The Sound Empress: Chapter 11
Brief synopsis: Kari, shaken by the news that she is not safe, wakes up groggily. She somehow made it to the local train station, where both her and Nari board a train to head to Fukuoka.
The next day proved to be the most worrisome day in my life. Those words continued to rattle through my head:
“You are not safe…”
I mean, what was I going to do here? There was nothing I could do at this point to ensure my safety. Unless, by some sheer coincidence, I could see Buson-min at my front door so I could execute him, the force would be hunting me down. Luckily I am away from civilization, but even then I can’t be fully assured that I wouldn’t be detected in the future.
I was also worried about Nari. If Nari could be connected to me, then they would want to eliminate her as well, as she knows stuff about the force (in fact the same information as I do), and she has connections with the Japanese government. Obviously the force would try to extract any answers from her that they could, before doing the deed.
I couldn’t even sleep; my mind just kept me awake, to look out for any threats.
Could I even handle all this worry?
“Come on, hold yourself together Kari…” I murmured to myself, as I walked through my residence, half naked, and shaking hard from fear. “Maybe a little hot drink would help soothe my nerves…”
I went into the kitchen, with the lights still off. I was so nervous and focused on making myself a cup of tea that I didn’t even bother to turn the kitchen light on. Hopefully I can find everything that I need…
As I was fumbling around to find some green tea bags and my tea kettle, I tripped, which caused the floor to shake. The shaking was great enough to knock a paring knife off of the counter, causing it to fall and pierce my left hand. I yelped in pain.
I wanted to spit out some expletives, but somehow I controlled myself well enough to hold them inside of me. Clearly I will need some light, to make my tea and to tend to my new wound. I got up, writhing in pain, and then slowly walked towards the entrance to the kitchen, where the light switch was. Flipping the switch, I saw my left hand was bleeding slightly, as the knife was still stuck in my hand. Still writhing in pain, I pulled the knife out of my hand, and a gush of blood came out. Quickly, I ran to the stove and wrapped my hand with a hand towel that was on the handle of the stove.
Breathing heavily, I said to myself: “Wow, that was scary. Got to make sure that there is a light on before you start making something.”
The bleeding did die down a bit, but it did soak through the towel, as my hand kept bleeding for the next 10 minutes. I was still shaking, but this time it was over the amount of blood that I was losing. The good news is that the bleeding stopped on its own.
With the bleeding stopped, I placed the soiled towel on the counter, so I would have it on the ready. I then found the tea bags and the kettle, and filled the kettle with water. Then I made my tea, which was some sage tea. I read that sage can be used to calm the nerves. It took a few minutes to brew the tea. Upon pouring the tea, I felt a bit calmer, and then upon drinking some, I felt much better. Now I felt like I could sleep for a whole week. Before going to sleep though, I would apply a tourniquet to my hand, just to prevent any further blood from spewing out of my hand.
I woke up the next morning to my cellphone ringing. It was Nari. I wasn’t fully rested, but I accepted the call anyway:
“Nari here. Just letting you know that I am heading up to your village now, and I should be there in about 20 minutes. Be at the train station and get on the train car labeled, BEQ1129. I will pay for your ticket once you get onboard.”
The call hung up after she finished saying that. As I just got up, I would have to just throw on my clothes and run over to the train station.
Being a weekend, the train station was quite lightly loaded. There was hardly a line at the turnstiles, and the staff there seemed to be quite relaxed.
I went back outside and took a look down the track, heading towards the greater Tokyo area. I didn’t see any train cars yet. Perhaps Nari’s train was running a bit late, I thought. About a minute later, I could then hear the squealing of brakes, as well as a horn. As the train came slowly to a halt, I looked for the number of Nari’s train car.
BEQ1126...BEQ1127...BEQ1128…BEQ1129! That’s the one. I quickly walked to the car, and the door opened up. I was the first one into the car, as another one followed behind me. Nobody got off here, though.
When I got in, I could see a hand waving up in the air, beckoning me to come over. I slowly made my way towards the hand. I did bump into a few people in doing this, as some people were moving into a different car to go eat, or to stretch their limbs out. No one seemed to mind, though.
I then sat down, opposite to Nari. She greeted me:
“Hey Jung Moon!” she said, while looking at my hand.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing much, but oh my god, what happened to your hand?”
“Yesterday was a very rough day for me.”
Nari expressed some sympathy, and said: “I’m sorry to hear. What happened?”
“Yesterday, my mind was racing around a message that appeared on the product that I labeled as number 14. That message stated that I was not safe. However, there was nothing I could do in my household to improve my safety.
I felt powerless, and scared, at the same time. These thoughts were so intense that I couldn’t sleep. This explains why I look quite disheveled.
Now, to get to my hand. In the night I was still wide awake. I knew I needed to sleep, so I decided to brew up some sage tea, since I have drank it in the past and it proved useful as a…” I lost track of my words.
“Sound it out.” Nari said.
“Sleep aid! That’s it. I would brew some sage tea as it acted as a sleep aid for me. Unfortunately, since my mind had other things on the forefront, I didn’t turn the light on. Then as I was trying to navigate through the kitchen in the dark, I fell onto the floor, which shook the entire room, and caused a knife to fall off and stab me in my left hand. That explains the tourniquet.”
“Are you sure you are okay?” questioned Nari, “I don’t want you to be in a state of horrible mental and physical being.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, I think. When the country as you know it depends on you, you have to be able to carry on, regardless of what comes at you.”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but what if you end up with a sickness and die? I’m not sure what I’d do without you as a friend to talk to.”
I pondered this for a bit, but my mind just couldn’t come up with a response to this. You can tell my mind was just not there.
“Hello?” Nari said, snapping her fingers so as to get my attention. I shook my head.
“Ahh?” I said groggily.
“What if you end up becoming sick because of your open wound, and you die because of it?”
“I’m not going to die. At least, not anytime soon. It’s just a small knife wound, not a gunshot wound, and it’s not bleeding.”
To prove this fact, I slowly unwrapped the tourniquet that I had applied last night. Upon unwrapping it completely, the wound was clearly visible, with some scarring.
“You can’t really see it from the scar, but the knife went in pretty deep. The stab itself wasn’t too painful compared to when I pulled the knife out, so that I could dress the wound.”
“Well, at least it isn’t bleeding now. Make sure you keep the wound clean, so that it doesn’t get infected.”
“Will do. By the way, do you have a piece of cloth or a large band aid that I can use to re-cover the wound, and some antiseptic ointment?”
Nari reached into her bag and pulled out a large piece of gauze and some ointment. She applied it onto the wound, and secured it.
“Thanks.” I said.
“Now, for our trip to Fukuoka, we will need to transfer onto two different lines. We are presently on the Seibu-Chichibu line, heading outbound towards Chichibu. We will stay on the train when the train reaches Yokoze station. Then we will switch to a train that is heading inbound to Tokyo. This line ends when we get to Hanno station, and then we will walk to the other part of the station, and then we will get on the Hachiko line. We will take that to the Shin Yokohama Station, and then we will get off. We’ll need to wait a few minutes, and then we’ll get on the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen line, which will take us straight to Fukuoka. We’ll get off at Hakata station, which will be right in the downtown area.”
I nodded in agreement.
“The Shinkansen stint will be a long one, so you’ll have an opportunity to sleep and recharge. We’ll be in the city by around dinner time. We’ll then eat at a good restaurant right by the harbor, and then we’ll get into a hotel to rest fully. Then tomorrow we will be on the hunt again for clues.”
Once again, I nodded my head in agreement.
“While we are on the way to Tokyo, I thought I would tell you something: I sent those samples that you recorded to Nashi, and I should hear back by the time we get to Fukuoka. If you are sleeping at that time, I’ll let you know, as you’d be interested in what was on the products I sent you.”
“Indeed I would be interested.” I responded.
The transfers within the greater Tokyo area were quite hectic, especially the one near Yokohama. I had forgotten how many people use public transport, or maybe I got really used to being in the countryside where there aren’t too many people for you to see.
Luckily, we managed to make the needed transfers that we needed to make, although we almost missed the transfer onto the Tokaido-Sanyo line. Not that it would’ve made too much difference, as if we did miss it, the next train would come in about 15 minutes. Which isn’t a big amount of time, relatively speaking.
Once we got on the appropriate train at Yokohama station and got settled into our seats, I fell sound asleep; as my body was quite exhausted due to the lack of restful sleep last night.
I got a good three and a half hours of sleep while we were on the train heading to Fukuoka. Then I felt a slight prodding on my right shoulder. This wasn’t enough to wake me, however. The prodding persisted, and became a little more intense. Then I heard “Kari...Kari, wake up, I got something important to say to you,” from Nari.
I opened my eyes slowly, as I was in a pretty deep slumber, perhaps deeper than most of the sleeps I ever had. In a dazed state, I replied: “Is it from Nashi?”
“Yes, it is. I just got off the phone with him a few minutes ago. He had finished analyzing the samples you had given me to send to him.”
I was still readjusting to being awake. The environment inside the train was unchanged since I fell asleep, but we were clearly not in Tokyo anymore. In fact, I wasn’t exactly sure where we were.
“Where are we?”
“We are currently on the train, en route to Fukuoka. We left Hiroshima station about 5 minutes ago. At our current rate we should be in Fukuoka at about 4:30 or 4:45. There is some construction work on the tracks as we get closer to Fukuoka, which will slow us down a bit.”
“Okay, so we definitely covered a large distance in the time I was sleeping.”
“Yes. Now, shall I tell you about what Nashi said?”
“Yes, please.”
I reached up into my baggage above my head to get out my notes on the products that Nari had sent me.
“Ready to copy down what you have to say.”
“On the first scrambled recording, number two on your list: The scrambled message didn’t have anything useful regarding the origin force or the sound dispenser machines. It was a description of the algorithm used to scramble the message.”
“Okay. What about number six?”
“This one actually had something regarding what Buson-min Park was doing in Fukuoka (or rather, what he was going to do there). He was going to hold two rallies to garner popular support in the city. The first one was going to be held near the airport, in Hirao Park. The second one would be held at Ohori Park. There would be pamphlet distribution at these rallies, to try to convince more people to join. He apparently thinks that because his headquarters is close to this city, and far away from the capital in Tokyo, that he could get a large number of converts here.”
“Does that mean the headquarters is in Japan?”
“No. If it was here, then the government would have already detected it. It is not here, but rather somewhere on the Korean Peninsula.”
“Makes sense. You wouldn’t want to place your organization in the country that you are trying to destroy. It would be too obvious.”
“Right. Anyway, let’s continue the analysis from the rest of the products you told me to analyze. I think we are on product eight on your list?”
“Yes, that would be correct.”
“Alright, that can had another piece of information. It is referring to how the force communicates things to the different people in the organization.”
Nari took a deep breath, as this would be quite a mouthful.
“The way they communicate is twofold. The first way is through a series of letters. The letters will contain on the top the person and the address of the person being addressed. This can be a big clue for us, for if we can find a letter addressed to Buson-min Park, we may be directed to his headquarters. Then we can infiltrate him, and basically implode the force at the source.”
I rubbed my hands gleefully, but not too hard, so as to prevent the wound from opening up again.
“The second method that they use would be harder for us to exploit. Basically, they use a code on the computer to encrypt messages, and then they send the message through a decentralized network, similar to Tor. So far, the government has been unable to crack it. And considering that time is of the essence, we can’t rely on the government to crack the code in time to protect the emperor.”
I thought for a moment about this.
“So if we can get the address of his building, how would we get there?”
“We will get to that once we have it. It would be pointless searching if we just searched the entire peninsula in a military vehicle. Also, South Korea and North Korea may get quite suspicious if Japan just enters their nation for no real reason.”
Nari continues: “That leaves the last product that you couldn’t play, number thirteen.”
“Correct.”
“You were right, Nashi determined that there were just locked grooves everywhere on the can, rendering it impossible to play with conventional methods. So, Nashi needed to use another method. What he did was unroll the can into a rectangle, and then used a laser to scan the surface with high resolution. This left him with a map of the surface of the can. Using a special piece of software, he translated the map into a playable sound file. When he played it, the following message, which was directed to the emperor, could be heard: ‘We are the Korean National Force. We abnegate your presence, you imperial emperor. We just rioted again in Tokyo, and we will do it again. I suggest you abdicate now, or we will have no choice but to come to your place and do the deed ourselves.’”
“Seems like we need to hurry, before we see the emperor’s head on a pike, or blown up by explosives,” I said.
“Yep, they mean business.”
This conversation was pretty long, as by the time we were done, I could see the city of Fukuoka in the distance.
“That looks like the place that we need to go,” I said.
“Indeed, off in the distance is the city of Fukuoka. We will pass by one more train station before we reach Hakata station, which is our stop, which is Doi station. That isn’t on our line. I estimate we have about 7 to 10 minutes before we reach our stop.”
About ten minutes later, we made it to Hakata station. It was eerily quiet when we reached the platform, as perhaps 3 or 4 people were waiting on the platform for our train, to head southbound towards Kumamoto. There was no one on the other side of the platform to head back towards Tokyo. Nari then handed me my ticket.
“Here, take this. You will need to show this at the turnstiles up ahead, to show that you have paid for the ride.”
We rode the escalator up to the main lobby of the train station. Upon reaching the top, the turnstiles were visible, along with some attendants looking for our fare. Nari was in front of me; I followed behind. We passed through the turnstiles with little difficulty, even though I had a bit of trouble getting my rolling bag through the turnstile without it getting stuck in there.
We then exited the train station, with the sun still pretty high up in the skies. I checked the time on my phone. 4:51 was the time.
“So, should we head to our hotel first to drop our luggage off, and then we can go get a bite to eat?”
“Yes, we should go ahead and do that. Where is our hotel relative to where we are now?”
“Not too far. It’s right on the river, next to the place that I want to take you for dinner.”
“River? I thought it was going to be next to the harbor?”
“Yeah, I forgot where I had booked the hotel. I once stayed at the place that we are staying at, after I had delivered that special package for the company I am working for. It’s a pretty nice place, and it’s not too far from Hirao Park, which is one of the places that we need to go.”
“Makes sense. Let’s do that,” I said.
We walked at a leisurely pace, as I was looking around at the city. Fukuoka is a very beautiful city, and it wasn’t heavily dominated by tall buildings, like downtown Tokyo. There was a good mix of buildings of all types, from offices, to hotels, to shopping places, and of course restaurants.
We made it to the hotel about a quarter after 5 pm. We were right next to the river, which was flowing northward towards the harbor and the strait separating Japan from mainland Asia. We checked into the hotel for a 2 night stay, and we were assigned to room 407, which overlooked the river and the airport. From here, the view was absolutely breathtaking.
“I wish I could be here,” I said, “there’s a bit less bustle and the city looks nice.”
“Really? I thought you liked it in Yokohama.”
“Of course, I do like it in Yokohama. I just stated my initial impression of this city. Obviously you can’t just decide to move to a new city, based on being in the city for not even an hour.”
Nari chuckled a bit here.
“Shall we go out for dinner? I know a really good place on the other side of the river, which serves some really good chicken dishes,” Nari asked.
“What’s the name of the place?” I wondered.
“Erm…” Nari thought for a moment while she gathered the thought, “I’m not exactly sure how to pronounce it. However, they have a really good special dish. What they do is stir fry chicken, mushrooms, and onions, season it with their secret blend of spices, and then serve it hot with some wasabi sauce on the side. It’s really delicious.”
“Hmm… sounds really good. Let’s go!”
The rest of the evening went pretty well. We went over to the restaurant Nari was talking about and we shared a double portion of the dish that Nari mentioned. She was right, it was delicious (perhaps even the most delicious dish that I ever had). Upon making our way back from dinner, Nari bumped into a friend of hers that she hadn’t talked to in a long while, and they rekindled their friendship, talking about what’s new in the world. Then we made it back to the hotel, and we basically fell asleep at that point, as the trip from Ashigakubo, and the walking we did in the city had taken its toll on both of us. We were tired, and we needed to be well rested so that we could investigate the two rally sites tomorrow.