Chapter 3: SF (Sukosi Fusigi)

S.F. Sukosi Fusigi—A Little Strange.

"Gah, I can't see a damn thing... If I start getting turned around, I’m hauling ass back out of here."

Taro threw himself into a narrow pipe that appeared to be an air-conditioning duct. He fumbled through the dark, feeling out the walls as he crawled forward with agonizing caution.

"This is terrifying, dammit... Even if I follow this thing, what if the exit is just as locked as the entrance? I can't exactly muscle my way through a bulkhead."

Taro scrambled through the absolute void like a clumsy insect. He didn’t even know why he was doing this, but for now, he had no choice but to rely on the inexplicable survival instincts currently inhabiting his brain.

Is this that 'Sleep Learning' crap? he wondered. I guess it makes sense if I don’t think about it too hard. But still... this is the future. Maybe things are just that high-tech.

He decided to settle on that explanation for the eerie knowledge bubbling up inside him. Thinking about it any further was a one-way ticket to a headache, so he figured it was better to just accept the "Future Magic" theory and move on.

"Whoa—watch it. A fork in the road? Or rather, a hole. If I fall down that, I’m probably a goner. Better watch my step."

It wasn't so much a branch in the path as it was a vertical drop. He rubbed the goosebumps blooming on his arms after nearly slipping and pressed deeper into the vent. Glancing back, the light leaking from the room behind him was now a distant, tiny speck.

"...Wait, is that ringing in my ears? No, that’s different. What is that sound?"

Amidst the low thrum of air whistling through the duct, he caught a distinct, high-pitched tone. Taro strained his ears. After one final, hesitant look back at the safety of the room, he steeled his resolve and crawled toward the noise.

"It’s dark. It’s cramped. It’s scary. God, what the hell am I even doing?"

He pushed through the rising tide of anxiety. He couldn't tell how far he’d traveled, but it probably wasn't as far as his screaming muscles suggested. A toddler’s crawl would have been more aerodynamic than his current flailing.

"Huh? A dead end? No... wait. I can go right... and left... Oh? Oh-ho-ho?"

His hands traced the walls, feeling the path open up on both sides. He hesitated for a split second, wondering which way to go, but the faint shimmer of light reflecting off a corner made the choice for him.

"Please be something good. An atmospheric control room, a nutrient supply hub for the cryo-pods—heck, I'd take a vending machine. Ideally, I’d find a way to broadcast an SOS... but I’d probably just break the radio, wouldn't I?"

His heart hammered with anticipation as he dragged his aching knees and elbows across the metal. He saw a light source coming from a room below and realized there was no grate covering the opening. He pumped a silent fist in the air.

"There’s some kind of machinery down there. Looks like I can climb down without a rope... Excuse me! Coming in!"

Since he’d already concluded he was the only person alive on this hunk of junk, he dropped down and landed on top of a device without a shred of hesitation. He stood up, shaking out his stiff, cramped limbs, and immediately came face-to-face with a massive piece of hardware.

"Whoaaaa... I have no idea what that is, but it’s huge. What is it? What am I looking at?"

Taro approached the mechanical behemoth with his head tilted back. It was at least twenty meters tall. From a central metal sphere, a chaotic web of cables radiated outward like a mechanical sun. These cables plugged into various box-shaped units, all of which were anchored to a single massive pillar running from the floor to the ceiling. Occasionally, status lights on the surface would blink rhythmically.

In Taro’s limited memory, the closest thing it resembled was the core of a nuclear reactor. Of course, the odds of it actually being one were hopefully slim, but beyond the fact that it was "a big machine," he didn't understand a thing about it. The only thing that made sense was the monitor-equipped terminal sitting right in front of the beast.

"Yeah, I’m not touching that... That is way outside my pay grade."

Without a second thought, he rejected the idea of messing with the giant reactor and turned back to the smaller device he’d used as a landing pad.

"Man, I’m being way too optimistic. I was hoping that 'Sleep Learning' would've turned me into a super-hacker, but life isn't that convenient... Oh, hey. This one has a button."

Standing before the smaller unit, Taro spotted a red button on the side of its monitor. He’d expected to find nothing but more dead screens—just like in the pod room—so he was actually a bit surprised.

"If I press this, the giant machine behind me isn't going to explode, right? I mean, surely they don’t design systems where a single button ruins everything anymore. I’m not tempting fate here! Seriously, this isn't a 'set-up'!"

It’s important, so I said it twice, he thought, before jabbing the red button with a trembling finger.

< BEEP-BOOP >

With a nostalgic, almost retro sound, the monitor flickered to life. Lines of green text began scrolling down the screen.

"I guess some things never change. I still can't read a word of it, but... wait! AGH!!"

Taro let out a yell that startled even himself.

There, amidst the sea of incomprehensible symbols on the screen, he saw it. A single word written in plain, unmistakable script.

[ JAPANESE ]

"H-how do I click it? Where’s the... I don't need a mouse. Just give me a keyboard or something! Damn it, how do I work this thing!?"

He hovered around the screen in a frantic panic, his hands fluttering uselessly. He thumped his chest to force himself to calm down and began examining every inch of the small device.

"Dammit!! Nothing! Not even a trackball! Is it voice recognition? Or maybe... direct brainwave interface? I’m pretty sure they were testing that back in the twenty-first century..."

He clicked his tongue in frustration, but he wasn't about to give up. Then, a thought hit him—a possibility so simple it was almost embarrassing. He reached out with a trembling hand.

"...It’s a touchscreen. I’m a complete moron."

Taro’s face flushed red as he remembered his previous flailing. He shook the embarrassment away and stared at the screen as the mysterious language continued to scroll in a complex, rhythmic pattern.

"...WH-WHAT THE—!!?"

Without warning, a panel on the device slid open like a mouth, and a metallic sphere rolled out. Taro shrieked and jumped back.

"Okay, I definitely didn't see that coming! What the hell!? That’s terrifying!"

He retreated several steps, but the sphere rolled across the floor, pursuing him. Taro dodged. The sphere closed the distance.

"Okay, okay! Let's just talk about this, baby! A very wise man once said that most problems can be solved with communication! Granted, that guy's wife found out he was cheating and stabbed him, but still! HAHAHA!"

Backed against the wall, Taro babbled incessantly to drown out his own terror. The sphere, however, ignored his rambling and came to a stop at his feet, its red lamp blinking.

"EE... RO... HAH... NEE... HO... HEH... TOH..."

A voice suddenly emanated from the ball. It sounded like a woman’s voice. Taro curled into a ball, then slowly peeked over his knees to look at the machine.

"Chirinuruwo... wait, why the hell are you reciting the Japanese alphabet!?"

Silence followed. Taro wondered if he’d just failed some kind of security prompt and immediately regretted his outburst.

"TH-IS WA-Y. TH-IS WA-Y."

Ignoring his confusion, the sphere began rolling toward the massive machine, speaking in a disjointed, robotic Japanese. Taro watched it, stunned, before tentatively following. He didn't understand what was happening and he was still half-convinced he was about to die, but the sheer joy of finally getting a reaction from the world filled him with a strange, manic energy.

"Alright, alright, I’m coming. Hold your horses, Koume-chan. But just so you know, I'm still pretty sketched out by this whole situation."

He decided to name the sphere Koume-chan, mostly because it looked like a giant pickled plum seed. He stopped a few paces away from where the sphere had come to a halt.

"So, is there something here? I don't see anything... Oh, for the love of... you’re stuck on a cable! You look like a piece of high-tech wizardry, but you can't even handle a wire!?"

Taro provided his own commentary as he reached down to help the sphere, which was currently high-centered on a thick cable. He was surprised by how light it was as he lifted it and set it down on the other side.

"THANK YOU, SIR."

"Why English!? And why is it so fluent all of a sudden!?"

He felt a wave of inexplicable disappointment. Why was the Japanese so broken if the English was perfect?

"Are you being remote-controlled? Is someone watching me? Where’s the camera!? There!? ...No, nothing. Wait, are you serious?"

Taro spun around, looking for hidden observers, but his movement stopped dead when he saw what Koume-chan was bumping against.

"This is a Type V, isn't it? But it’s been modded to hell and back... What is this? Is it going to suck the life out of me to power that giant machine over there?"

Before him was a device with a human-sized indentation, nearly identical to the cryo-pods in the previous room. Taro’s internal library of 'Future Knowledge' identified it instantly, but he also noticed several components that shouldn't have been there. Chief among them was the massive, trunk-like cable connecting the pod directly to the reactor-like core.

"I really don't want to get in there... but I feel like the plot is forcing me to, isn't it? Let’s be real—the cryo-pods on this ship have a survival rate of basically zero. Even if this is a 'New and Improved' version, I don't see the odds changing that much."

He suspected the previous failures were due to some catastrophic accident, and his instincts told him that no one would normally use a machine this experimental. However, "No thanks" didn't seem like an option the sphere was going to accept.

"GE-T IN. GE-T IN."

Koume-chan spun in place, urging him.

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you... Gah, fine! I'll do it! But if anything goes wrong, Koume-chan, I’m holding you personally responsible!"

Taro decided to bet on the basic decency of whoever built this place. Surely they wouldn't leave a death trap lying around for their own people. Probably. He slowly lowered himself into the human-shaped cradle.

"Okay, I’m in. Is this good? Whoa—OW! Hey! That was a prick! You just pricked me!"

He felt a sharp sting in his neck. Recognizing the sensation of a sedative being administered, Taro decided to stop fighting and closed his eyes. It took exactly two seconds for him to plummet into a deep, dark sleep.

---

"...Yes, good morning. This is Teiro Ichijo speaking."

His head was still hazy from sleep. Wait, who the hell is Teiro? he thought, his internal monologue immediately snapping back to its usual snark. As he felt the silicone-like padding of the pod gently release his body, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Good morning, Mr. Teiro. The override process is complete. How are you feeling?"

The unexpected voice made Taro jump. He looked toward the source and saw the metallic sphere he’d named Koume-chan.

"I feel... okay. But... wait. What? What just happened? What did I—"

The sphere had spoken. And he had answered.

But they weren't speaking Japanese. They were using a language he had never heard in his life.

And yet, that was the terrifying part.

He understood every single word perfectly.