The Return from Mars

Ikeda Satoru opened the door to the house of his parents.

"Of course there isn't someone who would greet me."

Satoru still remembers when he was very young, a time where his parents were still alive. A time when the world was intact for him.

"You have a deep connection to this place right?"

A voice sounded in his head. He developed a new AI with whom he could converse with. That was all it could do right now, but Satoru treated this AI like a human thus it can always send a message to his head.

"Yes I have."

"Your brain activity suggests you are connecting this place with a person, with whom you have a great emotional bondage."

"Katsumi, emotions are pretty much what drives us humans."

Katsumi was the name of his AI. Since it was only 9 months he had the AI, Katsumi still didn't understood human nature at all. It would take quite some time until she does.

"I can see that with all the activity. There are so many chemicals being exchanged in your brain."

Satoru didn't even bothered to respond to Katsumi. Explaining what parents are to an AI is futile at this stage. He went to a spot at a wall.

"Katsumi, can you find an anomaly?"

"The sensors are picking up a very small gap building a rectangle. 95% sure it is a door."

"You should note that a door like this is not normal. If someone takes their time to build a hidden door there is a good chance, that something important is behind."

An AI puts the characteristics of an unknown object into the neural network and waits for an output. Katsumi is pretty new so she is still learning about everyday objects, but she could already recognize many items.

Satoru pushed against a section of the wall and the hidden door slid open. A staircase appeared leading to the basement. This was the first time for him entering the hidden staircase, since as a kid his parents never let him inside. Slowly and with caution he went down the stairs into a completely dark room.

"Motion sensor detected."

The motion sensor here worked by sending infrared looking for any changes in the surroundings. Katsumi could immediately pick up the rays with the sensor and conclude what caused them. Suddenly the lights turned on indicating that the motion sensor was working properly.

"I didn't expect such a huge room underneath the house.-"

Satoru stood astonished at the entrance to the room. There was a big weapons lab infront of him covering one wall with the ceiling about triple of Satoru's height.

"How big is this room, Katsumi?"

"15x25x5.8"

After getting his composure back he went to the weapon lab, since there was nothing on the other walls. Katsumi still noticed some things.

"There are weapon marks on the wall to your right."

"My parents maintained their AIs and weapons by themselves. Looks like my Dad was testing his sword too eagerly."

Satoru knew now why his parents didn't let him into this room when he was 5 years old. By the look of things they were developing new kinds of stuff right beneath his feet.

"The Battle AI you are using now could come from here."

"Very likely. If that is the case there should still be some AI building blocks right here."

"What do you mean?"

"Developing AIs is very hard and costly. My parents simply don't have the resources to develop a brand new one. That means ..."

Satoru stopped in the middle of his sentence. He just stumbled upon two weapon cases. Not hesitating one bit he opened both. In one there were two handguns, in the other was a sword. There was no doubt that those belonged to his parents.

"That explains why I couldn't find them there."

"Where?"

"A place that a despise. A place that I can't get out of my memory. A place that haunts me in my dreams."

"Can't you just destroy the nodes?"

"I would love to manipulate my brain and forget some things so easily."

As usual Katsumi had a lot of questions, but Satoru ignored her for a while. He was concentrating hooking up the weapons to the lab computer. The data he got was more than he expected. Even though his parents should have wiped the entire storage device, there were the entire AIs of the Fujitas and Ishikawas.

"I found some Battle AIs you can integrate, Katsumi."

"With this size it will take some time."

"Don't worry, just finish it until tomorrow morning."

If Katsumi would be a real human Satoru would have heard some complains of how she was being ignored for a few minutes straight. This is one of those times when he was glad that AIs don't have emotions.

The doorbell suddenly rang. Normally Katsumi would warn him beforehand since she is hooked up with the house internal system, but right now she is processing a huge amount of data. Satoru went up the staircase, closed the hidden door and opened the main door.

"Good evening, Ishikawa-sama."

"Come on in, Naoji. I told you not to call me like that, especially in the public."

"Sorry!"

Igarashi Naoji came into the lobby of the house. Satoru closed the door and ordered some drinks manually on a screen by the door. Both of them proceeded going to the living room where they sat on a couch facing each other.

"I am surprised that you came to Earth. You aren't going to abandon the family after changing your name to 'Ikeda', right?"

"Let's say I am retiring for a while."

"Retiring at 16?"

For most people the real life hasn't started at 16 yet. Then there is someone who wants to retire at that age.

"There is no way I can handle the job mentally after the incident."

"Don't feel guilty about that. Those guys attacked the shuttle underhandedly, killing your parents, grand ..."

"Stop talking!"

Satoru shouted agitatedly. For Naoji it was the first time seeing Satoru in this state. Who can blame him for being on the edge after such an event? After a short pause Satoru spoke again with a more calm voice.

"You can't imagine how the feeling was when I returned to the entrance. Stepping over corpse after corpse knowing I was responsible for their death. Everyone of those had their own families, their own history and they were taken coldbloodily. I didn't even count how many were laying on the blood soaked floor."

"Ok, ok, I get it. At least the emotions show that you are still a human."

"Haha, even Katsumi is more human than me."

"Oh that reminds me. It's rare that Katsumi hasn't said anything."

Naoji saw the opportunity to change the topic and took it immediately. He has met Katsumi on Mars where she used a speaker to communicate with him.

"She is working on something right now."

"Too bad. I can't answer any of her questions."

Naoji began to laugh which led Satoru needing to chuckle too.

"I am wondering how you found me."

"IN Mars still owed me a favour. They tracked the spaceship you were on until you arrived in Osaka. Afterwards it was easy to estimate the time you arrived home."

"IN Mars? I have never heard of them before."

Being in the heavenly involved himself. Satoru knew pretty much all operations Ishikawa did. But this was the first time he heard about this organisation.

"Oh IN Mars is the Intelligence Network of our family which only takes orders from Mars."

"I thought they belonged to Ishikawa Intelligence Network."

"You are right. Formally both of them belong to IIN. However there is a difference between how they operate. IN Mars just carries out the mission assigned by the higher ups in Mars, while IN Earth, let's say have earthly desires. They mostly being used by the branch families here on Earth to spy on other branch families."

Satoru shook his head. What is more intriguing, Naoji's terrible pun or IN Earth's mismanagement?

"I can see why you are dividing them into two groups."

"If you need any help with something go to IN Mars rather than Earth. Just call me when you have problems dealing with them."

"Thank you for your offer."

Naoji stood up and Satoru did the same. Satoru was just wondering why Naoji went all to his house just for a small talk. This is something you could do on the phone.

"I see you haven't unpacked your bags. Sorry for disturbing."

"Oh no problem, thank you for your visit."

"Good luck at the entrance exam tomorrow... Wait there is something important I want to discuss."

Satoru noticed the change in Naoji's expression immediately.

"Is it about your sister?"

"Yes it is. She is missing for 2.5 months now."

"2.5 months. That is the time a trip takes from Mars to Earth in this launch window."

"Correct. I suspect she is on Earth right now."

Traveling from Mars to Earth is an expensive tour. On top of that every trip is closely monitored, so chances to sneak in are pretty much non existent, if she didn't engage with a shady business.

"If that is the case she may be in deep trouble now. Don't know how she managed to get a ride here, but this is surely not good."

"That is why we need to find her as soon as possible. You know she is a good fighter, I would expect that tomorrow at the entrance exam she would just go off and get a ridiculous high score."

"Being an A-class fighter she definitely has the capability to get a very high score. But won't she be like me and avoid attention by purposely getting a lower score?"

"She hasn't this luxury. Her money should be low right now and she cannot finance living 3 years alone, let alone finance university. The easiest way to finance herself would be a scholarship."

Naoji was someone who attended the business university and it could be seen. He can use the trail of money to predict the actions of someone.

"I can look out for her at the entrance exam at my university. Still there are 4 other SDF Universities out there, not to mention the countless private ones."

"I will ask IN Mars for help if we won't find her in time. But that is the very last resort."

With this Naoji left the house. It was now really quiet again. Satoru drank the untouched tea on the table and enjoyed the peace on his first day he returned back from Mars.