Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

Over the next two weeks, you did your best to work on whatever got brought to you each morning. The Army was willing to spring for slightly more on the Dragonfly now that it was proven, which meant you could spring for some improvements. Some sparing use of metal, for example, to reinforce the wing structure. You also dug out your old sketches for embedded guns in the nose and touched them up, complete with a gap in the instrument panel so the pilot could still check Tezuka's coloured beads on the belt. There probably wouldn't be much performance gain, but the introduction of a discard chute to get rid of spent shells would eliminate the irritating rattling that Yachi's letters told you about.

(Sure, so could a cloth bag, but this was cooler.)

You pushed as hard as you could for the silk composite design, which had stretched silk sandwhiched in-between the wooden boards. It wouldn't stop a rifle-caliber bullet fired air-to-air, but it might ward off the small shrapnel of flak, pistol rounds, and rifle shots from the ground. The Army didn't want to pay for it, though. Eventually, Mr. Ohara managed to get them to buy a half a dozen to be assessed and issued. You had a feeling one of them would end up with Yachi, so reasoning the first one would be shot at as a test, you had the crew sign your name on the dashboard of the second for him.

Speaking of Yachi, you had letters to answer. He'd learned of your concussion through Satomi, who he apparently had started writing to after training, and you were quick to reassure him you were alright, even through you weren't, really. His letters, usually oversized things stuffed with observations and idle talk and wedding plans, seemed short and somewhat curt, even. You immediately suspected he might be hiding something from you: maybe new orders. Maybe there would be a big offensive and he didn't want to worry you. Yachi was pathologically honest: the only way he could keep a secret was by not talking.

The worst part was, even as you were trying to make sure he didn't worry about you, you felt you needed worrying about. Even the simplest things, like reading a book or writing a letter, seemed challenging. Engineering and mathematics was like trying to stack a card house while wearing mittens. You slept perhaps twelve hours a day, but never more than a few hours at a time. Any time you looked out the window, you were reassured to see a police officer there. Most days it was Officer Horikiri, one of the officer who usually walked the beat on your block: her partner was presumably walking it alone. You felt a lot better having somebody with a sword at your door, in case those gangsters came back.

Every morning, somebody from the office showed up to take your old paperwork and give you new ones. It was usually Takai, who had changed immensely since he started working at Ohara. You were pleased to see how much better put-together he looked, even if there was something vaguely unsettling about seeing somebody take a journey similar to yours in reverse.

"What have you got for me today, Takai?" You asked. You spent most of your day sitting up in your futon against the wall, with a special table you bought that rested across your lap acting as a desk. The young intern came over and dropped a thin sheet of papers.

"Nothing heavy. You're supposed to be taking it easy, remember? We need you to sign this now..." You did. "And if you can, and only if you can, we'd like you to weigh on the fuel line issue..."

You looked at the blueprint. It swam in front of your eyes.

"Yeah. Okay, I can do that. Um... yeah, I didn't get much done, but here's the revised sketches for the internal guns. Can you show those to Uyeno, and make sure you point out..."

"Um, sorry Mx. She's gone, remember?" Takai said. You blinked slowly.

"Gone where?" You asked. You felt like you should know this.

"To Varnmark, remember? For her surgery, now that it was safe? She left three days ago for Cham and is probably on the zeppelin by now. She'll be back in October." Takai explained slowly, looking at you with... fuck, that was pity, wasn't it.

Was that something you were supposed to have known? Had to be. A... two, three? (what day was it?) month leave from one of your engineers. Somebody had to have told you. It was very much like you to not pay attention to the things happening around you when you were distracted, maybe you could have missed the announcement, but this felt... big. Too big.

Were you just not listening at the time, or had this fact actually been knocked out of your head? Was this part of the amnesia? It had been nearly three weeks, it should be better now, it's supposed to be better. What if you never got better? What if your brain, the only part of you worth anything, was just shriveling away from your injury and you were going to lose everything you were going to lose everything you had and your job and your purpose and your airplanes and none of it would be worth a damn it would all be for nothing-

"Mx? Mx are you okay, oh spirits, do you need help? Talk to me! Officer!"

---

You were okay. Eventually.

You were waiting the next morning for Takai or whoever else. You had your work from the last day done. You hoped everything was going well without you, and you were eager to see if there was a new project yet.

The man Officer Horikiri let through was not Takai.

"Excuse me, who are you?" You asked. "Are you a new hi-" No, he was not. Those were tattoos, running from under his sleeves, at the edge of his collar. He was an older man, heavy set, but with a musculature about him, like a wrestler almost. Nearly totally bald, with just a ring of longish hair. He smiled as he came in like he'd just spotted a dear friend.

"Hello, Mx. Matsura. How's the head?" He said. He sounded jovial.

"Fine." You said cautiously. A lie, it was killing you.

"That's good to hear. Sorry for barging in, of course. My name..." he paused like he was about to announce something impressive. "... is Kaiji Kiriyama."

"I'm sorry, should I know who you are?" You asked. Did you forget this person too?

"Nah, it's fine." He said, coming over to sit cross-legged near to you. You couldn't help but look out the door for help: It was still open, and Officer Horikiri was watching, a look of concern on her face, but she wasn't moving. There were two younger men there with her, traditionally dressed, looming near her. Absurdly, you felt more concerned for her safety than for yours in this moment. You dying in this state would be no great loss, but you liked Yoko. She was always helping somebody.

"Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Not as such. I mean, I'm sure you've got a lot to worry about." He picked up one of the sheets off your desk. "Airplanes! Wild. When I was a kid we didn't have any of this shit. I just about lost my mind when I rode my first train."

"Which one was it?" You asked, suddenly curious.

"Um... I dunno. From my hometown in Tsukushi to Saikyō?" He said, looking confused.

"What year?"

"Um... wow. I wanna say '03? Maybe '04?"

"Oh, that's when the Victory South Line opened, right? Big blue engine, giant number on the side in red? Would probably have been 7, 12, or 13 on the line..." You had always thought those trains looked rather garish. A proper train engine uses subdued colours, like the modern black and white engines on the Central Captain Line, or maybe those forest green engine that pulled the air racing party to the Albian channel coast...

"Fuck me, yeah, there was a big number 7 on the side! The papers weren't kidding, you're a fucking genius. Anyway, about that. I got a call about three weeks ago from a friend of mine in the government who said one of my employees crossed a line. I had to do some scrambling to figure out who it was and why, but I'm here to let you know that the problem has been dealt with, and to apologize."

"What do you mean, dealt with?" You said, slightly cautious, slightly curious.

"You squeamish?" He asked.

Yeah, I super am, you thought.

"Nah." Your mouth said.

After a quick glance to the door (Officer Horikiri was pushing herself against the wall like she was trying to sink into it and get as far away from the two men there as possible) Kaiji reached into his sash and pulled out a white cloth. Opening it revealed a small nub of some kind... you recognized it after a second as two knuckles from somebody's pinkie, with the top knuckle already severed at some earlier point. There was a small red stain on the cloth, but not much: they probably let it drain before storing it. That thought, rather than the image, is what made you feel nauseous.

Then you realized whose finger it was and you felt even more gross.

"So, he ain't gonna do that again." He said, wrapping the partial digit back up. "You want it?"

"No, thank you." You managed. He shrugged and put it back.

"So, yeah, I want you to know nobody's gonna hurt you, okay? I'm stopping by my friend the commissioner's house after this to let him know, and Officer Whatshertits over there is gonna get to go home. That said, my friend in government that I mentioned earlier? He's not happy with the way you've been treated, and he asked me to make it up to you. Now, you don't look like the sort who goes collecting knucklebones, so... what will it be?"

"Huh?" You didn't understand the question. Your head was pounding and you felt a bit like you were gonna vomit. "What do you mean?"

"Okay, lemme break this down for you. I understand you hit your head, so I'll go slow. I'm... probably one of the richest men in the city. I'm kept that way because I keep people happy. We looked in on you, Matsura, you're the kind of person I'm gonna want to have happy with me. Not now, sure, you're still small fry, but in a few years? You're gonna have the kind of fuck-you money that gets things done in this town. Speaking of, you should really start diversifying your investments. My guys says, after the war, take like 50% out of Ohara and put it in something stable. I dunno, art, or maybe invest in New Alleghany. The post-war crash is gonna fuck you up bad otherwise."

"Um... thanks?" It wasn't every day you got financial advice from somebody who'd just shown you a severed body part.

"Anyway, look. Point is, we fucked up bad, and I don't want to have somebody like you as an enemy down the line. At the same time, most of my methods for dealing with potentially problematic people are off the table, seeing as you're apparently single-handedly designing the machines that are currently shoving a big patriotic foot up the Caspian's collective assholes. Soooo..."

He bowed low against the ground from the sitting position.

"I'm here to offer an apology, and you're a hard enby to shop for. What can I do for you to make this go away, so we can be friends?"

You decided to lean back against your pillow a little harder. This was entirely too much.

"Alright, lemme lay out the possibility space. I got connections. You want something from overseas, you got it. I can get anything to you from the docks, and if I can't I know the guy who can. Planes, engines, fuck it, no problem, we got the money to burn and people look the other way for us. We got influence in the government and the military. You want those Navy assholes who keep dicking you around dealt with... I can probably do something about that. You want to move to someplace fancier? I can get you anywhere in the city, tomorrow. You wanna spruce the place up? I know a couple girls from Joseon who need a place to stay, if you understand. Or boys, hey, whatever. Drugs? Lifetime supply. You want somebody drafted? He's in a trench tomorrow. You want somebody dead, same deal. Work with me here. What can I do for you?"