Episode 5: Project Seraph

A silent calm swallowed the forest. The soft hums and flickering of life disappeared, and clarity descended upon Joji. The rifles pointing to him slowly stepped forward, closing off the space between them and Joji.

He glanced up to the white mech towering about them, and felt the invisible but urgent pull towards it; it was calling to him.

Joji lifted his hand, and before he could do anything screams shot at him from the undergrowth.

“You’re surrounded!” came the shout. “These men are ordered to shoot to kill if met with resistance!!”

Joji froze and scanned the area. The figures emerging from the darkness of the forest were uniformed silhouettes with deadly intent; their faces were featureless, as though they were creatures of shadow summoned from the depths of the earth.

The giant foot of the mech, once a pillar of support in the night, now stood as a cliff of no escape.

Joji noticed the slow, deliberate movements from behind him.

He was definitely surrounded.

“Surrender now! You’ve got nowhere to go!” came a further shout from the shadows.

Joji’s hand reached backwards slowly, and he made contact with the mech; a comforting touch of support. His finger tips touched the cold metal and for an instance his hand rested with ease against his pillar of freedom.

His mind raced and pursued a solution. It fired with urgency and vigour, and his consciousness darted around the maze of problems before him, looking for a way out; looking for an answer to the question before him - how to escape.

The search turned sharp corners and reached dark recesses in his thoughts, but it only reached impassable cul-de-sacs, or worse, uncovered unanswered questions. Were these UGA soldiers? Were they here because of the orbital station? Would they believe him if he said he couldn’t remember? What if they asked him about the mech? Would they kill him? Soon the maze in his head had become a 3D labyrinth of mystery and doubt. The answers remained lost to Joji.

He glanced upwards at the looming shadow of the mech. Perhaps a small part of his heart had hoped for some shimmer of light from its eyes; but reality was stronger than hope.

Joji slowly raised his hands.

With that, the tension in the air sank and dispersed like a sinking cloud. The shadows from the forest stepped forward cautiously, and human features and details came into existence, turning the silhouettes into people.

Joji noticed the distinct lack of UGA symbols on the uniform, and was caught off guard by the somewhat scruffy nature of his adversaries.

If these aren’t from UGA, who are they?

Joji’s heart skipped a beat, but before it could race ahead, a single shot fired from the grey and hit him. He felt his body give up, and he fell to the floor. Darkness took him.

✧

An offensively bright, white light welcomed Joji back into the conscious world. He squeezed his eyes tightly to combat the sheer assault on his senses. He tried to lift his arm to cover his eyes with his hand, but quickly found the sharp edges of cuffs around his wrists restraining him.

The room was empty but for Joji, cuffed to a chair, sitting at a table. The faint hum of static reverberated through the air, only interrupted by the faintest crackle from the abundance of fluorescent lights littering the already white room.

Joji stretched his neck and tried to roll his shoulders to gain a momentary relief from the ache in his back. He didn’t know how long he’d be out.

A voice filled the room, “Joji Sekko”.

It was robotic and monotone.

“Joji Sekko, born 30 April 2093 in sector 673” it spoke again, “one of the last habitable regions to cede to the United Global Accord after prolonged unrest and the death of the former government.”

“Who are you?” asked Joji.

The static and hum sat in the air, but no reply came.

Flashes filled Joji’s mind. Glitches. Lacerations and interpolations of images, memories, or something else. Static cut across his vision, the touch of her hand, an atom in the darkness, the flicker and crash of sparks, bright light.

“Joji Sekko, an average student with good final results. A stellar legal career, no criminal record, a real stickler for the rules. A nice apartment in Zone C, a civilian accordance rating of 885 - a real model member of society.”

Joji rolled his eyes.

“I get it, you know who I am.” he retorted. “You’ll have to do better than that to scare me, all easily obtain-”

“Joji Sekko,” came the robotic voice again, “a man who tries to hide who he is, a man who doesn’t know that they already know you aren’t quite as stable as you want everyone to know, a man who apparently has secret military grade mechanised armoured suit that carries no identifying information or AI Nav System; Joji Sekko, the spy? Or Joji Sekko the terrorist?”

The digital voice cut through Joji’s consciousness; he wasn’t prepared for such a cutting question. He looked to his mind, but his thoughts had been stung and constrained by the overwhelm; nothing would fire and the logic was stuck in place.

His flashes of memory of the orbital station flickered through his vision, followed by the deep disconnect and ontological loneliness that was ever present in his life within the metropolis. The longing and desire for resonance, and the painful and heavy burden that came with existing within the UGA filled his body. The accusation cut through Joji, and for the first time in a long time, he felt seen - but rather than a blissful joyous feeling of comradery and shared experience, he felt trapped. He was annoyed at his overreaction; he knew how the asphyxiation of society had him gasping for air trying to live his life in a way that was expected, but why now did it make him feel so small to be seen?

Before Joji could collect himself, there was a deep mechanical whirring from the door, followed by the sound of releasing pressure as the lock de-initiated. Slowly the white door hinged open, exposing the deceptively thick walls; the speed at which the door creaked open suggested that it was not only thick, but incredibly heavy.

A man in tattered military gear walked through the door. He walked with a confidence verging on arrogance; his jacket was certainly non-military, it was dark blue with yellow hems and an old fashioned emblem crest on the front pocket. His stubble was too unkept to be purposeful.

He strode in, his muddy boots leaving flakes of dirt and grass on the otherwise grey floor.

And behind him a woman flowed through the door, and as she did the door began to creak shut.

The woman-

Joji knew as soon as he caught a glimpse of her face - no, he knew as soon as the door opened.

It was her.

The man dragged one of the empty chairs and collapsed into it. As she sat down, Joji dared not meet her eyes. He had felt her presence more times than he could remember; and even with his hands cuffs he felt her pulling him in. A strand of dark hair sat delicately over her face, and she swept it to one side with an otherworldly grace. Joji couldn’t help but look into her green eyes; and as he did he met his gaze, and felt the pure surrender of opening up his soul. In that moment he felt that life itself had pierced him and anchored him to her - and at that point total collision was inevitable.

“Joji Sekko,” said the man with a rough and deep voice.

Joji snapped out of his connection - and looked away.

“Imagine my surprise to find a sniffling boring civvy with a CAR of 885 with a giant fucking mech with no ID, no Nav, fitted with enough fire power to start a god damn war, and if that wasn’t enough, a civil disobedience level that would normally land someone in a labour camp or shipped off to the colonies.”

“Now, a clever guy like you, fancy job, I’m sure you’re thinking of some clever response, but let’s cut the bullshit.” The man raised his feet and slammed them on the desk; he slumped back even further into his chair.

“So Joji Sekko, tell me about the mech.”

Joji looked at the soles of the man’s boots, and quickly glanced at the woman.

“I found it.” said Joji nonchalantly.

The man burst into laughter, and kicked his feet down on the table.

“HA! I like that one kid. I have to admit, I was expecting something clever, but that caught me off guard!”

“Look,” he continued, finally taking his feet off the table and sitting up. “Do you have any idea who the fuck we are?”

The shift in the tension in the room caught Joji off guard, and there was a palpable and real intention behind the man’s words. The truth is, Joji had no idea at all.

The woman looked at the man and then at Joji.

“Joji,” her words felt like home. “I’m going to lay out your options for you. You have no idea who we are.”

Joji flinched.

“Are we part of the United Global Accord? Are we an underground terrorist organisation? It really makes no difference at all. We have everything about you. UGA has every single detail about your life, all the information I’m sure you know they have, all the information you don’t know they have, and judging from your reaction so far, all the information you don’t even know existed.”

Joji felt backed against a wall, and yet he was longing for every word that she said.

“Joji, if you’re with UGA and have some secret Mech, how do you think this will go? If you’re some secret rebel, what do you think the UGA will do to you? Your fate is directly tied to how compliant we think you’re being.”

The man slammed a pistol onto the table, and the crash split through Joji.

“And I don’t think you’re being very compliant.” said the man, now smirking.

Joji looked into the man’s eyes. The woman was right. He had no idea what was going on.

His mind, in the background, was still processing what they had said about his civil accordance level being 885. He knew it would be high, but he felt ashamed at just how high it was. He felt no better than the loathsome ghosts he saw every day, the same people who were willfully ignorant of the vice like grip that society had had on them. He was just like them. And what did he mean by a civil disobedience level? That’s not a metric Joji had ever heard of.

Joji felt the wall against his back, but despite it all, the man’s aggression simply touched a part of Joji that riled him up. The man had sprayed gas on the small spark crying out for oxygen.

“Whoever you are, I’m not sure you hear too good. I told you, I found the mech.”

The man reached for the pistol on the table-

Suddenly, the large heavy door hissed, and slowly swung open, and both the man and woman turned round quickly. Another man, holding a thin glass tablet, walked in and whispered to his colleagues. Their eyes lit up, and the whispering seemed more urgent and frantic. He showed them something on the tablet, and they looked at each other in shock.

Joji could sense the energy in the room change. The man, as aggressive as he was, was not hiding anything. Joji felt sure that he really would shoot him; his threats and his body language suggested he wasn’t trying to deceive or play games, he really just didn’t care one ounce about Joji. But now, the man felt smaller.

The pair of them turned to Joji. The woman placed the glass tablet on the table.

“Did you do this?” she asked simply and quietly.

On the tablet, Joji saw the orbital station. It was a video, seemingly taken from the mech itself. There were numbers and values and codes around the screen that meant nothing to Joji. He felt lost in what he was seeing. The flashes of memories had felt like a dream, but this was bringing his actions into existence. The scene played on and the camera switched, and he could see himself - strapped into the mech piloting it.

The woman pulled it away.

The room fell heavy with silence. Joji felt like he was redlining. His entire consciousness had checked out, unable to process what was going on.

The silence continued.

“How did you do it?”

The man’s question cut through the silence like an unexpected blade in the night.

“How did you pilot the mech?”

The woman looked from the man to Joji. She too felt smaller now, and despite feeling like home, the dynamic had changed. She was now longing for Joji to speak, to hear his voice, to listen to his words.

“What- what do you mean?” Joji said.

The woman looked slowly to the man. His mouth was slightly open, but there was no danger of any words forming. His eyes had widened, as though he was sitting opposite a ghost.

She started to talk, but stumbled over the first few syllables.

She paused and took a deep breath.

“This mech, the white mech, we- we pulled the data log. We had no idea about the station, but -”

She blinked and swallowed.

“But the mech - that mech, that mech isn’t meant to be here- that mech is impossible to- this has never-”

Joji felt lost in a sky full of stars. He was in the abyss without a single flicker of hope in any direction. The cold darkness of space was his jail - no matter the direction he travelled, he was there alone with no warmth, answer, or comfort in sight. He couldn’t make sense of the conversation, but yet, he felt he was travelling faster.

He felt the pull of an answer, of a connection.

“This mech,” she continued, “was one of the five experimental mechs developed in secret in the colonies to counter UGA’s creation of its armoured mechs. Project Seraph. But, they didn’t work. The pilots, everyone; well, no one could pilot them, not- not like this.”

“They’re different to the UGA mechs, they’re… demonic, possessed, they destroyed the pilots, anything close to 30% neural-sync and- well- no one got close without losing their mind. Or worse.”

The man beside her visibly stiffened. His aggressive demeanour had evaporated completely.

Her emerald eyes locked with his.

“Joji, your neural-sync was 98%. I need- we need you to-”

Her soft voice was cut off by the spine-spitting sound of an alarm screaming into the room. It felt as though Joji had been slammed head first through a window, and there was no remorse, the alarm continued with callous venom.

The man and woman seemingly regained their composure, and they scrambled to the glass tablet. The woman got to it first and frantically swiped and clicked at the screen.

All colour from her face had disappeared.

“What is it?!” shouted the man, competing with the alarm.

“Rin!” he screamed once more, “what the fuck is going on?”

“Sector 670.” she replied.

Joji’s blood ran cold. His home - his childhood home, sat directly in the centre of the 670 grid.

“Sector 670, what - Sector 670, Sector 670… Sector 670 that’s a slum out east, what about Sector 670?”

“It’s gone.”

“What? What do you mean it’s gone it-”

“They’ve wiped it. Everything. The whole region. It’s gone.”

**End of Act 1**

Episode 4 - Inconsequential Morality

Episode 6 - Coming Soon

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