Akayama DanJay

By Ted Tinker

"Akayama DanJay" is political satire and a psychedelic sci-fi remix of Epic Christian Poetry.

The book focuses on three main characters. Professor Akayama pilots her giant space-robot which wields Heaven and Earth like a buzzsaw. Dan studies manga and religion on the Islands of Sheridan, where monks worship birds and eat centipedes to visit the afterlife. Jay travelogues the relationship between the two like Carlos Castaneda visiting The Naked Lunch.

This book is filled with fascinating concepts and ideas that reflect on religion, dystopian futures, philosophy, and science fiction. When reading this book, you will be challenged by complexities that evoke existential thought and deep moral questions. Key topics include death and life, destruction and recreation, and crises of identity and sexuality. This is a must read for anyone looking for a metaphysical novel filled with satire that commentates on life's profound concepts and abstractions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098371463

Book preview

Dan’s Favorite Manga

The year is 2019.

In his Wyoming motel room, Jango stabbed Jay for the fortieth time. Jay sputtered his last. Jango sighed and wiped his bloody arthritic hands on his sky-colored robes. Had Jay seriously just promoted him to Virgil Blue? Was Dan destined to die in Sheridan’s white-walled monastery? Jango clenched his eyes shut. There were no coincidences!

Jango put one hand on his aching hips and the other hand on his tall cane. He’d smuggled bugs before, but he’d never had to cover up a murder. Returning to the Islands of Sheridan might be a challenge.

There was a knock at the door. In panic to hide Jay’s blood, Jango put on Virgil Blue’s navy robes and silver mask. He cracked the door just enough to see Dan standing outside. Oh. Virgil Blue, right?

"Oran dora, said Virgil Blue. Call me what you want."

I’m so sorry to bother you, sir—but it’s an honor to meet you, of course. I’m Dan. Is Jay still here?

Virgil Blue knocked the door open with his cane. "Jay and Jango left together! Tell me, Danny, have you ever wanted to visit a library full of books from the future?"

After three days sitting in airports or planes, Dan stood at the bow of a boat ferrying him to the second island of Sheridan. He’d never traveled like Jay, so he found the process draining, but the leap from winter hemisphere to summer hemisphere was much-needed rejuvenation after his long-lasting hangover; he felt like he was on another planet. Rather than admire the Sheridanian tropics, lit by early Edenic sunset casting light-fingers from behind the main island’s sparse cloud cover, Dan flipped through Jay’s notepad of observations on the subject. Jay was an impeccable note-taker, and penned interesting sketches, but a few pages near the end of the notepad were torn out. On the next pages, Jay had doodled a cute white fox just like Faith used to paint. Dan had been spooked by a fox like that once, and never had the courage to ask Faith about them. He wished Jay had left those notes.

"Oran dora, Danny. Virgil Blue poked Dan’s back with his cane, a curious object smooth along the shaft, but with ten black spots encircling a gnarled tip. On the second island, you’ll study under Virgil Green and his matriarch. It should take you a year to graduate from his preliminary summit to my monastery near the main island’s cloudy peak."

Um. Dan put Jay’s notepad in his jeans’ pocket. "I’m not joining your congregation, Virgil Blue. I just want to write about it for my PhD. Jay didn’t have to become a monk just to visit you, did he?"

"Danny, why do you care about religion?"

Um. Dan found talking to Virgil Blue quite difficult. By wearing his silver mask and hooded navy robes, the Virgil had given up his person-hood to look like a sort of alien bird-thing. The silver mask had a squat beak, two long feathers on top, and bulging criss-crossed bug-eyes seen out of but not into. The only clue to his identity was his voice, that of an elderly man. My dad studied religions from all over the planet, said Dan. Then he killed himself. I guess he really rubbed off on me.

"Your father gave you his worms, said Virgil Blue. Dan opened Jay’s notepad and patted his pockets looking for a pen, but couldn’t find one. Jay’s notes explained Sheridanians believed a person was a vessel of interconnected ‘worms.’ To Dan, it sounded like the islanders had made a karmic image for the soul out of the brain’s neurons and the psyche’s ability to carry a memetic cultural genome alongside DNA, and he felt a desperate need to take more notes about it. All consciousness everywhere is one pile of worms tangling and untangling to resolve the cosmic disturbance of existing in the first place. Your father’s worms influenced yours. This is how the worms of the dead are sifted through the sands of the next eternity into the new generation of vessels. Any religion is for accepting the inevitability of death—death at any moment! Without one, we worry. With a good one, every death has purpose, because there are no coincidences."

I’m glad to hear it. Dan bit his lip and looked out to Sheridan’s second island. It was bigger and more forested than the first, barren, sandy one. My friends Faith and Beatrice died recently—Beatrice about a month ago, Faith just last week.

Jango nodded with solemn understanding. His silver mask almost fell off, but he held it on his face to remain Virgil Blue. He was careful to keep his hands covered with his navy robe’s sleeves. Your friend Jay died just a few days ago, too.

What? Dan squeezed Jay’s notepad. You told me Jay and Jango went to your monastery!

"I told you they left together! Virgil Blue shook his cane. Jay and Jango will see each other at the end of the next eternity. The Biggest Bird has plans for them!"

Dan covered his ears with his hands. His fingertips were already bitten by past anxieties. I can’t hear this. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "My whole life—it’s fallen apart! Jay was my closest friend! We had the same birthday, for Christ’s sake!"

Then Jay will surely help your worms climb the Biggest Bird’s Mountain in the next eternity. The ferry bumped the second island. Virgil Blue escorted Dan onto the gravelly beach. Take off your clothes.

Dan hadn’t planned to participate in Sheridanian rituals, but suddenly felt like his life needed some meaning. He took off his T-shirt, which featured a giant orange space-robot from his favorite anime. When you say ‘worms,’ do you mean worms like those? He pointed under the pines, where a few earthworms crawled through the grass.

"I do," said Virgil Blue.

Then why doesn’t the Biggest Bird collect worms herself? That seems like a bird-like thing to do.

She wishes she could, but worms must prove themselves ready before she can reach out. This is your favorite color, isn’t it, Danny? Virgil Blue bent achingly and picked up a long orange tail-feather. It must have come from a peacock bigger than an emu. Collect enough of these and Virgil Green will fashion a skirt for you. You won’t get your own robe until you make it to my monastery.

Dan worried (he was wont to worry, especially when nude) Virgil Blue wouldn’t be able to hike all the way up Sheridan’s second island. The steep path was rough dirt, the moon didn’t light the trail well, and Blue had an uneasy gait. Bewilderingly, however, two dozen bald and mostly-nude men and women of every skin color imaginable appeared from behind the pine trees and picked up the old man. "Oran dora!" they said. Carrying him uphill while dancing, they chanted Sheridanian.

Embarrassment tore Dan at every angle. He tried to cover his body with the long orange tail-feathers he’d collected, but found them an unsatisfying way to hide his nervous erection, especially because he was apparently expected to wear them as a scanty skirt like the mostly-nude dancers. Was he expected to immediately dance, too, and help carry Blue, or should he wait for his own scanty feather skirt and shaven head before joining? He felt a pink blush blooming on his cheeks. In consolation, besides the skirts, the dancers wore only anonymizing wooden masks like Virgil Blue’s silver bug-eyed bird-face. Together with baldness, the masks pronounced the slightly pointed heads of native Sheridanians. Dan wished he’d gotten his mask before stripping down so he could hide his blush. What are they chanting, Virgil Blue? Dan asked.

’Virgil Blue walks!’ he translated. The dancers laughed and started another chant. "’Virgil Blue talks!’"

"Are you not known to walk or talk, Virgil Blue?"

"It depends, said Virgil Blue. Oran dora!" The dancers set him down atop the island in a clearing. He waved his cane at them to say goodbye, and the dancers disappeared behind the pines once more.

Dan squinted into the dark. Where did they go?

Virgil Blue held one silencing finger over his silver mask’s beak, carefully hiding the digit in his thick navy sleeves. The dancers will retire for the night, he whispered, and after meeting Virgil Green, you’ll retire alongside them to dance for a few weeks. As practicing laymen, you and they haven’t yet been taught to sleep like the birds do, just a few minutes at a time but many times a day.

I haven’t seen any of these giant flightless birds yet, whispered Dan. He carried all his tail-feathers under his left elbow. I’d love to meet one if I’ve gotta learn to sleep like that. Virgil Blue pointed his cane. Dan recognized a pinkish shape in the middle of the clearing, barely visible by the full moon. Jay had sketched Sheridanian big birds in his notepad, and once showed Dan photos of such a statue, like a penguin taller than a tree. But isn’t that a stat—? It wasn’t a statue. It opened its eyes, small as peas but reflecting starlight like saucers. It quivered, threatening to unfold its wings across the whole wide clearing.

A bald man with slightly pointed head emerged from behind the pink bird just like the dancers had popped out behind pines. He calmed the bird by reaching up to brush its neck with the back of his hand. Dan knew Sheridanians had a peculiar abundance of skin colors, but he’d never met a man quite like Virgil Green, dark and cold as the night sky. His martini-olive robe and peppery beard were comparatively warm. "Virgil Blue? Walking? Oran dora!"

"And speaking. Oran dora," replied Virgil Blue, with a slight bow.

"Oran dora," Dan whispered. He wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to say it or not. He had no idea what it meant, and was a little afraid to ask.

I’ve got another fledgling for you, Green. He speaks English, not Sheridanian, but I’m sure you can show him the birds and the bugs. Virgil Blue poked Dan’s back with his cane. I need Danny ready for the end of the eternity. Dan had never heard of an eternity ending, but it sounded like Judgement Day or Armageddon. What would it mean for him to be ready? Nude and bald?

Virgil Green approached to look him over, so Dan awkwardly showed him the orange tail-feathers he’d collected. If you need him soon, Blue, maybe he should skip my island and just climb yours.

Hey, now! Virgil Blue shook his cane. Eternity doesn’t end tonight. He should follow the traditional path.

Virgil Green took Dan’s orange tail-feathers and held them in both fists. Danny, isn’t it?

Dan Jones.

My students begin by dancing. Virgil Green cracked the tail-feathers’ bony shafts so he could weave them together. Do you dance, Danny?

Not once in my life.

Hmm. Well, you can learn. Virgil Green snapped the tail-feathers together into a scanty orange skirt. When a student is done dancing, the sitting-and-walking phase involves meditation while contemplating the Biggest Bird. Dan had trouble imagining a bird any bigger than the pink one he was looking at, outside a hallucination. Do you have any experience with such periods of theological consideration, Danny?

Kinda, I guess. Dan stepped into his orange feather-skirt. It was more comfortable than he expected. I read books as an undergrad while walking laps around the campus quad. I would read for a lap, then close the book and think about it for a lap, and then start reading again.

Virgil Green turned to grin at Virgil Blue. Blue shook his head, waggling his silver mask, but Green’s smile grew and he nodded. You sound like you know the rigmarole, Danny, he said, turning back to face him. What classes? What books?

"I majored in Religious Studies. The Bible. The Torah. The Koran. The Vedas. The Lotus Sutra. Anthologies of creation myths. Dante’s Inferno. Paradise Lost. That sort of stuff."

Virgil Green kept his eyes on Dan, but talked out the corner of his smile while stroking his peppery beard. He might’ve read half your monastery’s library already, Blue.

"Virgil Blue told me he has books from the future, said Dan. I’ve never read one of those before."

"The Koran, The Lotus Sutra, and Dante’s Inferno were all once books from the future, said Virgil Green. Virgil Blue, Danny sounds like he was born for your monastery. Don’t you always say there are no coincidences? Don’t waste his time dancing; that’s just for tiring out energetic young fledglings."

Virgil Blue’s exasperation showed through his silver mask as he threw his hands up under his robes. Danny, do a dance!

Dan squirmed. Um. He did a quick Charleston, trading his hands from one kneecap to the other when they knocked.

Sit facing the matriarch! Dan sat facing the big pink bird. Now stand and circle around her nest! Dan walked around the bird. In the dark, he hadn’t realized it was sitting on a nest of eggs as big as his fists. There, Danny! said Virgil Blue. You’ve done the express edition of the second island’s traditional path.

Virgil Green laughed. "Oran dora!" Dan was more confused by the phrase than ever. Was it ‘congratulations?’ ‘Thanks?’ ‘You’re welcome?’ ‘Hello?’ ‘Goodbye?’

But your next step cannot be so rushed. Virgil Blue poked Dan’s back with his cane to lead him across the clearing. They left Green behind with the bird and walked down another trail to a ferry waiting at the opposite shore. Do you know how to swim?

Uh-huh. Dan looked mournfully at the ferry. Dare I ask why it matters?

Virgil Blue waved his cane’s gnarled tip at the mountainous main island. Its silhouette was an isosceles right triangle with its hypotenuse on the seafloor, so the island was surely a perfect cone. It should take you six to fourteen hours to swim there, depending on how the water treats you.

Um. Wow. Dan shaded his eyes from the moon, trying to gauge the distance. The main island was covered in tiny flowers of every possible color, a rainbow blur in the dark. I don’t think I can swim that far.

The flightless birds do it, said Virgil Blue. Dan could barely see Sheridanian big-birds splashing on the distant coast of the main island. I did it, too. So did Green.

How many people drown making this swim?

Not as many as you might think. The water between these islands is almost shallow enough to tiptoe on the sand. When you crawl ashore the main island, you’ll next hike up to the monastery nude as the birds.

Dan frowned. I don’t even get to keep my skirt?

You’ll lose those feathers during the swim. It’s all a metaphor, accepting your worms for the Heart of the Mountain.

I get a robe eventually, right? Dan remained on the coast, yet unable to touch the waves.

I’ll dye one with orange flower-petals for you while I wait in the white-walled monastery. Virgil Blue boarded the ferry without him. So don’t be too quick about it!

The year is 2020.

Dan, brown hair shaved bald and wearing an orange tail-feather skirt, spent eight months walking and sitting with Virgil Green’s students around the pink matriarch. Each night Dan joined the most fervent devotees to the Biggest Bird swimming laps around the second island until he finally felt firm enough to swim to the main one.

After climbing to the white-walled monastery, nude and waddling slowly as the birds did, Dan was rewarded egg-yolk orange robes and the first volume of his favorite manga: LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration. Its cover depicted a young woman on a noble balcony, ignoring a futuristic skyline of lit-up spires to gaze at the moon above. Virgil Blue told Dan his first assignment was annotating LuLu’s like he would annotate a textbook.

Dan assumed this was for him to demonstrate coherent annotation ability before being allowed into the monastery’s sacred library under the bell-tower, but the door was actually open even to laymen. Only the books from the future, on the highest shelves, were still prohibited. Dan wasn’t quite convinced about the authenticity of these books from the future, but upon opening the manga, he saw LuLu’s anonymous author had signed their pseudonym, Tatsu, on the first page. Virgil Blue certainly had strange connections.

The year is 2021.

Dan’s cramped quarters were adorned with orange fabric just like his spotless robes. His room’s size limited him to a narrow mattress barely tall enough for such a man in his late twenties, but he still stacked books of every color in the corners. Monks usually returned their books to the sacred library under the bell-tower, but tonight, commemorating a full year here, Virgil Blue would give Dan the second volume of LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration to annotate privately. LuLu’s entered indefinite hiatus on a cliffhanger, so Dan would finish every volume printed by 2025 if he kept this annual pace, but he suspected Virgil Blue was secretly sitting on the final unpublished volumes from the future, waiting for him to be ready to read them.

Just before sunset, Virgil Blue opened Dan’s sliding paper door with the head of his cane. "Oran dora, Danny."

"Oran dora, Virgil Blue. No matter how much he studied Sheridanian, Dan still wasn’t quite sure what that phrase meant. It really depended on the inflection. He gave the Virgil his first annotated manga-volume. Thanks for letting me annotate LuLu’s like this. This manga meant so much to me and Jay. Faith and Beatrice liked it, too."

"It’s not manga, Danny, it’s philosophy presented through mass-produced sequential art. Although, you could be annotating anything. It took Virgil Blue a minute to sit cross-legged, so achy were his knees. The Biggest Bird can be found anywhere. There are no coincidences."

"I know, I know, but LuLu’s is an especially interesting presentation of Sheridanian culture. All Virgil Green talked about was eggs, birds, worms, and, uh, centipedes. LuLu’s ties it all together. Dan watched Virgil Blue flip the pages of the annotated first volume left-to-right. His ability to read through his silver mask gave the Virgil undeniable authority. But...I notice none of the other monks are annotating, said Dan. They take notes about the library’s sacred texts, but...they told me only Virgils annotate them. Are you planning to promote me to Virgil Orange? Will I be allowed to read books which are still from the future?"

"This sequential art isn’t from the library. For you, Danny, it’s more than sacred. For you, Danny, it’s real. Without revealing his hands, Virgil Blue tucked the first annotated volume up one navy sleeve, and, from the other sleeve, produced the second volume, fresh. Its cover showed a war-torn Earth partially hidden behind the moon. Between craters on the moon’s dark side was a chrome battle-station shaped like a sea-star. The Earth hid part of the sun, and the sun hid part of a massive black hole. The dark background of space was speckled red. You’ll never read the story’s resolution. You’ll live it, Danny! You’ll understand by the end of the eternity. It should be any year now."

Dan helped Virgil Blue stand again. The Virgil closed the sliding paper door with his cane, and Dan opened the manga. Sacred or not, LuLu’s was a wild read.

But in truth, he liked the anime better. Dan pulled his smartphone from under the mattress, solar-charged all day to play the corresponding episodes all night.

Professor Akayama

Last time on RuRu no Jikuu no Kasoku!

The year is 2399. For centuries, countless overlapping micro-nations and mega-corporations kept Earth locked in constant, enumerable wars. An arduous period of World Unification has brought these groups to uneasy peace under a Global Parliament. That stability has an unfortunate source: the Hurricane, a blood-colored cosmic horror of unknown origin and biblical proportion, ate the observable universe in just fifty years and now gnaws the edges of the Milky Way.

Professor Akayama, Scientific Advisor to the de facto Ruler of Earth in the leader of Global Parliament, has taken responsibility for defending humanity from the Hurricane’s planet-sized cells. She’s relocated the solar system to the center of the galaxy, orbiting a black hole. Her moon-base, once her private institution for training the best and brightest from around the world to build and pilot giant space-robots, has been militarized to maintain and operate humanity’s protector: a colossal metal man called the Zephyr.

On her 120th birthday, Akayama realized she was holding back the younger pilots. She retired as the Zephyr’s Commander, pilot of the cockpit in its head, to lead from the lunar command-tower instead. She promoted the chest-pilot, Zephyr Bunjiro, to the cranial position. Will Princess Lucia, daughter to the Ruler of Earth, prove to be Bunjiro’s perfect replacement at the Zephyr’s heart?

At the top of her moon-base’s tallest command-tower, Professor Akayama tied her long navy hair in a tight nautilus bun and stuck two pencils through it, freeing her hands to operate a massive control-panel labeled in English, Japanese, and eight other languages. When she pressed a button, a crater outside the observatory windows opened like a manhole and leaked white exhaust from a sub-lunar hangar. Commander Bunjiro, Princess Lucia, Zephyr Dakshi, she said into a microphone. Global Parliament has authorized us to repel the Hurricane Planets infesting the galaxy’s third arm. Prepare for launch. The professor switched off her microphone and swiveled in her chair to face the forty technicians behind her, each sitting at a computer with three or more touchscreen monitors. Don’t forget: this is Princess Lucia’s first experience against the Hurricane. Just keep your heads and follow procedure.

The technicians relayed multilingual commands to the crater’s sub-lunar hangar. A launch platform there supported the Zephyr, the blue metal man a hundred meters tall even though it had no legs. In the moon’s airy gravity, mechanics crawled across the Zephyr’s chest like ants to unfasten its right arm at the shoulder. A crane forty stories tall suspended that right arm on the hangar’s back wall; the right arm’s pilot would forgo this mission to help Akayama evaluate the princess from the command-tower.

Professor Akayama, he said sitting beside her, sorry, I’m late. Zephyr Charlie reporting for duty. Charlie was a pale fellow, about twenty years old, with a chiseled cleft chin. His tousled golden haircut matched his yellow bodysuit. He chewed the end of a smoldering cockroach. How’s the princess holding up?

Zephyr Charlie! Trade seats with me. Akayama stood and brushed folds from her pure white lab coat, posture bent by age. In Earth’s gravity, she’d be confined to a hospital bed. My arthritis is acting up. Finish preparing the Zephyr for launch. And no smoking near sensitive equipment! Don’t give me that look, I’m your elder by a century!

Yes, Professor, Charlie sighed. He dutifully swapped seats and ashed his roach. On the control panel, he twisted dials, turned a key, and lifted a lever. Can I still smoke in my shoulder-cockpit?

Of course. That air’s filtered through the Zephyr’s life support. Akayama watched steam pour from the crater like evaporating milk. She had remarkable eyesight for a super-centenarian. Zephyr Charlie, I wanted to discuss an error in your report on Princess Lucia.

"Professor, the princess is more than ready to pilot the Zephyr’s heart. I helped Commander Bunjiro train her, and we both agree she’s a better match for the position than even he was."

Not that. Look here. Akayama pulled a clipboard and pen from her lab coat. "You were brave to try writing my name in kanji, but you wrote Professor Akayama... She drew a sun and moon beside a mountain: 明山. Bright Mountain. My name is Professor Akayama... She drew a cross on four legs and another mountain: 赤山. Red Mountain. Akai Yama Hakase, not Akarui Yama Hakase. Understand? Not a bad try for your second language, but just write in English from now on."

Of course, Professor. Charlie tapped a microphone to make sure it was on. Commander Bunjiro, the Zephyr is cleared for take-off.

The command-tower’s observatory windows displayed a live recording of Bunjiro in his cockpit. He was young as Charlie and wore pointy red sunglasses, which matched the color of his bodysuit and short spiky hair. Hey, Charlie! Bunjiro’s favorite part of being Commander was the authority to ignore honorifics. Our life-support saves power when you’re not smoking the place up! Ready, Princess? Take-off in three, two—

The Zephyr shot from the crater on a column of clouds puffed from its hips. Dakshi, pilot of the left arm, swept the exhaust away as the Zephyr departed the solar system faster than light. By firing photons at unspeakable speeds, the Zephyr communicated with the command-tower instantly even light years and light years away. Textbook take-off, your Highness. Dakshi appeared on the observatory windows beside Bunjiro. He was a little older than Charlie and Bunjiro, dark-skinned, and he kept his green bodysuit impeccably ironed like his matching tightly groomed crew cut. Many in the moon-base had earned medals in the fight against the Hurricane, but Dakshi’s military background made him among the few who wore them in earnest.

Thank you, Zephyr Dakshi! Princess Lucia, in the robot’s sculpted muscular chest, appeared under Bunjiro on the observatory windows. She was younger than the other pilots and her aquamarine military-regulation ponytail matched her own bodysuit, which was a little more skintight than theirs. "Zephyr Charlie, Professor Akayama, how would you rate it?"

That was a smooth launch, Princess, said Charlie.

Akayama leaned over Charlie to speak into the microphone. Splendid, splendid, Princess! The observatory windows now also displayed the Zephyr’s point of view, which saw light years into the distance by firing photons from its eyes and catching them when they bounced back. Zipping past stars, the Zephyr quickly came across stray Hurricane Planets intruding deeper than the rest. These red orbs were grasping with hands, kicking with legs, dripping with tentacles, and watching in all directions with countless eyes. Akayama pressed a button under her desk to begin recording the footage; she hypothesized the Hurricane’s jittery eye movements were a form of communication, which could be decoded. Don’t slow down yet, she said. At top speed, anything smaller than Jupiter can be atomized manually. Dakshi raised the Zephyr’s left fist like a boxer’s uppercut. Lucia propelled the space-robot in a complicated curve, exploding through each Hurricane Planet as Bunjiro targeted them on a touchscreen in the head.

Hey Prof, said Bunjiro, in one of your lectures, you said you’ve sighted Hurricane Planets bigger than the whole galaxy. They could eat the Milky Way in one bite! Why are these puny invaders embarrassing themselves out here? Like the perfect teacher’s aide, Bunjiro asked as if he didn’t already know.

Excellent question, said Akayama. Behind her in the command-tower, the newest technicians took notes of her answer on their extra touchscreens. "Our current working theory is pain aversion. The Hurricane would sooner have a tiny portion extinguished immediately rather than let a larger portion suffer for any duration. The tiny portions cannot object, of course, existing at the mercy of the larger ones."

In the galaxy’s third arm, the Zephyr found an otherworldly nightmare. "My goodness." Lucia covered her mouth, agape. Nothing could have prepared her. The sight nauseated even the most experienced aboard the moon-base. Countless Hurricane Planets were eating whole stars or even each other. The largest ones spat out countless tiny copies of themselves to repeat the reproductive cycle.

Don’t lose focus, Princess, said Akayama. The space-robot you’re piloting is a great and complicated tool. In the Zephyr’s chest, you control more than the main engines: our greatest weapon, the Super Heart Beam, depends on you. Using it to vaporize a collection of Hurricane Planets will drive the rest back outside the galaxy—but it puts immense strain on the chest’s pilot. When Commander Bunjiro piloted the chest, he could fire the Super Heart Beam only once a week. I understand he’s taught you everything he knows. Are you prepared, Princess, or would you prefer holding back to melee-combat?

I’m ready, ma’am! Lucia steadied herself. Commander Bunjiro, Zephyr Dakshi, transfer power, please!

Transferring power, said Dakshi.

You’ve got this, Princess, said Bunjiro.

Energy crackled like blue lightning from the Zephyr’s head and arm to its chest. Akayama watched with pride. I knew the princess would be the perfect pilot the moment we met, she told Charlie. "Firing the Super Heart Beam requires embodying the ideals the Zephyr represents. As daughter to the Ruler of Earth, Princess Lucia knows how to stand for humanity!"

Professor! Charlie pointed to the control panel. Look at the neck!

The Zephyr’s neck had eight locks securing its head to its body. According to the control panel’s diagnostics, four locks were open. Akayama grabbed the microphone. Princess, don’t— The Super Heart Beam exploded from the Zephyr’s chest. White light shot hundreds of light years and pulverized whole Hurricane Planets into fine red spray. The force of the beam knocked the Zephyr backwards. Its head snapped its locks and spun through space. On the observatory windows, the command-tower witnessed Bunjiro violently thrashed in his cockpit when the Zephyr’s head impacted asteroids. Akayama cried. "Mou iya dawa!"

Charlie shouted into the mic. Bunjiro, come in! No response. Princess, Dakshi, bring him back to the moon! We’ll prepare med bay! Charlie shook his head and cried a single tear. "This is my fault, Professor. I was responsible for launch preparation." Akayama was gone. Charlie lost her in the commotion of the command-tower.

Firing the Super Heart Beam had exhausted her, but Princess Lucia couldn’t fall asleep after lights-out in the barracks. She lay awake on her bunk in her blue skintight bodysuit, fiddling nervously with her ponytail. The doctors said Bunjiro’s surgery would last hours and he’d be bedridden for days. Charlie said it wasn’t her fault, but Lucia considered the tragedy again and again. Could she have leapt from her cockpit to save him?

Your Highness! Dakshi pounded her door. Emergency! We need you in the Zephyr!

Oh no! Lucille threw her blankets aside and ran to him. What’s wrong? Are Hurricane Planets incoming?

Worse. Dakshi ushered her into an elevator down to the sub-lunar hangar. He obsessively straightened his forest-green crew cut, even though his hair was far too short to fuss over. Professor Akayama commandeered the Zephyr’s head from the repair bay. She’s leaving the galaxy as we speak!

They ran across catwalks to the headless Zephyr. Charlie already sat in his right-shoulder-cockpit, buttoning the top of his yellow bodysuit. He lit a cockroach and clenched it in his teeth. Dakshi climbed a ladder to his left-shoulder-cockpit, brushing aside mechanics to open the hatch himself. Lucia hesitated outside her cockpit at the solar plexus. I can’t do this. My first experience against the Hurricane was a disaster!

That’s not on you, Princess! shouted Charlie. Get in!

Before she left, the professor gave you perfect marks. Dakshi descended into the shoulder. So did I, and so did Zephyr Charlie.

Hey Dakshi, same here! A gray replacement head floated onto the Zephyr’s shoulders. Bunjiro popped out of the skullcap and waved to Lucia. His red bodysuit bulged with bloody bandages. His red pointy hair was no more or less disheveled for his time in med bay. He lowered his spiky red sunglasses to check the eight neck-locks, and, satisfied, he posed with two fingers in a V for Victory. One little crash ain’t gonna stop me!

Bunjiro! Lucia climbed into her cockpit and buckled her seatbelts. When the hatch closed her in, Bunjiro, Charlie, and Dakshi appeared on three of her many monitors.

Charlie blew smoke from his roach. Good to see you back in business, Commander Bunjiro.

Dakshi stretched the Zephyr’s left arm. Commander, are you sure you’re fit to fly?

Sure as sure! said Bunjiro. The moon-base is giving us the green light. Hit it, Princess! Let’s bail out Professor Akayama!

Lucia turned her key in the ignition and punched a code on a panel of buttons. The Zephyr’s hips fired billowing exhaust and they rocketed from the crater. Jumping to hyper light speed! She flipped switches and pulled levers. Charlie and Dakshi brought the Zephyr’s arms across its chest. The robot shot through space on a column of clouds thick as cream.

Dan’s Annotations 1

The year is 2021.

Dan paused the anime episode on his smartphone during the end credits. He smiled as he wrote notes between the manga’s panels: without legs but flying on steam, the Zephyr looked like a djinn. It would eventually have more limbs than anyone could count, but along the way, the robot would be reduced to less than a head. Thankfully, the light of the full moon was enough for Dan to read and write without a candle.

"Oran dora, Danny."

Dan whipped around. The shiny circle in the window was no moon: the silver mask peeked into his quarters. Virgil Blue!

Is that a phone?

N— Dan was tempted to hide the smartphone under his mattress, but knew the Virgil’s vision was dominating. He’d certainly seen it. It is. I’m sorry, Virgil Blue.

Sorry for what?

For the phone!

Phones are allowed in Sheridan.

Dan froze and shook at the same time. Even for monks in the monastery?

Even for monks in the monastery. Sheridan has three rules and none mention phones. Virgil Blue realized Dan’s embarrassment. I suppose there’s no rule about worrying there are actually more rules. Would you open the front for me, Danny?

Of course! Dan put his phone up the sleeve of his robe and slid open his orange paper door. The monastery’s halls were marble white, but Dan passed tapestries of every color outside other monks’ quarters. He pushed open a heavy wooden gate. What were you doing out at night, Virgil Blue? Collecting centipedes?

Peeking in your window, he said. What were you doing with your phone?

Dan swallowed as he shut the gate again. He was never sure if Virgil Blue was naturally so unsettling, or if his persona was specifically crafted to put him on edge. "LuLu’s had a TV adaptation, an anime. I’ve been watching it while I read the manga to gather perspective for my annotations."

Virgil Blue followed Dan back to his orange quarters. You’ll need to turn the volume down a little. The monk in the quarters next to yours told me she heard voices from your room neither English nor Sheridanian.

Sorry, Virgil Blue. It’s in Japanese, with English subtitles.

Then I should be able to keep up with it. Virgil Blue closed the sliding paper door behind him with his cane. Begin the next episode.

Really? Dan blushed. I’m already embarrassed you let me annotate my favorite stupid giant space-robot manga. If you saw the anime, I think you’d disown me.

"Danny, Sheridanian monks have annotated toilet paper Marquis de Sade penned in the Bastille, and I have read those annotations. At least LuLu’s hasn’t featured sodomy so far. Virgil Blue took an achy minute to sit beside Dan on the mattress. I knew you were the one to annotate LuLu’s the moment you remarked combining-mechas are a metaphor for society, the body, and the mind all at once. What happened in the previous episode? I couldn’t make it out through your window."

You came at a weird time, said Dan. Lucia—

"Princess Lucia?"

Dan hemmed and hawed and waved a hand. As daughter of an elected official, she’s not really a princess—but she abandoned earthly luxury and put herself in danger to fight for the sake of her people, so who could be more worthy of the title?

Half the fathers in Sheridan call their little girls Princess, said Virgil Blue. Anyone can call anyone anything. Dan hesitated to reply. Virgil Blue’s last line reminded him of his father. He reconsidered: everything reminded him of his father. Is something wrong, Danny?

I guess... He stretched for something to mention which would get the conversation back on giant anime space-robots. My friend Beatrice really liked Princess Lucia. She...Beatrice died before she could watch this far. It’s weirdly fitting, because Lucia is about to die, too, between episodes.

Oh! Virgil Blue covered his heart with a sleeved hand. I thought she was one of the main characters!

"She was the main character, for a while. But sometimes these episodic stories have time-skips where the author jumps the plot ahead. Characters might change in expected or unexpected ways, or be gone and replaced completely. Dan rolled his thumb over his phone’s screen to scroll to the next episode. Tatsu had the gall to skip twenty years of LuLu’s and kill characters off-screen, then circle back to view those twenty years from another perspective."

How chaotic and disjointed, said Virgil Blue, like man’s own clarity only in Tralfamadorian hindsight.

It’s pretty predictable that something unpredictable is about to happen, said Dan. "Akayama, Bunjiro, Charlie, Dakshi—before now, the Zephyr’s pilots were alphabetized by rank! When Akayama retired and brought Lucia onto the team, the story finally started. It’s the flawless order at the beginning of a creation-myth disturbed by the disruption of non-duality. As you’d put it, the Mountain is undivided. The world we worm-vessels experience is the illusion of the Mountain’s division until we find the whole Mountain within us."

Dan was about to start the next episode, but Virgil Blue poked the phone out of his hands with his cane’s gnarled tip. You can’t say something like that and not expand with citations, said the Virgil. "You won’t annotate LuLu’s so lazily, will you? Dan rubbed his hands and shuffled through books he’d stacked in the corners of his quarters. Without a book, Danny! Think of a creation-myth. Show me the Mountain reflected in you."

Um. Dan sighed and sat with his arms crossed. If he knew he’d be asked to defend his thesis statement, he would’ve saved it for an essay. "The Egyptians said Atum created himself from the infinite lifeless ocean of primeval chaos. It’s a bit of a backwards example, but boundless uniform chaos is a flawless order, too, isn’t it?"

Not bad, said Virgil Blue, but consider this angle. He knocked a book off a corner stack with his cane and it happened to open at the right page. "The Tao Te Ching says, in the beginning, the featureless and unchanging Way gave birth to unity, which gave birth to duality, which gave birth to trinity, which gave birth to everything else. Every worm implies the whole Mountain for the same reason Indra’s interconnected web of jewels is reflected completely in its every jewel. In Sheridanian terms, starting a reality is like cracking open a perfectly good egg."

"An egg full of worms." Dan started the episode. He usually skipped the bone-shakingly triumphant theme song because it roared in the background of epic fight scenes anyway, but he let it play for Virgil Blue.

What’s that? Virgil Blue poked the screen with his cane’s gnarled tip, pausing the episode, and Dan dropped the phone. Oh. Sorry.

It’s all right. Dan picked up the phone again. LuLu’s theme song was paused looking