Page 10 - NightSide - Asynchronous Mud - Novels and Novellas

And she had simply smiled again...the same beguiling, inscrutable smile she called her own. "We are drawing near," she said, pointing at the island of Honshu looming out of the mists ahead of the giant wing, then she leaned over and tightened his seatbelt, her face tightening into an equally grim set.

"What is it? Is something wrong?"

"No, Kenji-san. All is happening as it must, time must reveal herself as she will."

"What does that mean?"

She pointed at Tokyo Bay ahead. "The rest of the day will be very difficult..."

"You said that before. What do you mean?"

And as they approached the airport, runway 34 Right he remembered, he saw she was pointing at a boat perhaps a half mile from the end of the runway...

He saw a flash emerge from this boat, and a finger of flame as the flash leapt into the sky...

"Oh no," he said. "Not again."

"Yes, Kenji-sama. And the first time? Over Korea? That too was no accident."

"What? How do you..."

But she leaned in and kissed him, this time roughly, on the lips. And he felt her tightening his seat belt once again...until the nylon belt bit into his lap...

...just before he felt the missile's impact, somewhere off to this left...

Startled, his mind reeling again, he looked ahead as the left wingtip lurched and dipped violently, and he started to cry as memory fused with reality...as once again real fear came for him.

"Kenji-sama, look at me," he heard her say, then she took his face in her hands and forced him to look. "You are not going to die, do you understand? I will not allow it."

"What? What are you saying?"

"Kenji, do you love me?"

"What?"

He looked at the water reaching up for him once again, reaching up for him, waiting to hold him in cold embrace, then he looked back into her eyes...

"Yes, I do. God forgive me, but I do," he said to the water's reflection he saw in her eyes.

Then he felt the wing slicing through water, then an explosion -- and then he felt cold water everywhere. The air smashed from his chest by the impact, he thrashed wildly as he tried to move -- but he realized his legs were set in deep mud. He struggled and thrashed with all his might but he was stuck fast -- and then he saw her by his side. Smiling.

She came to him and kissed his lips again, then pulled him free and helped him swim for the surface, and to daylight. They burst free of the darkness a moment later and he wanted to cry for this latest rebirth, but all he could think to do was to turn and look at this precious Mary...

And she was looking at him with such love in her eyes it left him feeling weightless and without a care in the world, feeling almost immortal as death raged all around them. He held her close and kissed her anew, with no reservation now.

"I am so proud of you, Kenji-san. You are most brave, and very wise."

"And I love you," he said, suddenly very happy to still be among the living -- then he felt a growing disturbance in the water. Something below, he wondered, but no. The water around him was spinning, gently at first, then faster.

She came to his side again, held him fast. "Don't be afraid, my love," he heard her say as he looked into her eyes once again...

"What's happening?" he almost cried, then he saw tiny particles in the air -- swirling like a small tornado around them, then he understood. Just like the bridge...and with Sumner Bacon...

There was a flash just after the sphere formed, an inward collapse of some sort, then he was free of the motion, adrift in a sea of stars... But no, it was dark out now, and suddenly he knew he was still in the water. She was beside him still, holding onto him, helping him stay afloat, and then he heard a helicopter overhead, and rescue boats all around them.

Then he felt another presence and he looked out -- at his hands.

He was carrying an infant, a baby girl in his outstretched arms, and he cried out when he saw the baby looking up at him, up into his eyes -- and with this impossible woman still by his side...

"Are you ready, my love?" he heard her ask.

He heard her, of course, but his eyes remained focused on the child -- because he could tell the child was his. 'But...how could this be?' he asked himself.

Then helicopters beat the air overhead and rescue divers jumped down to help the survivors swimming frantically towards the rescue boats just coming out into the bay, and for the first time in fifteen years Kenji Watanabe felt no fear.

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