“Somebody’s gotta do it,” the old man mumbled. When the elevator reached the bottom of the deep pit, it groaned and shook. The AI’s smooth female voice rang out inside his ear canals, reminding him to watch his step. The door laboriously opened, and he stepped out in his hazmat suit. The signpost in the dimly lit cave told him he was 1,500 meters below the earth’s surface. The strong, pungent odor of chemicals filled the subterranean air, mixed with God knew what. He dragged himself toward the sinister-looking polytank with the Bamboo Inc. logo on it.
Above the surface, Bamboo Inc. touted itself as a paragon of ecological virtue. Its former CEO, a big-time donor to whatever party happened to be in power, even served as environmental minister in the previous administration. Yet deep below the earth, far from prying eyes, things painted quite a different picture. Unbeknownst to the public, in the subterranean pit, the supposedly eco-conscious company was dumping toxic wastes twenty-four/seven.
With a tiny computer chip surgically embedded in his brain, Bamboo Inc. kept the old man virtually under its thumb. Yet there was nothing he could do. He was a cog in the system. As expendable as anybody else.
Even so, an inexplicable spirit of rebellion stirred within the old man. Some genetic combination boosted his curiosity. When he checked the filter, he found a gray cylinder stuck to it.
“What have we got here?” The old man held the cylinder in his gloved hand. It featured elaborate patterns resembling hieroglyphs. He stashed his discovery inside his suit. He walked to the elevator and pushed the up arrow, heading back to the surface.
***
“Hey, look what I found down there today,” the old man said to his wife once he was home.
“Let me see,” his wife advanced on her knees on the tatami floor.
When the old man laid the cylinder on the kotatsu, the capsule trembled and opened, revealing an infant girl inside. The baby drew breath, scrunched up her face, and burst into tears.
“Oh!” the elderly couple yelped in unison, shocked.
Since they had no children or pets, they decided to keep the baby and shower her with love and attention. They christened her Kaguya, or “radiant night.” Soon their lives centered around the baby.
The following morning, to her surprise, the old woman’s breasts were full of milk. Physically as well as mentally, she felt as young as a first-time mother.
“Oh, you may not notice, but you’re such a gift.” Tears filled the old woman’s eyes as she breastfed Kaguya.
With Kaguya’s arrival, the old man’s luck turned around completely. Several days later, the old man spotted a gold nugget caught in the polytank filter. Eureka! Goodbye poverty! It was the first of the many he would find before the newfound riches enabled him to retire. He occasionally came across gemstones in unlikely places.
“Finders, keepers,” he singsonged each time he got his hands on a new treasure. Just as he thought he deserved Kaguya, he never questioned that he was the rightful owner of his findings.
In only a few years, the girl grew into a young lady of radiant beauty. When her elderly parents threw a coming-of-age party for her, hundreds of guests crowded their house, and the fame of her exceeding beauty spread even beyond national borders. Soon marriage proposals inundated the old man’s email in-box.
To the dismay of her aging adoptive parents, the girl spent hours staring at her laptop.
“Honey, what are you up to?” the old woman asked. “Why don’t you go outside and play with other girls?”
“Don’t worry, Mother,” Kaguya said with a smile, the light of her screen flickering on her pale face. Little did her parents imagine that Kaguya was a hacker by night under the alias “Princess.” After her parents went to bed, she snuck into an evil corporation’s system, wreaked immense digital havoc, and brought it down to its knees.
“Did you hear about the latest exposé on your former employer?” the old woman asked her husband.
“No. What happened?”
“Get this,” the old woman said with excitement in her voice. “Somebody hacked into Bamboo Inc.’s system and exposed its environmental violations. What do you know? Princess strikes again!”
The girl smiled a secret little smile. She savored her solitary triumph as she recalled how she infiltrated the company’s network and disabled the old man’s chip.
Still, her parents had something else in mind for the girl. “Kaguya, sweetie, we won’t be here forever,” the old man said with a forlorn look on his face. “It will give us great comfort if we find you a husband.” He sighed wistfully.
“Listen to your father, Kaguya,” the old woman chimed in. “I can’t die until we marry you off, baby girl!” she added with a chuckle.
Even so, Kaguya showed little or no interest in her numerous suitors. Occasionally, the elderly couple forced her to look at the marriage proposals, yet she deleted all the forwarded emails after one glance, almost automatically. No one seemed to catch her fancy.
After months of hearing about Kaguya and her mounds of rejected suitors, the crown prince sent the old man an official messenger, delivering a digital telegram.
“Hello, Kaguya. This is your crown prince, Masanori,” a recorded voice said. “The news of your beauty has reached our palace,” the voice continued, sounding polite but disinterested. “The honor of your presence is cordially requested. Yours, Masanori, Crown Prince,” the telegram concluded.
***
At the gate of the palace, a young samurai in a kimono scanned her for bio data. “Well, this is unusual,” he mumbled while turning the hand-held scanner off and back on again. He phoned headquarters right away. Someone on the other end of the line yelled “Never mind! Let her in!” Shrinking in fear, the samurai bowed deeply and let her pass.
The palace stood tall as a testament to the empire’s power. Yet, the phallic façade of the structure was off-putting to Kaguya. The prince had surrounded himself with a harem of attractive kosho, who regarded Kaguya with suspicion. Dressed impeccably in pristine kimonos, all of them were young men in their early twenties, the same age as the prince himself. They clearly perceived Kaguya as an unwelcome intruder to their all-male domain. The chief kosho glared at Kaguya, and she struggled not to shiver in reaction.
“Kaguya, we hardly know each other, but allow me to be frank,” Masanori began, his brows knitted together in annoyance. He seemed to catch himself after a moment, though, and the furrow that marred the fine porcelain of his face smoothed until his expression became unreadable. Kaguya glanced at the delicate line of his jaw, his nearly feminine cheekbones, the aristocratic shape of his nose under the soft lights. “The bottom line is this. I’m obligated to produce a male heir to carry out the royal bloodline.” He sighed, his face still blank and devoid of emotion.
Kaguya remained silent. She gazed at her feet.
“What a nuisance!” Masanori said. “I’m a breeding horse, nothing more.”
“Then what am I?” Kaguya wondered aloud. “You don’t seem to like me.”
“You have certain obligations as a subject of this empire,” he added. “This is a business proposition. Nothing more, nothing less. No romance involved. Once you give me a male heir, we don’t have to share our bedroom.”
“What am I getting out of this…‘proposition’?”
“Under my protection, you will—”
“I do appreciate your protection, your highness,” Kaguya said in a serene tone. “But I’m not from this country.” She wore a faint smile. “Thanks to your grace and wisdom, we live in peace and harmony. Yet I miss my own kind. You do understand?”
Confused, Masanori said nothing.
“At any rate, I can’t help you,” Kaguya said, and stood. “In that capacity, no. However, thanks to advanced technology, there are other methods. Please email me if you want more information.” She asked the chief kosho to fetch a cab for her. The young man happily obliged.
“Take care of your prince,” she said with a genuine smile.
“Certainly, ma’am.” The young man bowed politely as she crawled into the cab.
***
“How did it go, my daughter?” the old woman asked, excitement in her voice. “Well, how is he? They say he’s good-looking. A lot of girls are in love with him. Not-so-secretly, I might add. At every public appearance, he makes them swoon.”
“Well, let’s just say I’m not his type.” Kaguya smiled.
“What do you mean?” the old woman asked. “You’re such a beautiful young lady.”
“He’s not my type, either.”
“You don’t like handsome princes?”
“Well, no.”
“Are you unwell, baby?” the old woman frowned. “Do you have a fever?” The old woman touched the girl’s forehead. “Are you in pain?” She held Kaguya’s hand and looked into her eyes.
“No, nothing of the sort, Mother. I’m perfectly fine. I’m sorry for making you worry, Father.” She paused and regarded the elderly couple with tenderness. Thank you for your kindness, my Earthling parents. I wish I could take you with me, but on my planet there are no males.
“Are you all right, my daughter?” The old man’s face clouded with concern. “Maybe you need to see a shrink. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying anything, but we’re so worried about you.”
“Soon they’ll come for me. I’m going home.”
“Who are they?” the old man said, alarmed. “What do you mean? You are home.”
“Thank you, Father.” Kaguya smiled faintly. Tears flickered in the corner of her eye.
That evening, the full moon floated high overhead. A meteorite shot across the clear sky like a teardrop. Kaguya smothered her sigh and gazed into the darkness, wishing she were home.
The End
Toshiya Kamei is a fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in Bending Genres, New World Writing, and SmokeLong en Español, among others.
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