BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

hometown.

The helicopter whined its way to full power and tilted out through

the doors of the hangar. The weather had turned nasty, with low

clouds and gusting winds. Rain and worse wind was ahead. Already

the flight conditions were less than optimum for a landing on a pitching ship. But they hadn’t come all this way to be denied now. “Our friends were mannequins,” Benjamin said bitterly, spitting

the words.

“Listen, brother, you must fight these memories. She wired you,

that McLure girl. You know that. You know that these memories are

given too much prominence because she wired you.”

Benjamin stared dully ahead. “My best friend was Poppy. Do

you remember her, brother? I imagined going out to the movies with

her. With a mannequin. With a thing. A thing made of plaster over a

metal frame, topped with a yellow wig.”

The helicopter lifted off with a lurch that upset the stomach they

shared. The city stabbed up at them with a hundred bright skyscrapers. Then the busy harbor. And finally they were out over gray water. “I wanted to look under her dress,” Benjamin said. “A mannequin.” “For God’s sake, let it go. We aren’t those children anymore, Benjamin.” The words were painful. The memories were painful. Worse

than painful, shameful. Humiliating.

“Aren’t we those children, Charles? And yet we are en route to the

Doll Ship, and what is the Doll Ship but the doll house with anatomically correct mannequins?”

“The whole world will change, Benjamin. We are going to change

the whole world. Do you understand that? I know you do. All of that,

all the …all the past, will be a prologue and everything will be—” “We will still be what we are, though, won’t we?”

“If the world changes, how can we be the same?” Charles asked.

“It’s going to be better, Benjamin. It will be better. And soon. For now,

there’s the Doll Ship.”

The Doll Ship had passed from the Philippine Sea into the South China Sea. Minako, in the nickel steel bubble of Benjaminia, knew nothing of it. All that could be noticed inside that eerie pressure cooker was that the swell of the ocean now had a shorter interval—smaller, faster waves, and sometimes the whole place would sink into a trough before taking a hard slap that would have people reaching for handrails.

“They are on their way!” the public address system blared. “The Great Souls are in the air and on their way!”

English was the language of the Doll Ship. But Minako heard cries of pleasure and excitement in half a dozen languages. The girl downstairs—her name was Fatima—spoke Spanish and despite being aboard the Doll Ship for six months had not acquired much English.

What she did know were mostly slogans from the endless Nexus Humanus books and pamphlets and videos.

She was happy. “Sustainably happy,” although Minako doubted she understood the words.

Minako was not happy. She had wondered if she should climb up to the highest level