Ride

"What is it you want?"

Vince turned. He couldn't read anything in his sifu's face. The question had come from nowhere.

"...What?"

The old woman sighed. "Young Vince, when people come to my dojo, they all want different things." Her round face was sliced in two by the shadows cast from the sunset, making her folorn smile unnering to Vince. "The tourists want to experience our 'culture', whatever that is. The kids want to be their heroes on television. The young men want to impress the young women, and the young women want the young men to go away. But I have trained you for two months and you have not said anything to me about why you are here."

"I pay you." Vince looked around the open air dojo, a palm-leaf roof on wooden struts that gazed out over the ocean. "Six bucks a week to learn how to defend myself. Isn't that enough?"

For an answer, she swept out a leg. He almost managed to keep his balance this time.

"Money doesn't fuel people, Vince." Her voice was reproachful but not angry. He'd never seen her angry. "People who only want money aren't people at all. You want something else."

"Yeah, to not get beat up by old ladies." Vince climbed back to his feet, wincing. "Can I go now, or do I have to tell you my life story to get away?"

She looked disappointing in him. "Very well."

He wondered if he should have answered. Then he wondered if he had an answer that would have been good enough anyway.

---

The store didn't like him doing this.

Oh, it wasn't concerned for his safety. It could look after itself. It had figured out how to blend in on the new island, although so far it had trouble understanding that people on holiday didn't want to watch anime. No, what it was concerned about was that he wasn't doing it properly.

The neon green chunk of plastic rested on the bed behind him as he changed.

The vacation was doing him good. He'd gotten some muscle tone and lost a bit of weight, and he no longer looked like a zombie. So that was an improvement.

He hefted the ice hockey chest and shoulder pads over his head.

No, it wanted him to use the machine. Do the jingles. Say the catchphrases. But he wasn't gonna do that. He was his own person, not a product. Besides, he wasn't really doing this to help people, although it was a nice side bonus.

On went the ski goggles and the bandanna over his mouth.

It wasn't even as if there was much crime on this island anyway.

He picked up the rubber mallet in gloved hands. He looked like he could pass at a con. Ghetto Rider cosplay. Heh.

Vince went out into the night.

Perfection

"Unknown genome. Genetic tampering. Clone activity detected."

Chairman Satoshi Hiro scanned the words on the paper over and over, but they revealed no further meaning to him. Around him, the servers hummed, black egg-shaped monoliths sprouting from the serene skin of the garden. A woman in a kimono polished their surfaces.He regarded the bonsai tree in front of him.

A clone. Loose. With them?

He'd had a tiring day. He'd had to explain to the elder executives, in no uncertain terms, that their plans for the new franchise on Earth 02 would go ahead. NBN's failures were their own fault. Hubris. They had snatched and grasped where they should not have, and suffered swift retribution. Word travelled fast. NBN stock was in freefall. This was their time. Now nobody trusted what they were told on the news, they could exploit their newfound freedom.

And, of course, they didn't desire the same things. NBN needed to own, own, own. But we, he explained, do not. We work in harmony with existing structures.

In other words, he thought, we make our takeovers look good.

Hiro studied the tree. Where was it...

Their offers were much more subtle. After all, what they offered could hardly be called villainous, or sinister. Just methods to remove stress, make the working life easier. Entertainment, too, would be possible. They could introduce the rest later, once they were comfortable with the new ideas presented to them.

The woman came over and poured Hiro a cup of tea. He glanced at the barcode on the back of her neck.

There was the problem of the clone. It had been detected during the Universe of Tomorrow Expo they'd held. The Ancestral Imager attraction had reported erroneous data.

"Unknown genome. Genetic tampering. Clone activity detected."

The words haunted him. If there was cloning on Earth 2, then a sword hung over his neck. He doubted the Kobbers would tolerate the industrial attitude to cloning. This one was special, unique. He would have to... nullify it, somehow.

He would have to be very, very careful.

Hiro found the errant branch and carefully cut it away with the shears. He sat back, examining his work, and nodded in satisfaction.

It could be done.

Prison

It moves. Head, arms, tail.

Dark. Feel. Cold stone, black water. Cannot see. Feels all, everywhere. Cold metal of prison. Has felt the cold metal of prison for countless years.

Feel. Strange. Symbols. Cannot read. Belong to jailors. Push.

Light? No heat. Pressure changes. Moves, pushes, breaks chains, pulls down walls -

"We made them. We couldn't control them, but in our arrogance we made them anyway, much like we made countless others."

Change.

Light. Warm water. Can see. Blue clear waters, color, sun, light.

No chains. No walls.

Freedom!

"What will we do, when it breaks free? It must hate us so much."

It dances, all one hundred of it. Jubilation. No longer a prison. Swim swim swim, breach water, find warm air and sun.

Freedom!

Thoughts turn. Images of fire, stone, metal. Memories? Goals. Feel. Island. Land. Rich. Swim. Take. Gain firestonemetal.

Must build.

"The world will weep..."

Must build. Must grow. Grow strong. Stronger than anything. Stronger than jailors.

Will never be jailed again.

"...tears enough to fill the salt seas."