the Chinese countryside, pronounced "Isumi" with a perfectly Standard accent?
Counterpoint: Well, maybe Le Ping just had good ears and good parroting skills. A lot of young kids did.
Counter-counterpoint: Or maybe Le Ping knew more Common than he was letting on. That was almost certainly true, since he was supposed to be taking lessons with Yang Hai. But to what extent was it true? His parents were non-compliant and supposedly hadn't taught him any Common, but was it possible he was much better than anyone knew? Could he be completely fluent and hiding it from Yang Hai? Or...was it only Isumi who didn't know Le Ping's true abilities? Did Yang Hai actually know?
Was it possible that Le Ping was here to spy on Isumi too?
Isumi looked in the mirror, at the water dripping through his hair. He kept his gaze carefully blank. For all he knew there was a camera behind the glass, and it was feeding information to Yang Hai even now, as surely as the monitor Isumi used to wear at the back of his skull. But a camera couldn't say much. How about another piece of technology? Something like a monitor?
Probably not. Too expensive. Not a machine in the mirror then. Something cheaper and simpler. A child, pretending to be only a child. One who looked exactly like the closest friend Isumi could actually remember.
Would the teachers really go that far just to test me?
Isumi shook his head, wondering if he'd finally gone from mildly paranoid to outright delusional. Military types went crazy all the time, didn't they? Delusions of grandeur. No way the IF would, what, alter a boy's face just to psyche out an ordinary Battle School student, right? Crazy thoughts. Le Ping just happened to look like Waya, that was all.
But what if, a voice whispered insistently in his head, what if this is a test, and you don't pass it? You'll regret not playing then, won't you, Isumi Shinichiro?
Or will I?
The mirror kept right on showing him his own face.
- 0 - 0 -
Late the next morning, Isumi emerged from his bedroom already bracing himself for Hurricane Le Ping to hit him, maybe with his arms and legs.
Except no one was in the living room.
No one was in the other bedroom or the washroom either.
Isumi felt oddly disappointed.
On the table, he found breakfast: two pieces of processed ham, a perfectly bland dinner roll (breakfast roll?) with a packet of jam, some sponge-like scrambled eggs, a small lump of corn niblets, and a few limp pieces of grapefruit on the side. For his drink there was a lukewarm carton of milk. It was all depressingly similar to what he'd been given yesterday.
Now this was psychological warfare. Even Battle School cafeteria food was better than what IPL had given him so far. Battle School food was hot, for one thing, and sometimes they had reconstituted miso soup or rice porridge or those sugary Filipino sausages he liked.
And most of all...the company at Battle School was better. The mess hall was always noisy with the chatter of boys and girls, eating too fast, playing with their food, telling jokes both stupid and cruel, occasionally making intelligent remarks about the games and the players in it, in ways that were even crueller, somehow, than the jokes. There was never a moment of quiet or privacy in the mess halls.
He never thought he'd miss it.
I haven't eaten a meal alone since he was six, he realized. I've forgotten how loud my chewing is.
On the cramped transport tug he'd taken to IPL, he'd had to eat with the crew. Yesterday he'd eaten with Le Ping. It had been nice, after weeks on the tug, to have someone closer to his own age to talk to. Even if...he couldn't actually talk to Le Ping.
But at least I could look at Le Ping's face and reminisce pointlessly about the good old days, when Waya and I were allowed to eat beside each other without Wolf and Tiger between us, before Shindou turned into a prodigy and both of them started beating me in a game I shouldn't have cared so much about that I let it come between us.
Whine whine in my head whine. There is literally nothing else to do here other than play video games.
Maybe this is psychological warfare.
What if Le Ping doesn't come back? What if they're putting me in solitary confinement?
Isumi felt vaguely panicky at the thought.
The main door to the suite swooshed open.
"Isumi!" Le Ping's high-pitched voice rang out.
As usual, the boy went straight to the video games.
"You think too much," said Yang Hai as he came in after Le Ping. "I could see it on your face as you contemplated your breakfast dinner roll."
Isumi gave him a muttered "Good morning" and stuffed some of the horrible spongy eggs in his mouth. He felt vaguely embarrassed about his earlier panic. He hoped no one had recorded it.
But then he realized something.
"Why was Le Ping out there? I thought we weren't allowed outside this room?"
Yang Hai replied carelessly, as if he didn't think much of the rules. "Le Ping is allowed to go to the learning centre, under my supervision, for his lessons in Common. I just blindfold him on the way."
Isumi wondered if the man was joking about the blindfolding. Isumi decided to ignore the bait. "So we're only allowed out of the room if we're with you," he queried.
"Yep. I'm your jailor."
"Only you can open the door?"
Yang Hai's eyebrows went up. It was a typical look for him, disarming but inquisitive - a good look when hunting for info. "Did you even try the door to see if you could get out? You've been here a day now."
"Well, no," Isumi hedged. "Le Ping kept me busy."
"You Battle School kids." Yang Hai had a sigh in his voice now. "Sometimes I wonder whether we do right by you. Well, go try the door then."
"Right now?"
"Right now."
Isumi regarded his superior warily. Was this another test? See if the vaguely non-compliant kid follows a simple order?
Yang Hai was gesturing at the door with his head, expression bland. But he had his hands crossed across his chest as he stared down at Isumi and his breakfast.
Isumi stared back.
"Your food is getting cold."
"It was already cold when I started eating it."
Isumi's voice was cold too. He was rather surprised at how much.
Yang Hai made a humming noise. Was the man pleased or angry? He leaned down a little, put his face uncomfortably close. "If I say it's a direct order, will you do it?"
"If it's a direct order. Sir."
"It is."
Isumi stood up slowly, walked over to the entranceway, and let the retina scanner scan him.
ACCESS DENIED.
He turned, and saw Yang Hai roll his eyes.
"Of course you're locked in," said the man.
- 0 - 0 -
The next few days were games, games, games.
It was just like his first few days in Battle School, really. Before they were allowed into the Battle Room, there was nothing to do for fun but play the games room. The games were similar, except with with cuter sound effects and a lot more Mandarin.
Today was day four of his forced course of video games and Mandarin. Today Isumi had already learned how to say "damn it," and "this sucks," or something to that effect. Also "I hate you very much."
Isumi was winning pretty often now. Le Ping was not happy about it.
Isumi, if he had to admit it to himself, was.
(And this feeling, as well - the addiction of winning, the competitive aggression, the descent into mindlessness - this was just like Battle School too.)
He was still terrible at the worms game - he'd never been particularly good with hand-eye coordination, that was Waya and Shindou's thing - but anything involving planning and strategizing came naturally to him, and anyway he was older than Le Ping, more patient and experienced.
"Ya! Zen me you da dao we le?"
And...somehow he was having fun now. It made him faster, smarter, more creative.
(Or maybe this place wasn't like Battle School at all - it was just Isumi, unable to escape the part of himself that had put him in the school in the first place.)
He admitted to himself he was growing fond of Le Ping. The boy was so...unreserved. After a few days of playing video games with him it was hard to imagine he was a spy - and even if Le Ping was working for the teachers, he wasn't the one doing the observations, judging how often his eyes were glued on the screen and not on Isumi.
However, Isumi was more sure than ever that the whole setup was a test of some kind. The conditions were too controlled to be anything but.
"Bu gong ping! Wo hen ni!"
Ah, that last part meant "I hate you!" Isumi was pretty proud of himself for figuring that out.
"Too bad," he said to Le Ping with what he hoped was a disarming smile. "Maybe I'm just lucky?"
"Bie xiao! Xia yi ci wo hui da bai ni!"
Isumi had no idea what that meant, so he ruffled the kid's hair and kept on grinning.
"Wo yao wan bie de you xi." Le Ping batted Isumi's hand away and closed their current game so he could pick something else to play. The games were all in Chinese now - at some point Le Ping must have changed the settings - so Isumi couldn't understand much of the text. But he was at least starting to recognize some of the titles of Le Ping's favourite games, even in Chinese. The pictures helped.
Eventually, Le Ping settled on a space shooting puzzle game. "Zhe xing ma?"
That meant "Is this okay?" or something like that. Isumi nodded, and the game started.
As they were playing, Isumi marvelled at how well they could communicate now. It was interesting. What if...the games themselves weren't the test, but the Mandarin was? Maybe the teachers wanted to see if Isumi was a good learner?
"Ya! Ni da dao wo le!"
Or was it the other way around? Did they want to see if Isumi was a good teacher? He was supposed to be teaching Common to Le Ping, wasn't he. In fact, Yang Hai had stopped taking Le Ping away for their ostensible Common lessons after that first time. So maybe whoever was in charge was leaving the teaching to Isumi now. But why would they want to see if he was good at that?
Did they want him to be a Battle School teacher?
Isumi nearly killed his character onscreen at the thought.
Well, I'm failing your tests, if that's what you want from me. I let this kid decide everything - definitely not what a Battle School teacher should do, with all those hyper-aggressive children under his tutelage. And anyway, I doubt they'd want a doubter like me teaching the next generation - they'd want a true believer instead, wouldn't they?
But...if the teachers are actually worried about my attitude, would they put me in this room with Le Ping, who's on his way to the Battle School? I could tell him what it's really like there, set him up to be even more non-compliant that he already is...
Well, if he could speak Common or I could speak Mandarin.
"Wo jiang ba ni de ben dan tou zha diao!"
If this was a test to see if Isumi was truly seditious or just slightly disgruntled, it was not a very good one. He sighed, wondering if maybe the whole thing was just in his head, like most of his problems.
Isumi sat back and closed his eyes, letting his character die.
But soon enough there was a tugging on his sleeve. Isumi let his eyes crack open.
His Royal Highness Le Ping was pointing at the holo and scowling.
"Sorry, sorry," Isumi mumbled, turning his attention back to the game.
The game had changed.
Onscreen was a simple graphic of a wooden board covered in a grid of thin black lines. A timer was ticking down in the corner. And that was it - no guns, no armies, no fancy graphics or menus whatsoever.
Isumi counted the lines. Nineteen by nineteen.
"Is this go?" he asked, surprised that the boy would choose such a slow, serious game. "Do you know the rules?"
Le Ping plunked down a black game piece in reply.
"Ah, I'm not sure I can..." Isumi trailed off. He didn't know how to play.
Le Ping had his head turned slightly; he was watching Isumi from the corner of his eye. Strangely quiet. Strangely serious.
The whole thing felt off, somehow. Isumi remembered Shindou's face when he'd talked about go, right before Isumi left Battle School. He'd been so serious about it too. But that conversation had been all about Shindou and Touya and Touya's father, not about Isumi. So maybe this wasn't another test. Just another coincidence.
Yet as he looked at the board, a memory tugged at him, from long ago. A smaller board than the one on the screen, and beside it a pile of black and white pieces, cool to the touch. A boy's clumsy fingers trying to grasp the stones the way his mother's did. A voice saying: This seems like the kind of thing you'd be good at, Shin-kun. Maybe I should teach you how to play.
Off to the side, another boy. Little Shouta, two years younger than Shinichiro, eating some kind of fruit and making a mess all over his t-shirt. His hands all sticky and pink. From somewhere else, the sound of their youngest brother - what was his name again? - making weird baby noises, nonsense words that somehow made sense to Shinichiro's childish brain. The baby was happy, that's what all that gurgling meant.
Is this a fun game? Shinichiro asked.
I think it is, his mother replied.
A proud smile, a broad hand smoothing down his hair.
Then his father's voice, sounding sad now, to Shinichiro's ears: Maybe you shouldn't get his hopes up, dear.
The hand stopped, rested on the crown of his head, suddenly heavy.
Isumi remembered this, despite all he'd forgotten. So...go meant something to him too, and surely the teachers knew this. They had it all on their monitor records. They probably saw it more clearly than he did.
"Isumi?" Le Ping was saying, his voice as young as Shinichiro's once was.
Come to think of it, Isumi had talked to Shindou about go just before leaving Battle School. And now here was a go board in front of him. It couldn't be a coincidence. My mom played it. She wanted me to learn it too, but then I got taken away…
Isumi felt cold, of a sudden. To think that the teachers would use that memory against him, use this child against him. Make him remember all the things he never got to do, make him remember he'd been happy and loved, once. How dare they. This went past anger, it hurt, and Isumi had thought he was beyond letting them hurt him.
No wonder Shindou and Touya Akira cared so much about go. It was all they had left of the people who'd taught it to them. Isumi didn't even have that much.
"Isumi?"
He looked up at the screen. The clock was still counting down. The rules of the game still made no sense to him. Le Ping was still watching him with that expectant, almost hopeful gaze.
Isumi left the board untouched.
- 0 - 0 -
The next morning, Le Ping wasn't there.
Yang Hai was. On the couch, his long arms spread out across the back of it, as if he belonged here.
"Thought we could both use a break from the little terror," the man explained smoothly. He was always explaining things smoothly. It was annoying. "I got someone else to teach him this morning."
As if anyone had been teaching Le Ping anything for the last few days."Does that mean you'll be playing video games with me today?" Isumi asked warily.
Yang Hai snorted through his nose. "He's got you well-trained, hasn't he? Nah, I'm too old for that. Anyway, I'd beat the snot out of you. Especially at go. I'm way better than the brat."
So he was watching them. "You play go?"
"Yeah. Even thought about becoming a pro, once upon a time," Yang Hai closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Actually, I want to talk to you about Le Ping."
The arms slid off the back of the couch and gestured for Isumi to sit down. Isumi decided to take the smaller couch chair, which he turned so he could face Yang Hai square on.
Yang Hai didn't bat an eye at this. "You've spent a few days with Le Ping now. You've probably noticed that he seems to know more Common than he lets on."
Isumi stared back stonily.
"We suspect that he might be close to fluent, since his parents are. The thing is, short of putting a monitor on him - which would be very costly and possibly damaging at this point - we don't have any real proof. Circumstantial evidence isn't enough. We need to catch him speaking Common. And hopefully writing it too."
"Why?" Isumi could hear the resentment in his own voice very clearly. "When he gets to Battle School he'll be forced to use Common. I don't think he'll be able to resist using it, once he's surrounded by more people. What harm is there in letting him have his language for a few more days or weeks, however long you're keeping him here? You're going to take it away anyway."
Yang Hai acted as if he hadn't heard a word of Isumi's insubordination. "I agree. But the higher-ups don't like to see a child of non-compliant parents going into Battle School non-compliant. Bad karma or something."
"Or they are obsessed with control and they can't risk this small boy spreading his non-compliance to the other students," Isumi said bitterly. "Because Le Ping is actually doing something in the way of rebellion and not just talking about it, the way I did."
Yang Hai was still ignoring what he didn't want to hear. He sighed theatrically. "We'd hoped you would get him to spill the beans, so to speak, but he hasn't, has he?"
As if you don't already know. "Of course not."
"That's what I thought. He says you seem to know some Mandarin now."
"He's a good teacher."
Another laugh. "Yeah, he schools us real good."
"What do you want from me, sir."
"I told you, call me Yang Hai."
Isumi gave him a level look.
"No dice, huh?" The officer suddenly leaned forward and spread his hands out on the table in front of him. "I'll be completely honest with you. We're allowed to do that sometimes. We messed up with Le Ping."
"Actually, I think he's fine the way he is."
"He should have been found a long time ago. Our net is spread very thin in the less densely populated parts of China, like the Yunnan countryside, where Le Ping is from." Yang Hai paused. "It's my home province as well."
Despite himself, Isumi was surprised. There had been something oddly genuine in Yang Hai's voice for a moment there. But a moment later Yang Hai opened his big mouth again, and Isumi wondered if he'd imagined it.
"Anyway," said Yang Hai, "the problem with Le Ping is that his aptitude scores are phenomenal but he never had a monitor on him."
"Then let him go home if he's not suitable for Battle School."
"No, he's suitable all right. But the monitor isn't just for us to monitor the students. It's also to get them used to the idea that they are going to leave Earth one day. They have years to come to terms with it. Without knowing it, they start to say goodbye. And they convince themselves that it's worth it. No one goes to Battle School unless they say yes, you know."
"I remember," said Isumi. "You made it seem like I had no other choice."
"That's right. There's not much you can say when they tell you that billions of lives might count on you leaving home forever."
"As if a six or seven year old understands what that means."
"It's not that hard to understand. We're all here trying to save the human race. Please remember that you aren't the only one who has made sacrifices."
Isumi felt taken aback at the sharp tone, despite himself. Suddenly he wondered: kind of sacrifices had this man made? Was he a Battle School grad himself?
Yang Hai saw the look - his eyes flickered for a moment, recognition at being caught - and then he kept on talking in that hard, un-Yang Hai-like voice. "Right now, here's your contribution to the cause. Get Le Ping to say something in Common, and not just a word or two. Real sentences. Make it so he can't play dumb anymore. So when he gets to Battle School his teachers can actually communicate with him if he doesn't play ball."
"You mean if he doesn't play the Battle Room."
"Yes."
"Take away his last defense against against assimilation, in other words."
"Yes."
Isumi couldn't believe it. They wanted him to be the spy. First they gave him five days with Le Ping, to earn the boy's trust. And now they wanted Isumi to break it. This was the test - to see if Battle School had made him cruel enough.
But before Isumi could say no, I won't do it, Yang Hai spoke.
"I have to go." The man's voice and face went tired now, the corners of his mouth and eyes drooping so visibly it had to be an act. "But let me leave you a reminder of why we're here, Isumi."
With a wave of his hand, Yang Hai turned on the holo.
Across the screen flashed four words:
THE SCOURING OF CHINA
"Maybe this'll give you some ideas of what you can say to Le Ping, hm? Try to get him angry at you, see if that gets him to talk. Be creative."
Yang Hai let the door slide shut behind him.
The vid started to play.
- 0 - 0 -
The vid made Isumi feel like he was seven years old again, and a man was at his door telling him, voice soft, about why he had to go to Battle School.
Save your mother and father, Shinichiro, the voice said earnestly. Save your brother from the terrible things the Buggers will do. Leave your home, leave your loved ones, become a person they will never recognize again as their son. It must be done.
It was exactly the same now. They couldn't get him by telling him lies, so they got him with a grain of truth. With a propaganda vid, of all things. He'd seen some kid-friendly vids about the Scouring of China before, when he was very young, but that was censored, non-horrific. And he'd studied the event in Battle School, but that was all about tactics and Bugger technology and learning to think war. It had been years since he'd been asked to feel war, like civilians were supposed to feel.
Look, Isumi, here is a father cradling a baby. The baby's flesh has been melted from its tiny bones, but the father won't let go. Here is a child wailing and clawing at her own face. Aliens have just smashed in her grandfather's skull, and the bone fragments and brain pulp are spread across the kitchen floor. Here is a survivor, years later. Her eyes are hollow as she speaks of her missing family, of years of searching and not finding.
Flesh and bones and tears: all propaganda, of course, but Isumi couldn't help the fear and sorrow that bubbled up in his chest as each horrifying image flashed across the screen. He never wanted to see his father cradle his baby brother's body like that, he never wanted his mother's face to look as lost as the face of that survivor in the video, he never wanted this terrible thing to happen again.
Isumi closed his eyes. He knew what Yang Hai wanted him to do.Maybe this'll give you some ideas of what you can say to Le Ping, hm? Try to get him angry at you, see if that gets him to talk. Be creative.
Isumi already had a plan written out in his head.
1. When Le Ping comes in, have the Scouring of China vid playing. Make sure he sees what I'm watching.
2. Say: "Hey, Le Ping. So this is the Scouring, huh? Kind of sad, but it's probably for the best that this happened. China had too many people anyway. They needed the population laws more than anyone. You know, come to think of it we did you a favour back in the twentieth century, in the Second World War. China needed an enemy like Japan - a real nation - to apply some pressure so you'd get your act together, stop the infighting. We helped Mao get into power, you know. You should thank us for it. He helped reduce China's population real quick. Thirty million people in the famine he created, right? They say 'Mao was thirty percent correct,' so I guess each percent was a million. What do you think?"
3. Watch Le Ping's reaction. No doubt Yang Hai will be watching too.
4. Feel like scum.
Isumi could do it. He'd been trained to do this. Maybe it would even work to get Le Ping talking in Common. At the least, it would hurt the boy terribly.
Except Isumi didn't want to do it.
He wanted to say to Yang Hai, and to the man with the soft voice who came to his door when he was seven years old: I'm older now, and wiser to your ways. I will not hurt a friend to appease your paranoia. I want to save the human race, but I don't want to become inhuman in order to do that.
There has to be a better way.
In his mind, Isumi burned the script he'd written.
His reasoning was this: if they crush Le Ping's spirits now and rebuild him the way they think they want him, he will lose all the best parts of himself. The parts that will let him be a great commander one day. Let him remain Le Ping, smart and funny little Le Ping. Let him keep his charisma, his energy, the things that speak to me even without language. Most of all, let him keep his free will, let him decide on his own to work with the IF instead of against them.
The way I've decided. With still a little rebellion on the side.
Isumi laughed at himself a little, silently. All right, Yang Hai. You convinced me somehow with your stupid propaganda video. I'll help you convert Le Ping to compliance. But I will not do - or say - terrible things in order to prevent terrible things. I'll find another way first.
The thought had conviction behind it. It was almost a mantra, something he could say while he burnt the paper offering he'd made, as if he'd ever had a religion to burn for.
- 0 - 0 -
Le Ping came in yelling murderous things about his substitute teacher.
"Na ge ben jia huo tai ao man le! Zhen tao xian! Hao xiang sha ta!"
Isumi only understood a few words here and there, but he knew death threats when he heard them, being a Battle School kid and all.
I really enjoyed our time together, you strange boy. You've taught me a lot. More than just Mandarin, and games. Thank you.
Isumi gestured at the couch, and the holo, on which he'd loaded up the go game. The one he'd refused to play before.
Le Ping's eyes immediately lit up, and Isumi knew he'd made the right choice.
Isumi had spent an hour or so going through basic go tutorials while waiting for Le Ping to come back, and at the end of that hour he'd played and won a game on a nine-by-nine board against the computer. A stupid version of the computer, of course, but at least Isumi knew the rules of the game now. He knew he needed every advantage he could get. So he took black and gave himself a two-stone handicap, while Le Ping complained and made fun. But the boy didn't refuse to play. In fact, once the game began he went uncharacteristically quiet, and his hands were steady and sure as he placed his moves.
Le Ping's fingertips were covered in calluses, Isumi noticed.
The outcome of the game was already written; Isumi lost by nine and a half moku. Le Ping had gone easy on him, he was sure. In fact, the younger boy's stones had seemed to guide Isumi, teaching him even as they fought to win.
"Zhi dao qi," said Le Ping.
Isumi cocked his head to the side, making it clear he didn't understand.
Le Ping brought up a drawing board on the holo and wrote out three messy Chinese characters with his fingertip. They hung there in front of their game, alien things from another lifetime. Isumi shook his head; he didn't know Chinese and he could barely remember how to read Japanese.
But Le Ping was a stubborn kid. He huffed a little with impatience, gave the screen a long look, then crossed out what he'd written. He brought up a Chinese-to-Japanese dictionary quickly, closed it, then started to rewrite, more carefully this time.
Ah, thought Isumi, as he watched the digital ink laid with painstaking care, left to right, top to bottom, the strokes heavy and sure. It reached at something deep in Isumi's memory, the way the hand moved, pull and lift, forming pieces of meaning that suddenly settled into words, sounds, things that could almost belong to him, if only he'd been allowed to keep them. Guidance said the first two characters. Shidou. He remembered his teachers saying that word, his mother showing him the kanji in a book.
The third character he had never seen before, but surely it meant go.
"I think I understand. You were purposely teaching me through that game?" he asked, and Le Ping started to nod before catching himself. "Who taught you to play go?"
Le Ping gave him a pained look, then turned his eyes back to the screen.
Isumi wasn't going to let it go at that.
"You know, I think I might have heard of this type of game before, from my mom. A teaching game, right? Because my mom wanted to teach me go. Said I might be good at it." Shinichiro let his voice go soft. "But dad told her it wasn't worth it to...get my hopes up over something I was never going to be able to do, because they already knew I was going away to Battle School. So even though my mom loved the game, she never taught me to play."
Le Ping eyes showed he understood. He did understand Common, and he knew exactly how Isumi felt. This whole thing was so manipulative, something the teachers would have done, but Isumi didn't think it was hurtful, didn't think it was just part of a game. His memories and Le Ping's were real, and Isumi didn't want Le Ping to forget that, the way so many Battle School kids tried to. They'd had families, they'd had homes, they'd had lives that could have become so much, if only they'd been allowed to live them. Far better to acknowledge that, to honor what they'd lost, than to pretend none of it ever existed.
"I'm kind of jealous of you, you know, because you got so many more years to be with your parents. You got to learn how to play go, and you've become really good at it. I bet they're very proud of you."
Le Ping's eyes were getting watery.
"I know you miss them terribly. I know you feel very alone right now. I know, because I felt the same way when I left home. But at least I found friends at Battle School. Really good friends. I miss them too."
Isumi didn't need to fake the emotion in his voice. He just had to look at Le Ping's face and be reminded of them - Waya, Shindou, his Launch group, his army. I'm entrusting this boy to you, my friends. Treat him well.
Le Ping was weeping openly now.
"And..." Isumi hesitated, but could not stop now, right before the final attack. "You're my friend too, even if it was for just a short time. I'm so glad I met you. And when you go to Battle School, I hope you'll remember me well. I hope you'll succeed, and be happy, even in that place."
When he had planned this sequence of moves out in his head he hadn't known how Le Ping would react. Anger, maybe. Violence. He hadn't expected the boy to fling his arms around Isumi's waist so he could cry wordlessly into Isumi's shirt.
Look what I've done, he thought. But he hugged the boy back, and if his heart felt heavy with what he was doing, it felt lighter at the same time - because finally, finally the two of them were speaking the same language, and it wasn't Common.
I think I needed this as much as you did, didn't I, he told Le Ping without words.
"I meant it when I said I want you to succeed, Le Ping," Isumi murmured gently. "So let's make a deal. You can ask me three questions about Battle School, and I'll answer them as best I can. But you have to ask me in Common, okay? I don't understand enough Mandarin. And you'll have to speak Common in Battle School anyway, so it'll be good to get in some practice now. You won't be able to make any friends otherwise."
It was a stupid pretext, and Le Ping no doubt saw right through it - they were sitting right beside a machine with a translation dictionary on it, after all - but Isumi knew the boy was smart enough to understand what the question was really asking. Give in now, but get an advantage for later. Or don't give in - continue your rebellion, and continue to be alone.
Isumi held his breath.
Until finally, finally, Le Ping unburied his face from Isumi's shirt to whisper his first question, in Common:
"When can I talk to my family?"
Le Ping's voice was so young, so scared.
Isumi didn't want to answer that question. But he had to be the adult here - there was no one else. "At Battle School, there are no letters, no calls, nothing," he answered honestly. "I think they already told you, right? When you're eighteen, you might be able to see your family, but only under special circumstances, I've heard."
It was enough to break a person's heart, the way Le Ping's eyes fell. It almost made Isumi want to stop what they were doing, stop helping the teachers hurt this boy. But now that he'd started he had to keep going; there was still a path to victory here, if the boy would take it.
"What's your second question?" he asked gently.
Le Ping looked at the screen, where their game was still displayed. "Does anyone play go there?"
"Yes." That wasn't the right question either, but it was better. "My friend Shindou plays. Shindou Hikaru. He's very good, I hear." Isumi didn't know how to write the kanji for Shindou, but he wrote the character forHikaru on the holo. Light. It was difficult, getting his hand to remember the strokes; it had been such a long time. "Hikaru means light. Is my writing correct?"
"En." Le Ping said, sounding a little less unhappy than before.
"There's another boy who might know how to play. Touya Akira." Isumi went on. He really had no idea how to write that name, so wrote it in Common, feeling a little sad now that he had never spoken to Touya Akira much. Too late for that particular regret.
But then, on impulse, Isumi wrote the characters for Waya andYoshitaka on the screen. Yoshitaka was hard to write, but he could do it. He and Waya had written out their names for each other a long time ago, when they'd first met. They'd been almost furtive about it, this small reminder of home and culture and language they'd allowed themselves, and Isumi had sometimes worried that another student would find the kanji he'd recorded on his desk and erase it or report it. No doubt it was all erased now. But Isumi still remembered the characters, and he felt something like pride as his friend's name appeared on the screen in its correct form. "This is another friend of mine, Waya Yoshitaka. He doesn't play go but maybe you can get him to try, if you tell him you know me. And, um, to tell you the truth he looks exactly like you. When I saw you I thought were a clone of him."
"Really?" Le Ping gave him a skeptical look. "Are you just tricking me?"
"Why would I do that?" Isumi gave the boy a light push. "I'm just warning you, so when you see him you won't freak out. And you can surprise him by writing his name."
"How do you write your name, Isumi?"
Le Ping wordlessly watched him write out the five characters, then said, "Japanese names are weird."
"Thanks." Isumi studied his own name for a moment, feeling strange, like it wasn't quite his anymore. He wanted to say, Don't let them do the same to you, Le Ping.
Instead, Isumi turned to the boy and gave him a serious look. "I've already given you too many bonus questions. What's your last question, Le Ping? Think hard."
So far, it had all been typical little-boy questions - requests for comfort, for the assurance that Battle School had something for Le Ping, something that could connect him to home. But Isumi wanted to give Le Ping something more than that. Something that would let them beat Yang Hai and his games, beat the whole cruel, stupid system. Come on, Le Ping, I know you're smart...
Le Ping looked to the screen, where the timer on their game had long ago ticked down to zero.
It took a while, but finally Le Ping leaned close and whispered, almost conspiratorially, "At Battle School, how do I win?"
Isumi couldn't help but smile. "Let me tell you what I know."
- 0 - 0 -
Later, just after dinner, an older officer Isumi had never seen before came into their room and asked, voice soft, if Le Ping could come with him for a chat.
"But I only speak Common," the man added.
Instead of giving an answer, Le Ping turned to Isumi and asked, with his eyes, what he should do.
"Go with him," said Isumi, as gently as he could. "But make sure you don't...leave without saying goodbye, okay?"
Because Isumi didn't want to make the same mistakes he'd made when he left Battle School. He looked to Le Ping's serious face, then up at the officer, who nodded and said, "Don't worry. You'll see each other again."
Isumi could only hope that this was one adult who told the truth.
The door shut behind them with a sense of lonely finality.
Tonight, another long stretch of boredom to look forward to.
What do I do now? What is my duty now? I've done what Yang asked me to do, I gave them Le Ping, but almost certainly not in the way they wanted. So...did I pass or did I fail?
He looked to the the table with its video games, then the door to his bedroom. What else was there to do here?
He tried the door again.
This time, it opened.
As he stepped into the corridor, he almost expected an alarm to go off, or for someone to show up and force him back in the room. But nothing happened. He was free. In fact he was almost too free - he had choices galore, literally dozens of doors open to him, and soon enough he was walking past people - people! He hadn't seen so many faces in weeks. They didn't pay attention to him at all, treating him as as just one more faceless worker drone on this space station hive. It was almost anti-climatic.
Did anyone actually care that he'd escaped his room? All this time, thinking he'd been scrutinized so closely...maybe that was all in his head.
Except he knew Yang Hai, at least, had been watching.
It took some asking around, and it made him nervous when people gave him strange looks because why was this kid wandering around without knowing where he was going? But eventually he found the room he was looking for, and luckily - or not - Yang Hai was already back from dinner.
The door was wide open.
Yang Hai looked smaller in his own quarters, with his back hunched over a computer like that. There was a brain wave reader on his head too, and it made him look ridiculous. He did not look up when Isumi walked into the room, nor when Isumi stood behind him and tried to understand the colourful graphics filling the multi-screens and the windows of text floating in front of him.
Was Yang Hai playing a game? Or...was he making one?
Isumi cleared his throat. Loudly.
"Ah, I see they've given you clearance already. Thus the throat-clearing."
"What are you working on?" Isumi felt he could dispense with the greetings and the sirs. Yang Hai really didn't belong in the military, Isumi could see that now. "Is that a game?"
"Everything is a game, according to your Battle Room-scarred psyche, so your question is moot, but yes." Yang Hai's eyes and hands and brain never left his work. "It's a very special game, this one."
Isumi eyed the screens warily. "It's for Battle School, isn't it."
"You can tell from all the pretty colours, right? Yes, for Battle School, but not for the games room. This baby is going on every desk in the school. We call it the Fantasy Game."
"Ah," said Isumi, with sudden understanding. "You're as obsessed with games as the rest of them."
"You make that sound like a bad thing."
"All the games at Battle School are used to monitor us." Isumi could not keep his voice bland, the way Yang Hai did. "Not just the game, but even the dumb little video games we play - they're all used to gauge our abilities."
"Your abilities, yes. Your minds, your selves - not so much. Not very well, anyway. But the game I'm developing is different." Yang Hai's tone rose with genuine enthusiasm - just a little, but Isumi heard it. He'd been trained to hear it. "It's essentially an RPG with puzzle mini-games, but the student's psyche is what builds the world. If you like to dominate others, you are allowed to dominate others. If you are confused, you will be presented with confusing choices. If your dreams are filled with rape and pillage and murder - the three classics - well, your game world will reflect that, and we can make sure you never get to hold a gun in your adult life, never mind command a fleet."
"So it reads your thoughts. It's even more invasive than the games you already have in Battle School."
"Yep." Yang Hai seemed not to hear the disgust in Isumi's voice. "It's years ahead of anything else out there, the AI we're developing for it. Now we just need the game."
"We?"
Yang Hai's head nodded, just barely, as if on social interaction autopilot. "We're just a small team, working on a biiiiiiig project. Very hush-hush. Need pretty high levels of clearance to even know about it."
"Then why are you telling me?"
"Welcome to the team."
For the next few seconds, the only sound in the room was the faint tapping of Yang Hai's finger pads on his input field.
Isumi had a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. "You're joking, right?"
"Yeah, I am. I don't want you on my team unless you're willing. But it is classified information. We'll just have to erase your brain before you leave here if you don't agree."
Time to close his eyes and squeeze his temples, painfully. Isumi...really didn't understand why this was happening. Yang Hai was nuts. "Why would I want to work on a game that lets you mess with our minds even more? Why would you think that I'd want to?"
"For the good of humanity, of course. You heard what I said about rape, pillage, and murder, right? We want to screen those people out of the program."
"That's what the monitor is for."
"Some people only truly develop their violent streaks when they come here."
Yang Hai was really bad at this convincing thing. "You know full well that I am not an obedient little soldier, right? I didn't cooperate with your test. I told all sorts of things to Le Ping that I shouldn't have and gave him an unfair advantage."
"I never said you couldn't. Remember what some old wise man said: 'if someone presents you with two choices, find a third way.' Very creative, your way of winning. That's exactly the kind of devious yet moral, game-breaking yet game-making mind I need working for me."
"I don't know anything about computers."
"You'll have to learn some. Anyway, you're mainly going to be working on mini-game testing, and then maybe we'll move you up to game design, eventually, if it's a good fit."
"So this job is really low level. Anyone can test a game. Why don't you get Le Ping to do it?" Isumi asked, all sarcasm.
"I plan to." Yang Hai finally looked up. "You did kind of ruin him for Battle School."
Isumi didn't feel sorry at all. "So you're hiring both of us?"
"He's being interviewed for the position right now."
"Like me."
"Yes. Actually, your interview started a few days ago."
"I knew it."
Yang Hai gave him a bit of a sly look. "At Battle School you really frustrated all your teachers and evaluators, you know. All that sullen, passive rebellion. All that potential, yet only decent Battle Room scores. Eventually they started paying attention to the actual content of your rebellious mutterings and they decided you were good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it people liked you, but you just weren't quite a fit for the program."
"It took them all that time to figure it out?"
"It's hard for people to understand us weird ones," Yang Hai said matter of factly.
Not very subtle there, trying to ingratiate himself by use of "us." "So that's why they sent me here."
"Only the weird understand the weird. They wanted me to psychoanalyze you. I have a reputation as a pretty good judge of character, somehow. I am working on a program that has just as much to do with psychology as computation."
Isumi found himself actually imagining himself as a game tester. Sitting at a desk instead of flying across the Battle Room. Kind of boring, really. But...working with people, instead of against them. "I'll get to work with Le Ping?"
"And others. I'm thinking of asking your friend Waya as well. Now there's a kid who knows how to break a computer."
Surely that was too good to be true. "You're just saying that to get me to say yes."
"Nope. Although we'll have to see. He hasn't been performing all that well in Battle School lately - don't worry, that normal for new commanders. Anyway, he's good with computers and, more importantly, creative with them. We're not even going to punish him for taking apart half a dozen student desks. It shows initiative and it's not technically against the rules."
"You're hiring all us troublemakers then."
"All the good ones, yes."
Isumi almost felt a little...weird sense of self-satisfaction at that. He'd never been called a good troublemaker before. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing, but it felt good, somehow, to be acknowledged for being a little...different from people like Shindou, who were so sure of the path they'd chosen.
But Isumi was still Isumi, so he doubted.
"Before I say yes or no, I want you to tell me more about this game."
Yang Hai finally looked away from his screens, his world of numbers and strange intelligences, to look Isumi in the eye.
"Are you sure? You're opening a big can of computer worms here."
"I want to know that I'm not doing anything that will hurt future Battle School students. If this is a game that is manipulative and cruel, I want no part of it."
Yang Hai stared back for a moment, then finally leaned back - way back, his chair looking close to the tipping point - and placed his hands behind his head, stiff officer's shirt bunching up around his shoulders awkwardly. He looked, Isumi thought, like he'd look a lot more comfortable in a t-shirt. Or maybe a Hawaiian shirt.
"So you want to understand the game. This crazy game of ours. Where should I start," Yang Hai mused, almost to himself. "Well, I suppose the idea for this project began when I saw this go game between the best player in the world, Touya Kouyo, and an unknown Internet player named sai...
- 0 - 0 -
A veritable can of computer worms indeed. Yang Hai sure liked to hear himself talk. Isumi was massaging his temples again, but Yang Hai didn't seem to notice.
"No more of these branching algorithms and finite loops, you know? That was just kids' stuff - 'cause obviously once we could build computers that could build better computers, and Turing-Zulowski quantum AIs, it opened up the field in ways that you'll understand when you get a chance to do some testing..."
Despite all the technical jargon flying over his head, Isumi could half listen and still get the gist of it - he'd developed that skill during some of his more useless classes at Battle School. It left his mind free to think about other, more important things, like training exercises and battle plans.
Now, with Yang Hai prattling on and on about his project, Isumi was thinking about other things - about that game between Touya Kouyo and the Internet player sai.
Something about it sounded familiar.
So it's true then, Isumi had said to Shindou, right before leaving Battle School, the rumour about the teachers 'discovering' you because of some brilliant game you played?
It wasn't me playing.
A typical non-explanation from the boy. But then, Shindou always became strange when it came to Touya.
Isumi still remembered the day those two met. He had been watching them - a lot of people had been watching them, the overgrown Launchie and the elite commander in a corner of the lunch room all by themselves - when the strange thing happened.
Touya, the ever polite Touya, suddenly pushed Shindou away, hard. Isumi wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but he could see the look in Touya's eyes. Pure fury.
That was the first time Isumi felt he was seeing the real Touya Akira. The one who wasn't just a soldier built to win, win, win in the Battle Room. The one who came from somewhere, the one who could get passionate about something. The machine who housed a human inside.
What could make Touya Akira reveal himself like that?
Go, Isumi found out later. The same go that made Yang Hai want to build a machine smarter than a human, the same go that made Touya Kouyo give this message to his son: When we meet again, it would please me greatly if we might play a game together.
Not such a cold message, after all, Isumi realized.
"You see," Yang Hai was saying, "with the game we're making, it's not a game so much as a sentience. We don't want it to just give us a bunch of data so we can analyze it and see into the kids' heads. We want the game itself to be able to see. Because right now we only have the Battle Room, and it's important, of course, to observe students interacting with each other, the social aspect of command, but we also need something purer, something internal. Something that can challenge them, shape them, show us and them who they truly are. Do you think games can do that?"
There was no sense of self-doubt in Yang Hai's question. The man already had his answer; he was a true believer. He did, after all, play go.
"I think we can see into each other through games, yes," said Isumi, thinking of Le Ping's pain, of Touya Akira's anger, of Shindou's secrets that Isumi somehow understood. "But," he added, "you'll have to convince me that a computer can do it too."
Yang Hai's shoulders lowered. With relief, it seemed. Isumi hadn't known this was so important to him.
"Then you'll join the team, willingly?"
"I will. If only to make sure..."
"That we don't do anything cruel and unusual, I know."
"Yes."
Yang Hai already had his fingers moving across the computer screens again. The man multitasked far too much. "Don't worry. We're all very good people."
It was almost scary, the way his eyes looked as they took in the bright lines of computer code. A language Isumi did not understand. But maybe one day he would.
"You know. Sometimes when I'm writing this thing," Yang Hai said, "I feel like I'm still possessed by the memory of that game."
"Possessed?"
"By sai. The ghost in the machine." Yang Hai made his voice go all spooky. "They say that when you're coding and you're really in the zone, it's a little like meditation. Like you're reaching a higher plane. A place where ghosts and spirits might reside."
"Really."
"The Hand of God, right here in my keyboard," Yang Hai laughed. "Crazy, right? Don't worry - you'll get like that too."
"I certainly hope not," Isumi told him.
- 0 - 0 -
His new room was a private one, quite a luxury on the station, an attendant informed him. Since Isumi was going to be here for a while, she said, he could have it.
Isumi looked around at the tiny space, which was just big enough to hold a bed and a small nightstand/storage locker. He thought this was a bit of a downgrade from the posh diplomat's quarters he'd stayed in with Le Ping, but he didn't say that.
After the attendant had left, Isumi stuffed the two outfits he wasn't wearing and his other personal effects into the nightstand drawer. Then he left the room.
Now here was something he hadn't had before in those comfortable diplomat's quarters: freedom.
Just down the hall from him was Le Ping's room, and even though Isumi had the rest of the station to explore, he headed straight for his friend.
"I want my video games back," was the first thing Le Ping said to him.
"Nice to see you too." Isumi decided not to comment on Le Ping suddenly using Common in front of him like it was nothing.
Le Ping had a go board on his nightstand, Isumi noticed. It was a strange, archaic thing atop the smooth metal.
Le Ping followed his gaze. He said, "Your friend Waya. The one who looks like me. Does he play go?" The kid had a huge scowl on his face. It was exactly like Waya's face when Isumi teased him.
"No, not as far as I know."
"Then I'm better than him."
The boy had the impeccable logic of...well, a ten-year-old boy. For all his genius, Le Ping was still a brat.
"Did you know Yang Hai's going to ask Waya to work with us?" said Isumi. "It's going to be so funny, when both of you are here. Everyone's going to think you're his kid brother."
Le Ping's scowl deepened.
"By the way." Isumi gestured at the go board in an obvious attempt to change the subject. "Since we can't play video games too much anymore - except for the one we'll be working on - why don't you teach me how to play go?"
Le Ping's narrowed eyes widened. It made him look a little less bratty. "Really? You want to learn?"
"Yeah," Isumi replied, remembering the feel of the stones, from a hundred, thousand years ago. It was another Shinichiro who was allowed to place those pieces, under his mother's hand, on the board - a child playing a child's game, in a world that would never be - but he liked to think that in this world, too, he had time enough still to learn.
And the boy in front of him said, almost shyly, "Sure, I'll teach you." And then the kid ruined it by saying, "But you have to call me teacher."
Isumi put his hand on Le Ping's head and smoothed down the unruly bangs. Then he messed them up. "All right. But you have to actually teach me well, or I'll fire you."
Le Ping swiped Isumi's hands aside. "Does that mean you're going to pay me?"
"In a way."
"You better improve quickly, because I'm tired of playing only Yang Hai. Can you get your go-playing friend from Battle School to come here too? That guy with 'light' in his name."
Isumi hesitated. "I don't think he'll come here."
"No? Why not?"
"He wants to do something else," Isumi replied. He remember the look on his friend's face, the day they parted. Shindou Hikaru would command a starship, and Isumi would probably never see him again. But...
When we meet again, it would please me greatly if we might play a game together.
"So he won't come here?" Le Ping asked.
"No. And we won't be going to him."
Le Ping looked down, let his long bangs cover his eyes. The boy understood: that path to the stars was closed to them now. But perhaps...
"You know," Isumi said gently, "I've heard there are way more possible moves in a game of go than the number of stars in the universe?"
"And every time you place a stone," said Le Ping, "a hundred million possibilities are snuffed out."
"We can't play otherwise. Come on. Let's start a game."
He chuffed Le Ping on the shoulder, and the boy sighed noisily, letting out a heavy puff of air.
"I told you, you have to call me teacher."
"Then teach, teacher."
"Okay, okay," said Le Ping, opening his basket of stones.
The game they played was in a language Isumi understood.
- end -
Author's notes:
This is another one of those stories that took me years to write.
I have no idea whether this story works or not. It's the first linguistic murder mystery I've ever written, after all. I know it's perhaps too talky a story (it's more like a Bean book than an Ender book), but we can blame Isumi the over-thinker for that.
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Date: 2014-01-13 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 05:24 am (UTC)Le Ping is the little shittiest, isn't he? But that's why we love him.
Glad you enjoyed my little linguistic murder mystery.♡
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Date: 2014-02-17 06:50 pm (UTC)tl;dr: this is really amazing. So glad that you're continuing to write in this 'verse.
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Date: 2014-02-18 07:48 am (UTC)I feel kind of ambivalent myself about the themes in this story--Isumi and Le Ping eventually do give in!--so I guess that's why you are left with lots of questions. :\ What do you do when aliens attack your planet? Forget civil liberties and survive, I guess. (Of course in real life there are no aliens but the ones we make out of our enemies...)