Captain Amigo and Golden Days
The trip was a lengthy one.
It was the Thursday before a certain long weekend. After sixth period ended, Sagara Sousuke rushed out of the school, heading for nearby Chofu Airfield. He boarded a Cessna, which had been prepared for him by a small and discreet airline company, and took off in a hurry.
The Cessna flew south over the Pacific ocean. A little over two hours later, it arrived at a small airport on Hachijojima. The veteran pilot had never asked why the tight-lipped high school student had business so frequently on the island, and Sousuke had never volunteered that information. In fact, Sousuke didn’t have business on Hachijojima. He was just transferring to a turboprop at the airport there.
The turboprop’s pilot saluted Sousuke as he arrived. “Excellent weather today, Sergeant,” he said. “Blue skies and calm winds.”
“Indeed. I’m ready to go,” Sousuke responded as he changed out of his student uniform in the cabin.
The twin-engine King Air was on the older side, appearing to have been in service for over twenty years. The same couldn’t be said of its internals, where the engines and navigation system had been swapped out for the latest models. It was a tough-built machine that could reach cruising speeds of over 500 kph, and even handle a thunderstorm.
As dusk fell, they departed the airport and flew further south. The trip would take about three and a half hours, so Sousuke used that time to finish his math homework.
Above them was a sky full of stars. Below was the endless black sea.
They were over two thousand kilometers south of Tokyo, at the furthest reaches of Japan, even a few hundred kilometers past the likes of Iwojima and Okinotori-shima. They were in airspace far away from any existing air and maritime shipping lanes; a plane that went down here would have no hope for aid.
“We’re almost there,” the pilot said. An island came into view soon after, a moonlit patch on the otherwise pitch black sea. It was roughly crescent in shape, about ten kilometers long in total.
The pilot opened communications and requested permission to land. After some back and forth, the person on the other side of the comm said, “Welcome to my home, Gebo 30. You have permission to land.”
And then, something happened on the pitch black island. On its west side, the canopy of the broad-leafed jungle began to split. Landing lights came on one by one, creating a 2000-meter-long runway in the middle of the blackness, gradually coming closer in their vision.
“Now... let’s see.” The pilot licked his lip and entered landing posture. He extended the flaps, pulled back on the throttle, and lowered their altitude, all without issue. The craft landed casually on the runway.
Finally here, thought Sousuke, stretching to work the stiffness out of his shoulders. The GPS above the console read 20°N 50 minutes latitude, 140°E 31 minutes longitude. The island wasn’t on most maps, but Sousuke, the pilot, and others in their crew referred to it as Merida Island.
Merida Island: it looked uninhabited from above. But below, things were different. It was host to all kinds of cutting-edge equipment, weapons, and ammunition, as well as combatants’ daily training. It also housed the maintenance dock for the super high-tech amphibious combat submarine, the Tuatha de Danaan. This was the West Pacific outpost for Mithril, the top secret mercenary company to which Sousuke belonged.
“Yet they can’t even waterproof the damned ceiling!” Sergeant Kurz Weber shouted as he emptied a mug full of water into a bucket. He was dressed in olive-colored fatigues, with a Mithril ID card pinned to his chest. He had shoulder-length blond hair, deep blue eyes, and delicate, handsome features. A person might mistake him for a movie star... as long as he wasn’t talking.
But Kurz was definitely talking now.
“Cutting-edge secret base, my ass! Super high-tech stronghold, my ass! It stopped raining hours ago, but the leaks are still coming in! My desk is soaked through! Instead of pouring money into that weird mammoth submarine, how about fixing the damned roof?!” Kurz complained as he came and went from the sparsely populated office.
The office held simple desks for about ten people. There were also electronic terminals, document files, piles of copy paper, maps, a large LCD panel on the wall displaying a map of the West Pacific and a schedule... and water dripping down through the plasterboard in the ceiling.
This was the SRT (Special Response Team) office housed beneath the island. Although they were primarily combatants, the SRT’s members still had desk work to do. This included compiling reports after missions, requisitioning new equipment, writing proposals for upcoming operations—and most importantly, detailing expenditures.
“Gross food, no decent booze, showers that take a full minute to warm up,” Kurz grumbled. “Greasy smell in the wastewater pipes, soundproofing so bad you can hear the commotion from the hangar in the barracks, an elevator next to the hundred-step staircase that’s been ‘Out of Order’ for as long as I can remember... Is this any way to treat a prince like me? Is it?” Kurz’s bitching continued until Master Sergeant Melissa Mao, who was doing work at a separate desk with an umbrella perched over it, chucked an eraser at the back of his head. “Ow,” he complained. “What was that for?”
“You’re as pathetic as you are annoying!” she yelled. “If you’re not gonna do any work, just get out!” Mao was a Chinese-American with short black hair and large, catlike eyes. An ID card was pinned to her black tank top.
“Get out?” he retorted. “And go where? The leaking in the barracks is even worse!”
“So hit up the game room. I saw Roger in there looking bored a while back.”
“Nah, all they’ve got there is ping-pong and Tetris. It’s like a crummy hot springs inn,” Kurz sulked.
“What about the pub? There’s a pool table there.”
“That’s for helicopter pilots only. And after I creamed ’em last time, they said they didn’t wanna play with me anymore.”
“Bunch of children...” Mao sighed as she went back to work.
Kurz grumpily resumed his busywork. “There’s no action lately, just boring training and drills. Ah, I wanna go back to the city... But we won’t have time off for a while, huh? Wish I was Sousuke...”
“What’s this about me?” asked Sagara Sousuke, who had at some point arrived at the office. He had a sullen face and a tight frown, was wearing fatigues, and carrying a student’s leather handbag. After a nod of greeting to Mao, he walked in past Kurz.
“Oh? When did you get back?”
“Just now. But still...” Sousuke looked carefully around the muggy office. “Why is there so much mess on my desk?” He pointed to his desk, which was piled high with trash and documents as well as magazines, both specialist and non. Kurz’s desk was next to his, and in an equally tragic state, as if the infantry of his disorder had breached the border to seize the territory of Sousuke’s desk for itself. “It gets worse every time I come here.”
“Oh, chill out. It’s not like you were using it,” Kurz laughed, patting his comrade on the shoulder.
The lines on Sousuke’s forehead grew deeper as he shoved his bag under the desk. “So, will drop practice take place at 2300 as planned?”
“Oh, that?” Mao, tapped her electronic tablet pen against her temple as she swiveled her chair to face Sousuke. “Seems we can’t do it tonight after all. It’s the M9s... Maintenance was supposed to replace all the thigh and waist muscle packages, but they’re running way behind. I tried to contact you to let you know, but you’d already left Hachijojima by then...”
They were supposed to employ Mithril’s main arm slave fighting force—the M9 Gernsbacks—for practice, but it seemed these were far behind in maintenance. Obviously, they always had machines ready for use in case of an emergency, but they weren’t about to tap into those for training. Thus, the scheduled practice was apparently off.
In other words, Sousuke had rushed 2500 kilometers south after school for nothing.
“Sorry! I was careless!” said Mao, clapping her hands together in apology. It wasn’t a very American gesture, but she’d apparently picked it up somewhere.
“Well... If we can’t, we can’t,” Sousuke said with a slight slump of the shoulders.
Kurz looked at him in wonderment. “Weirdo. What kind of guy is that disappointed about not having practice?”
“Well... it’s more that I had to turn down a dinner invitation to come here...”
“From who?”
“Kaname and Kyoko. It was going to be my first chance to try real hachis de boeuf...” Sousuke explained.
Mao giggled at this, but Kurz just let out a disinterested hum. “Yeah? Poor guy. Let’s hit the pub, then. We’ll grab a drink.” He immediately began to push Sousuke out of the office.
“I don’t drink.”
“Bah! Live a little. Not like you got anything better to do tonight.”
“Alcohol destroys brain cells,” Sousuke protested. “If I want to do this job for a long time—”
“Just come on.”
Arguing back-and-forth, the two left the office.
Mao remained behind, watching them go with a tilted head, before she at last turned back to her desk. If you’re that bored, you could just read a book... she thought. After wandering restlessly around the base complaining for hours, Kurz was in high spirits the minute his playmate returned. “He really is a child,” she whispered.
At any rate, there were no leaks in the roof of the pub. The base’s soldiers, all of whom had finished their work for the day, lounged around beneath the amber lighting. It was mainly people from different departments clustered together, gossiping, drinking, and enjoying themselves.
The individual departments mainly socialized among themselves, with the result that the NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers) associated with the SRT, like Sousuke and Kurz, were often left fairly isolated. Part of it was that their numbers were small by design, and part of it was that, as the base’s elite combatants, they tended to keep their distance from the base staff.
The SRT’s members, who also tended towards introversion, were guarded in their words and actions. Even if they looked relaxed on the surface, they always projected a sense of being ready to spring into action at any moment. While it was rare to meet one quite as unsociable as Sousuke, gregarious types like Kurz were definitely the minority. Not many of them were habitual drinkers, either.
It was under these circumstances that Sousuke and Kurz set up shop at the pub’s counter.
“It’s my first time here,” Sousuke said, a glass of orange juice in hand.
“Really?”
“Really. Places like this are bad for your health,” he insisted again. “Too much cigarette smoke.”
“Feh. If you’re worried about your health, you shouldn’t be a soldier. A life on the run, awful food, tons of stress and danger. It’s bad for your complexion,” Kurz snorted and gulped down his scotch. When the shot glass was empty, he ordered another and let out a sigh. “...Still. Wish I had money. Maybe I should quit the rat race and open up my own pub somewhere.”
“But you must be making money,” said Sousuke, looking at his friend curiously. “You get a stipend to your base pay and you receive plenty of hazard bonuses. You would have received compensation for what happened in Sunan, as well.”
It was true; Mithril took care of its people. The yearly salary for SRT members was considerable, making about as much as your average middling pro baseball player. It was highly specialized work, after all, and uniformly dangerous.
“Ah... True, but I’ve always had huge debts,” Kurz was forced to admit. “No matter how much I make, it doesn’t seem to get me anywhere.”
“You never mentioned that before.”
“Yeah, and don’t go spreading it around either. Anyway... guess I’ll have to stick around eating their gross food a while longer. Though the M9 piloting part is nice.”
Sousuke went silent.
Kurz stole a glance at him. “You’ve got a lot saved up, huh?” he asked, apparently with a bit of expectation.
“Saved up? I did... but it’s rapidly decreasing,” Sousuke told him. “My expenses have been high lately.”
“Expenses? What’re you spending on?”
“Replacing the things I destroy at school. After about two weeks of living in Tokyo, the squad’s account manager said they couldn’t keep paying for it all and I’d have to go out of pocket.”
“You break that much stuff?”
“I’m not doing it because I want to,” Sousuke protested. “It’s for security purposes.”
Kurz stared in disbelief while Sousuke quietly sipped his orange juice. Then he rallied enough to say, “Anyway... Mithril’s spending priorities are messed up. They’ll skip waterproofing the roof and then break the bank on more lousy weapons. During last week’s tests, I shot off 200,000 dollars’ worth of missiles, you know? Yet here I am, worrying about whether I can afford a two-dollar snack to go with my booze. It’s crazy.”
“You’re crazier, if you’re creating equivalencies between anti-tank missiles and bar peanuts.”
“It sorta pisses me off to hear that from you, of all people...”
“I’m just pointing out that a military is an exceptional entity.”
“You never shut up, do you?” Kurz sniped. “I dunno how Kaname stands you.”
“Well, she does frequently hit me and tells me to shut up.”
“Maybe you should work on that, then.”
As that pointless conversation continued, the head bartender approached them. He was a Caucasian, late middle age, and walked with a slight limp in his right leg. He had a round ruddy face, gray hair, and looked exactly like the late actor, Ernest Borgnine. He was a former mercenary himself, and his bad leg had been injured in a past battle... or so Kurz had heard. He’d said many times there was “no one in the Congo or Rhodesia” who didn’t know his name. But while Kurz had heard vaguely of the Congo, Rhodesia was a complete mystery to him.
“Hey, kids. What’s got you so down?” the bartender asked in his gravelly voice.
“Lay off. We’re in a bad mood,” Kurz huffed back. It was a typical exchange for the two of them, and the bartender responded by sitting down across the counter and pouring a twelve-year-old Wild Turkey into a shot glass.
“Is this on the house?” Kurz asked.
“Don’t be stupid. It’s for me.” And as Kurz just stared, the bartender downed his bourbon with a burp. “All right, you two. I’ve been listening in—”
“Sure wish you hadn’t,” Kurz whispered, but the bartender ignored him.
“—and I’m hearing a lot of griping about money and accounting. Don’t you think it’s pathetic? When there are young people all over the world—”
“He’s not listening,” Sousuke whispered, but the bartender ignored him.
“—really fighting for what they believe in. This is what happens when you rely too much on high-tech equipment. If you ask me, you don’t need homing missiles or ridiculous humanoid weapons. To defeat one enemy, you just need a single bullet, and to defeat a lot of enemies you should also need a single bullet. You get what I’m saying? Nah, ’course you don’t.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say to a sniper...” Kurz said, slumping over.
The old man fixed him with a glare. “Fool. I’m talking about spirit: the will to see your ideals through, the hope to propel you through life... the spirit of adventure! That’s what you don’t got, and that’s why you’re down in the dumps. You’re not even trying to get the most out of the moment by ordering peanuts and salami.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kurz said.
“It sounds like he’s trying to upsell us,” Sousuke put in.
The old man rolled his eyes and let out a high-pitched wail. “Fool!” he cried out. “I’m just saying, if you’re ever gonna have fun, at least have it while you drink.”
“It was a very roundabout way of making that point,” Sousuke said, his expression as blank as ever.
Meanwhile, Kurz looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Even so... I’m broke, with no future prospects. We crush one group of terrorists and another pops up. No decent chicks. How’s a guy supposed to savor his booze, let alone seek adventure?”
The bartender watched Kurz carefully, then squinted and bobbed his head from side to side. Apparently, this was how the old man thought. At last he nodded and said, “Hmm. All right, I’ll put a little adventure in your lives.”
“Huh? What are you talking about? Hey...” Kurz trailed off as the older man turned away and disappeared back into the kitchen without responding. “Sheesh, what’s with that old geezer?” he asked once the man was gone.
“I don’t know,” said Sousuke. “There’s no sign of head trauma as far as I can see...”
The two continued their idle chatting for about an hour after that. But just around the time they’d forgotten their conversation with the bartender and were about to leave...
The old man came back, dragging his leg. “Fool,” he said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Where do you think?” Kurz replied. “The barracks. Thanks for the drinks.”
“Fool. Don’t go yet.”
“Darn it. What’s with all the verbal abuse? Are you a driving instructor or something?”
As the two stood up, the bartender held out his wrinkled right hand, a roll of old parchment clenched tight in it. “Hang on, kid. This is adventure.”
“What the heck?” Kurz scowled, and the old man grinned.
“It’s a map to a treasure hidden here on Merida Island,” said the bartender. “A memento from Captain Amigo, a 17th century pirate.”
Kurz and Sousuke stood there silently for a while. At last, they realized he was serious, and both whispered simultaneously, “Should we call a medic?”
The next morning, Kurz was in full gripe mode. “‘Amigo’... ridiculous. Sounds more like a luchador to me. It’s way beyond fishy...”
Sousuke nodded. Then he said, “He sounds like an extremely weak pirate. Even if he existed, I wouldn’t expect him to be capable of much plunder.”
“Yeah, and even if he buried a treasure chest, he’d probably just fill it with mementos from his friends, like some graduation time capsule.”
“Yeah. One way or another,” Sousuke speculated, “it can’t be anything worthwhile.”
“That old man is crazy,” Kurz said. “It’s almost the 21st century. Pirate treasure? Who’s gonna buy a scam like that?”
“If that’s what you think...” said Sousuke, coming to a stop. “Then what are we doing here?”
They were in the jungle area of Merida Island, about three kilometers from Mithril’s underground base. This particular patch was used as a training ground for recon missions. Sousuke and Kurz were dressed in fatigues, jungle boots, and bush hats, as well as a variety of knives and travel equipment. There were no enemies here, so revolvers were the only weapons they were carrying. Trees as tall as four-story buildings stood around them, swallowing up the sky. Birds sang nearby and sunlight dappled the ground below. On a nearby tree trunk rested what looked like a large species of moth.
“Ah... think of it like a picnic,” Kurz responded, holding up the map in one hand.
This outing was indeed like a picnic for the two of them, but if they hadn’t been as skilled at jungle recon as they were, they’d have been lost and dead of exposure in no time. There were no roads here, and vision was poor. The island had been mostly uninhabited since ancient times, making it one of the Earth’s remaining untouched treasures.
“Besides, there’s a chance it might really exist,” Kurz insisted.
“There’s not even a chance,” Sousuke disagreed. “It’s a waste of time.”
“So what if it is? We’ve got nothing better to do today. You just need to be back by Monday, right?”
“True, but...” Sousuke just didn’t like it. He’d been thinking of taking the opportunity to head out to the cape near the base and go fishing in the ocean for the first time in a while. The M9s under maintenance had run into new trouble—the electronic weaponry this time—so the practice had been canceled once again.
Seeing Sousuke’s attitude, Kurz launched into a passionate speech. “Look, what if? What if, by some chance, there’s really something worth some cash here? I think that’d feel really great.”
“Really?”
“Doesn’t have to be a fortune,” Kurz continued. “Doesn’t need to put me in the lap of luxury. Just enough to treat myself to a nice dinner after I sell it to a pawn shop, you feel me? Even if there’s no treasure, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not about the payout, it’s about the journey. Just like that fishing thing you like so much.”
“Fishing?”
“Yeah. Besides, the old man kinda had a point. The spirit of adventure, that’s what this is about. Even in a nasty line of work like ours, it’s nice to get in a little fantasy every now and again,” said Kurz. “Right?”
“Hmm...” Sousuke didn’t understand the ‘spirit of adventure,’ but he did understand the comparison to fishing. Rather than dangling a line into the waves, he was walking around in the jungle. If he got lucky, his prize was a pirate treasure rather than a fish. It made sense. “But do you think that old map is really reliable?” he asked.
“Hmm? Probably,” said Kurz. “I mean, it’s marked and everything...”
“Let me see.” Sousuke took the parchment and carefully compared it against the most recent map of the island made by Mithril.
Captain Amigo’s map was highly imprecise, and only caught the rough shape of the local coastline and mountains. There was a picture of a spouting whale playing with a sea serpent in the ocean area, which made it seem even more dicey. It marked the treasure on the southeast of the island, with notable rivers and rocks marked around it. There were also notes in old Spanish written here and there.
Sousuke only knew very basic conversational Spanish, so couldn’t read most of them, but... “‘Señorita Mountain’?” he breathed incredulously. It had to be a joke. Wasn’t it possible the map’s author wasn’t really a 17th century Spaniard, but just a really stupid Japanese person?
“Oh, that mountain’s probably the bombing range in D3,” Kurz speculated. “The low mountain on the west side.”
“That’s not the issue,” Sousuke told him. “What I mean is, is the map trustworthy?”
“Huh? Hang on, hand it over...” Kurz snatched the map back and poked it with his finger as he explained. “Listen, the map might be shoddy, but the points it marks more or less line up. Look, there’s a river that runs from E8 to E9. Even if it’s moved a little in a couple hundred years, there’s only one river in this area. And here at F8, there’s a low cliff; there’s one on Amigo’s map, too. And on its east face, this rock...” When his explanation was finished, Kurz rolled up the map. “And that’s it, basically. There’s a rock covering the entrance to the cave where the treasure is hidden. And once we get there, we can check it out for ourselves.”
Sousuke remained skeptical. “It’s the authenticity of the map that I’m questioning, though.”
“You think the old man cooked it up himself? But the map really is that old,” said Kurz, waving the brittle old parchment around carelessly.
“Hmm...”
“Got it? Okay, then let’s get going.” Without waiting for a response, Kurz continued through the jungle, hacking away with his machete.
We’re not going to find the features on the map that easily, thought Sousuke, following after him. But land navigation was a fundamental skill for special forces, and there was nothing impenetrable about untracked land in the face of skills like theirs. It was just your average rainforest.
Still, their trip wasn’t without incident. There was a roll down a slope, an accidental trek into a swamp, and an attack by giant bees. Once, a large wild pig leaped out of the brush and almost plowed right into them. “Fweee!” it squealed.
“Gwah!” They both shouted, leaping out of its way.
The pig kept on running, but... Blam! Sousuke shot it with his revolver. The black pig—more like a boar, actually—let out a high-pitched squeal, trembled, then died.
“You didn’t hafta kill it,” Kurz said.
“You didn’t see the message from HQ?” Sousuke replied as he grabbed the dead animal by the shoulders. “If you find a pig on the grounds, eliminate it or capture it if possible. It’s posted on the message board.”
“But why?”
“Ecosystem preservation,” Sousuke explained. “These pigs are an invasive species, brought here by Europeans ages ago. They’ll dig up tree roots and damage the forests in search of insects. Then when trees die, water pools in their hollows and becomes breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which spread malaria. And malaria kills off the native wildlife,” he finished smoothly.
“When did mercenaries become worried about ecology?” Kurz wondered.
“I suspect they’re just trying to preserve our practice grounds.”
“I guess. Still, I feel kinda sorry for the pig,” said Kurz, nudging the dead beast with his foot.
“We’re not trying to eliminate them. Just thinning their numbers as much as we can.”
“Hmm... Maybe we’ll make a lunch out of it,” Kurz suggested. “Feels wrong to just leave it here.”
“I suppose,” agreed Sousuke. They quickly exsanguinated the pig. Then they prepped it, roasted it, and ate it, taking the leftover meat with them afterwards. Such skill and steely nerves were a necessity for soldiers like them, and the pig ended up being rather tasty.
Despite having low expectations, they found their destination quite easily. On the southeast of the island, there was a low cliff in the middle of the forest. Beside it flowed a river, and at the base of the cliff sat a large rock seven meters in diameter.
“That’s it. It’s under that rock,” Kurz said, looking between the map and the rock.
“Can it really be that easy?” Sousuke wondered.
“It’s what Amigo says; there’s a cave behind that rock. And a treasure chest in the cave...” Kurz looked at the boulder and paused. If the map was correct, there was a long, natural tunnel in the cliff that the large rock was blocking. “So,” he wondered, “how the heck are we supposed to move the thing?”
“I had the same question,” said Sousuke.
“I see. So, finding it isn’t a puzzle; it’s a simple test of strength.”
“I wonder if he pushed the rock from the top of the cliff to block it,” Sousuke mused. The rock was as big as a civilian house. The two walked around it a while to investigate, but saw no room at all to slip inside.
“Geh... Explosives, maybe? I’m not seeing another way to do it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sousuke replied as he felt the side of the cliff the boulder rested against.
“How come?”
“The makeup of the cliff is more fragile than you’d expect,” he explained. “We can set up enough explosives to remove the rock, but the force of the explosion might cave in the tunnel beyond.”
“Aha, right.” Sousuke was more knowledgeable than Kurz about the use of explosives, so he accepted his friend’s opinion. But that caused him to frown further. “What to do?” Kurz asked again. “Borrow a bulldozer? Nah, we’d never get it up the mountain...”
“A helicopter could carry it off.”
“Nah, I don’t wanna be owing the pilots any favors,” Kurz said. “Besides, they’d just laugh. No question.”
“Then I suppose we’ll have to give up,” said Sousuke.
Kurz stood a moment in silence, and then, “Ah, dammit!” he shouted, and kicked the big rock with his boot. Apparently unsatisfied with the one, he kicked it a few more times. But the rock remained unmoved.
Sousuke frowned at the sight of his friend’s frustration. “Why are you so upset? You’re the one who said it was about the journey, not the payout.”
“Oh, shut up! It’s the anticlimax that bugs me! In a treasure hunt, there’s gotta be... you know, something dramatic! Some hostile locals trying to kill you, a romance with a mysterious beautiful woman! Something!” The island was uninhabited, so there were pigs, but no locals. There was a mysterious beautiful woman on the island, but she was busy doing work as a command officer in the base.
“Is that true?” Sousuke asked.
“Yes. If the whole damn story turns out to be, ‘We headed out past the practice grounds, shot a pig and ate it. Oh, the treasure? We couldn’t find it,’ it’s a violation of my personal aesthetics!” Kurz seethed, raising his hands to the sky and flexing his fingers. “It’s against the spirit of adventure!”
“This ‘spirit of adventure’ thing again... I really don’t understand it,” said Sousuke, folding his arms.
Kurz stood there for a while, his shoulders heaving. Then he said, “Tch... Ah, well. Enough dreaming. The world’s just not designed that way. Starting tomorrow, it’s back to stupid training and pointless battles. And I’ll keep paying back my debts and probably die in some stupid— eh?” Suddenly his eyes opened wide, as if he’d just thought of something.
“What is it?” Sousuke asked.
“What am I, stupid? Yeah, yeah... Hahaha! What was I thinking? It was right there in front of me... how big of a dunce am I?”
“Really? What is it?”
“Shut up, dunce number two. We’re heading back to base!” And with that, Kurz spun around and strode away.
The two returned covered in mud around evening. They dropped their things and the leftover pork off at the barracks, then headed for the base’s 12th hangar. They ran into Mao on the way, but didn’t tell her about the treasure of Captain Amigo.
“We just went pig-hunting,” Kurz said.
“Yes,” Sousuke agreed. “Pig-hunting.”
“Uh-huh... Really?” Mao frowned at them disbelievingly, but didn’t pry any further. She was clearly too distracted by training schedule delays and maintenance issues to worry about anything else.
They walked down the bare concrete hall for a while before entering an empty hangar. There they found six giant gray arm slaves, three lined up against each wall, each one eight meters tall. These were extremely maneuverable modern land-based weapons, capable of manipulating armaments of various sizes. They were kneeling on the floor, heads hanging down and motionless.
This particular model was known as the M6 Bushnell. It was an older model than the M9 Gernsback that Sousuke and Kurz frequently used on missions. Their specs were worse than the M9s, but they were still the main arm slaves employed by most Western countries’ armies in a wide variety of forms. They had a stocky silhouette, like a person wearing a heavy down vest, and thick thighs and upper arms. Nicks and cuts lined the arcs of their armor.
“Heh heh. Horsepower like this can handle it, easy.” Kurz folded his arms and looked up at the closest machine.
“Are you sure it’s all right to use them without permission?” Sousuke asked gravely. “They may be old, but they still run ten million dollars apiece.”
“Seriously, it’s fine. They’re obsolete and gathering dust. If anyone asks later, we’ll just say we were checking the 2nd generation AS functionalities.”
“But—”
“We’re just borrowing it,” said Kurz, cutting him off. “We’ll wash it off and return it, it’ll be no problem.”
“Hmm...” said Sousuke.
“Don’t you wanna see what the treasure is too?” By now, Kurz was clearly convinced that there really was a treasure behind that huge rock.
Territory it had taken them three hours to cover on foot was done in thirty minutes with an AS as the heavy, powerful footsteps and gas turbine engine roared through the jungle. Piloting the M6 Bushnell, Sousuke pushed effortlessly through the underbrush, traversing mountains and ravines with Kurz in hand before arriving at the base of the cliff. M6s were definitely more maneuverable than humans, if not as good as the M9s.
The sun was well past set by the time they arrived at the base of the cliff. The powerful floodlights on the M6’s shoulder and head illuminated the rock’s unmoving visage, which seemed to proclaim, “Hah, you silly tin can. Just try and move me.”
Kurz leaped down off the M6’s hand and said, “Hop to it, Sagara-kun.”
“Stand back,” Sousuke told him via the machine’s external speakers. Then he maneuvered the M6 around to the boulder’s right side, pressing against it to push. The rock was a little shorter than the M6, but it had to weigh fifty or sixty tons, while the arm slave weighed only eleven. Put in human terms, it was like trying to move a large, braked motorcycle through force alone.
“Here I go,” said Sousuke, revving up the M6’s engine. Its turbines began to whir as exhaust billowed out the back. The tremendous electricity produced by the generator imbued its muscles, made from a special memory plastic, with power. The boulder suddenly trembled as pebbles and moss began to fall from its surface.
“Yes!” Kurz cheered. “Keep going! Do it!”
The M6’s feet planted hard against the ground as Sousuke adjusted its footing and pushed harder against the boulder. The armor and frame began to creak as they stiffened. The large rock was partly sunken into the dirt and seemed unlikely to move, but...
“Ah...”
The AS’s power was truly incredible. The rock began to tilt at last, then slid along the ground a few dozen centimeters. Finally, as if giving up the ghost, it fell away from the M6 with a roar. Dust flew through the air and smoke billowed around them.
“We did it!”
“Look, Kurz,” said Sousuke. As the dust began to settle, the M6’s floodlights revealed the inside of the great hole.
“Wow, it’s really there!” said Kurz.
The cave was about five meters tall. Small pebbles fell from the ceiling, followed occasionally by a rock the size of a fist. Perhaps the cliff’s foundation had been weakened by the boulder’s removal. “It could come down at any time,” Sousuke observed. “It’s dangerous.”
“We came this far,” Kurz protested. “We can’t go back without exploring.”
“Should I at least use the AS to prop it up?”
“Good idea. You do that.”
Sousuke stooped the M6 over and entered the cave, positioning it so that its back supported the ceiling like a prop. He locked the joints into place, opened the cockpit hatch, and got down out of the machine.
The pitch black cave had a gradual slope to it, and the two friends walked further inward, maglites in hand. The tunnel proved to be surprisingly short, and they reached the dead end about fifty meters in. There they found a large pool of water, and beyond it, atop a rock... a rusty treasure chest silently asserted itself.
“Ohh,” said Kurz. “Easy to find.”
“Is it okay for it to be this easy? It doesn’t even feel like we’ve worked for it,” said Sousuke, sweat rising on his forehead.
“I guess he was a really considerate pirate.”
“Or maybe the pirate stuff isn’t true, and the bartender rigged this up himself?”
“It all seems a little intricate for a joke,” Kurz said. While keeping an eye out for traps, they splashed through the water and arrived at the chest, where they used a gun to bash in the lock and opened the lid. “Now, let’s see what we’ve got here...”
“Probably rotten old documents and pepper bottles,” Sousuke predicted.
“Or embarrassing love letters he sent to girls he’d fallen for.”
“It won’t be worthwhile either way.”
“Heh heh... Anyway, let’s find out,” said Kurz, opening the lid. The maglite’s rays made the reality of the treasure clear to see... and in that instant, they both fell silent.
In a sense, neither of them could have predicted it. It just hadn’t seemed possible. The contents of the chest were so far from their expectations that it took them a few minutes to grasp it. Inside the treasure chest...
“Hey.”
...was treasure: sparkling gold coins; finely cut jewels; dazzling daggers, mounted with diamonds; intricately embossed silverware. Kurz grabbed a gold bar with trembling hands. It was real, there was no doubt about it. “Hey... This is more than just a couple million dollars,” he said in sheer disbelief. There was no excitement in his voice. It was too overwhelming for him to process right away. “Captain Amigo. Who the heck was this guy?”
“The world is full of mysteries,” Sousuke said, his face pale.
Their first hurdle would be to get the chest out of the cave. The ceiling was fragile and could come down at any time, yet they worked together to bring their haul, tottering step by tottering step, back to the entrance.
With each step they took, the reality of their situation seeped in more and more, but it didn’t elicit a desire to jump for joy right away. First, there was confusion. Then, little by little, hope and possibility began to blossom inside of them.
“This is crazy, man,” said Kurz. “We’re rich, y’know?”
“It does appear that way... This is likely ten million dollars,” Sousuke agreed.
“We’ll split it. Five million apiece. No, we’d better give the old man a cut, too...” Kurz was beginning to sound excited after all.
Meanwhile, Sousuke looked thoughtful. “I can’t think of how to use my share,” he said.
“Are you nuts? Buy yourself a fancy yacht and a summer home!” Kurz exclaimed. “Go fishing every day for fun! Best of all, we can bid this line of work goodbye!”
“I have no interest in yachts or summer homes, but I do like the thought of fishing.” As he said that, Sousuke found himself imagining the scene: he sat on a yacht, silently fishing. The peaceful sea below. The blue sky above. For some reason, Chidori Kaname was on the yacht with him, grilling up the fish he caught. “Not bad,” he sighed happily.
“You’re damn straight it’s not bad! It’s awesome!” Kurz’s voice was finally brimming over with delight. “I’ve been through a whole lot in my life. I think it was all saving up karma for this. I thought there was no God in this world... but I was wrong. There totally is!”
“You may be right,” Sousuke agreed genuinely.
Just then, as they arrived at the cave’s midpoint, a stone fell with a bang just two meters to their right! It was about the size of a person’s head. Another fell behind them, and then before them, too. More pebbles than before were showering down from above.
“It’s coming down,” Sousuke yelled.
“Crap!” said Kurz, beginning to panic.
They headed for the exit, the heavy treasure chest wavering between them, but the cave was beginning to come down in force. There was a sound like an earthquake, and a shower of dust fell behind them. If they ran as fast as they could, they might just make it out alive. But with a burden like this...
“We have to drop it,” Sousuke shouted. “It’s too dangerous!”
“Are you nuts?!” Kurz exclaimed.
“Which is more valuable, money or your life?”
“Both! Now, hurry!”
Sousuke considered dropping the chest and running off on his own, but the sight of his friend’s expression gave him pause: Kurz might really be willing to die with the treasure. It was extremely dangerous to keep it, but maybe, if they hurried...
The rocks kept coming down, and progress was achingly slow. Sousuke felt like his fingers on the treasure chest would tear off.
“Almost there!” Kurz shouted. Then, with nearly superhuman spontaneous power, they leaped up the slope as a pair, passing through the M6’s legs and out of the cave.
“Geh!” they coughed. Moments later, there was a roar behind them as the cave collapsed in a shower of dust, rocks and boulders. They’d made it, but just barely.
Kurz and Sousuke made it pretty far away from the cliff before they finally felt safe enough to stop.
“Whew... that was close,” Kurz panted. “I was sure I was a goner.”
“And you almost took me with you!” said Sousuke, who was covered in sweat.
Kurz laughed as he sat down on the treasure chest. “Hey, don’t be so mad. We got the treasure out safe and sound. All that matters is the payout!”
“That’s the opposite of what you said this morning...”
“Don’t sweat it. The point is, we’re rich now. There’s gotta be at least ten million dollars here. Think about that, man!”
“Ten million dollars...” The power of that number sent a new tremble through Sousuke’s body. He felt like, at last, the gears of his life could begin turning in a new direction. A completely new life was within his grasp.
“First, we’ve gotta figure out how to turn this into spending money,” said Kurz. “We can do that once we get back to the base.”
“Right... ah?”
Just then, they realized it:
The M6 Bushnell they’d arrived in was currently buried by hundreds of tons of rocks at the cave’s entrance. Its arms and legs were twisted at bizarre angles. From its slightly exposed torso, they could see white smoke beginning to rise...
“Ah...”
And then it burst into flames and exploded into pieces, throwing dust everywhere. The red fire burned brightly in the dark jungle while the two just stood there, mouths agape. After a while, Kurz whispered. “How much... did you say an M6 costs again?”
“Roughly... ten million dollars.”
●
▼Income
Captain Amigo’s Treasure / 10.31 million dollars (Mithril Estimate)
▼Expenditure
M6A2 Bushnell / 10.31 million dollars (Mithril Invoice)
●
“Biggest load of crap I ever heard.” They were once again in the pub on the base. Kurz was resting his head on the bar, a cheap scotch in his hand. “They confiscated all of it,” he moaned. “Which means a damn pirate treasure can’t buy more than a single damn last-generation AS. Dreams and adventure ain’t worth jack shit. This sucks.”
“The estimate they gave was the result of headquarters being generous. We should be grateful they took mercy on us,” said Sousuke, grape juice in hand.
“Gotta say, they’re probably embarrassed about learning there was a treasure like that in their own backyard... I’d be more embarrassed than happy,” Kurz said mournfully. “We’re all a bunch of dunces.”
“Normally we’d be sent to the detention barracks. I’m glad the colonel took our side.”
“Hmm... She’s a good kid. She’d be even better if she discounted that M6 a little and gave us the difference.”
“That would be asking too much,” opined Sousuke, and the conversation stalled there as a black mood overtook them. Then the bartender approached, dragging his leg.
“I heard everything, kids. Sounds like you had a pretty fun time,” the old man said in his husky voice, a smile on his red face.
“Fun? Yeah, right,” Kurz scorned. “It was all a wash!”
“Fool. Just be glad you came back alive and well.” With that, the old man poured bourbon into a shot glass. Kurz just snorted and turned away, but Sousuke raised his hand.
“But, sir... Did you know the map was genuine?”
“Nah,” said the bartender. “That’s why I didn’t look for it myself.”
They both stared at him silently.
“I won that map from an old war buddy in poker,” he explained. “Apparently it was copied from some other map in the 19th century, and the name ‘Captain Amigo’ was made up.”
“But the treasure really existed.”
“I was surprised by that, too. It’s a mystery, all right. A real mystery,” the old man said in amusement as he downed his bourbon. “Listen, you two. This world is full of the irrational and the mysterious. Some of your experiences will be tougher than others. You’ll have laughs and tears and anger, all of a piece. Think about it that way and you’ll feel better. Right?”
“Easy for you to say,” Kurz grumbled.
The bartender didn’t respond, and just dropped two gold coins in front of them. They made a pleasant clinking sound as they rolled along the counter. It was part of the treasure they’d found in the cave.
Sousuke and Kurz just stared. “Isn’t this...?”
“That commanding officer of yours. You know, the Russian? I asked him, and he let me have three coins: one’s for me, the other two are for you fellas.” The old man waved his own coin in the air. “Take ’em. Think of it as a piece of the spirit of adventure. Keep ’em in your pocket and they’ll give you an unseen power—the proof that you lived and laughed. And some day, when you’re lost on the road with nowhere to go, those coins’ll be your guidepost.”
“Hahh...” Kurz sighed.
“You get it? Ah, of course you don’t. But take ’em anyway.”
Each of the two young soldiers picked up his coin and stared at it, as if he were sizing up a strange food item he’d encountered for the first time.
“We’ll take them. Thank you,” Sousuke said with a genuine nod.
“Yeah... not a bad memento for that stupid waste of time,” Kurz smirked. It was a bittersweet smile, but one without regret.
The old man grinned at them in satisfaction, then poured another bourbon into his glass and raised it in their direction. “Now, let’s have a toast,” he said. “To weird old pirates and golden memories.”
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
The three brought their glasses together and enjoyed their drinking party.
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