2067 the equilibrium

The Book of Shogo Part 4/4

"Mommy... my leg hurts and I can't sleep..." A girl, no older than seven years old whispered to her mother while trying her best to hold back her tears.

"And I'm hungry...", said her twin sister, laying down beside her.

"Shhhhh", Inamura Michiko, the mother of the two, softly shushed the two, pulled out a small piece of synthetic jerky, and handed it to Sayaka, the older of the twins as she whispered in her ear. "I'm sorry darling, I only have a little left. Chew this slowly, and chew it one hundred times before you swallow it ok? I hear that the place we will be arriving tomorrow has food. Can you do that Sayaka?"

The little girl firmly nodded as she put the small piece of Jerky in her mouth.

Masumi then turned around to Sayuri and gently rubbed the large bandage on Sayuri's legs. Sayuri had slipped and tumbled down a slope on one of the hills they were passing through a few days ago, and cut her thigh on her way down. It was not a major cut, but it was slightly infected.

Michiko kissed Sayuri's forehead before whispering in her ear.

"I know it hurts sweetie, and I'm sorry mommy has no medicine. We are only a few days away from our new home, and we can have a doctor fix you up then. And guess what? Mommy was also told that there should be some medicine at the cabin we will be staying at tomorrow. Medicine and food... so rest up as much as you can, we will be crossing another mountain tomorrow. Ok? Can you be strong sweetie?"

Holding back her tears, Sayuri nodded as firmly as she could.

Michiko was visiting her parents in GreaterSendai with her daughters when she got the news that her husband had been detained in District 3 of ShinTokyo. Her husband, a scientist and engineer at Bopomofo International Incorporated, or BII, was known for his work with the high-powered BCIs and the brain connection interface of the Rapid Vacation On Demand hardware, and the development of edutainment software for BCIs. For some years he got sent to work on sales, but was suddenly promoted to head up a special research team. Michiko and her husband were both wary of the sudden promotion to the secretive mission, and Michiko and the twins had been sent back to GreaterSendai to "Visit" her parents. Michiko had then received a secret package containing confidential information, contact information for an agent that could get her and their daughters to a darkzone, and instructions to run the moment she got word of her husband getting apprehended. It was on March 26th, that Michiko got word that her husband had disappeared, and by the time she got confirmation on the 27th, Michiko was already on the way to meet the "agent" with her daughters.

She was lucky. If she had gone home to pick up some last-minute supplies, she would have had an unpleasant encounter with the BII agents who were waiting for her and her daughters. It was needless to say they would have already been executed, or at the very least she would have been DFed, and they would have been thrown in one of the slums.

Once the agents disconnected her BCI and removed the implanted tracking device, they were assigned a "guide" that would lead them to a darkzone called Wayama which was 175km away, along with 4 other refugees. The first 25km or so was not that bad, as they were cramped in the cargo bay of a truck heading to Morioka. However, the truck was only there to get them out of GreaterSendai. There was a 30km strip of access roads for the various industrial farms in the outskirts of GreaterSendai, but once they got through the checkpoint to the highway leading to Morioka, there was no getting off. Thus, they had to travel by foot once they hit the truck stop before the highway. Needing to stay off the roads, the first 60km was through the mountains, and the group could not manage more than 15 to 20 km per day. A majority of the path from there was on the unkept Route 346 until it merged into the 45. Even then, the group never made it more than 25 to 26 km per day.