Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) (8 page)

There was still more, perhaps the
most important part of all from his point of view. The files Yuki gave to
Cardano and Meacham said nothing about the new mutation. She left them in the
dark. The Chinese heard about it from an informant higher up in the Mori
Corporation. But none of the files they had managed to copy had any information
about the mutation. Still, they became convinced her grandfather had hidden the
design of the mutation, or even the mutation itself, in his own body. The
routine autopsy done after his death would not reveal any anomalies on the
genetic level. The Chinese stole tissue and blood samples from the remains
before the cremation. They studied them for years, but found nothing.

Naturally, or perhaps quite
unnaturally given the subject matter, they turned their suspicions on Yuki.
Perhaps she carried the mutation in her body. Cardano realized the Chinese were
interested in Yuki. He assumed they thought she knew something about the
Predator project. But George understood the true nature of their intentions. He
also knew they would stop at nothing to get her child if they ever learned of
her existence. Yuki was pregnant when she fled to Hokkaido with George. From
that moment on, he bent all his efforts to conceal Emily’s true identity from
everyone... even from Cardano.

After the attack at the concert,
George realized Emily was in much more serious danger. She had begun to attract
the attention of some very dangerous men. Did they know who she is? Or did they
just think they could use her to get to Cardano and Yuki? George wasn’t sure,
but he was taking no chances. He would do what he could to preserve the
illusion that she was his brother’s daughter on the off chance anyone still
believed it. That was why he insisted on taking Emily with him rather than
accompanying Cardano and Yuki to New Mexico.

Emily listened in stunned silence.
So many painful questions swirled through her mind. She couldn’t quite bring
just one of them into focus. But the theme that recurred most forcefully in the
jumble of her thoughts was “Who am I?” It wasn’t hard for her father to see
this.

“It isn’t true, Chi-chan,” he said
in a tone of voice intended to reassure her. “There never was any mutation. It was
just a casual notion of your grandfather’s. He never pursued the idea in his
work. You are just our little girl.”

“But how did I get to be so good at
fighting?” she asked in a shaky voice. The thought was devastating, that the
thing she loved best was just a product of some monstrous mutation.

“No, honey. You’re good because
you’re a tough chick. That’s all,” he said. “You’re just a normal kid, like any
other. There is no magic pill, no special gene, no short cuts. Just a lot of
hard work.”

“Those guys at the concert, is that
why they attacked us? Did they think I’m some sort of freak?”

“I don’t know what they thought.
All the world thinks you’re my niece, with no special connection to Yuki. But
if our secret’s out, then we’re gonna have to approach things a bit differently
from now on.”

It took Emily a
while to digest all this information. Her entire life seemed to have been
turned upside down. Everything she had grown up believing about herself and her
family, such as it was, had been snatched away from her. She felt dizzy. But
there was one comforting thought pulsating at the heart of all the confusion.
Whatever else might turn out to be false, she knew without a doubt Yuki loved
her. And now she knew why. She traded an abstract dream of a mother for the
absolute truth of her real mother. Her mother had been with her for her entire
life. Her mother loved her! Mei Li hadn’t cared enough to take her with her
when she ran out. She cast that canard into the oblivion it deserved and
embraced the mother who so palpably loved her. Emily’s feelings gradually
changed from perplexity and rage to a warm feeling of confidence verging on
joy.

Yuki would have a similar
conversation with Cardano some time after they arrived in New Mexico. He needed
to know everything about her father’s research, about what the Chinese thought
he had done, and what Meacham and perhaps Burzynski were just now coming to
believe. He would not be able to protect them all effectively unless he had the
full story. He would also have to know the truth about Emily. He would be
shocked and angry, though mainly at himself for not guessing the truth about
her sooner. The news about the Chinese would be worse than he had suspected,
and he became fairly certain Meacham’s renewed interest in Yuki must have come
from something he learned about the Chinese program. This thought would change
his entire perspective about the plans he had made for them, for his family,
for everyone. It was clear that if they really believed there was a mutation
hidden among them, so to speak, they would stop at nothing to get control of
it.

George asked Emily to take out the
papers in her pack. She rummaged through it and found a lot of cash, at least
twenty thousand, a safe deposit box key to a bank in West Virginia, a birth certificate,
a social security card and several passports. The birth certificate recorded
the live birth of a baby girl seventeen and a half years ago on a US military
base in Okinawa, Japan. Her name was listed as Michiko Tenno, which hearkened
back to the family name of Yuki’s maternal grandmother. They chose it to
conceal any connection to Yuki’s father. George Walker was given as the child’s
father, using his middle name, which was also his mother’s maiden name. They
had gone to great lengths to create a document she could use in perfect safety.
It was a valid birth certificate; she was really born there to those parents.
George was confident this identity would withstand careful scrutiny and not put
her in danger. This is who she truly is. She could safely go anywhere in the
world as Michiko Tenno, US citizen.

One of the US passports identified
her as Michiko Tenno, as did the social security card. They were consistent
with the identity established in the birth certificate. This was a valid
passport, duly supported by the official State Department records. Two other US
passports and one British passport identified her as Emily Chung or Emily
Hsiao. A third US passport identified her as Emily Kane, born in Hawaii, but
the date of birth showed her to be now eighteen years old. These were very good
forgeries. She could probably get through a border control facility using one
of them. But if she were arrested and these passports examined closely, they
would probably be discovered to be fakes. One last passport, from Japan,
identified her as Michiko Tenno, born in Okinawa, and folded up inside it was a
birth certificate recording her birth at Chubukyodo Hospital in Okinawa City.
These were valid documents as well, supported by any legal records that might
be found in a search of Japanese government records. Yuki had insisted on
establishing valid Japanese citizenship for her daughter.

This was a lot of information for
Emily to process. She had a name. But it wasn’t the name everyone knew her by.
But it was a name all of the important social institutions she had to live
within the authority of would recognize. George gave her very precise
instructions about how to use the fake passports, about how to find her way to
New Mexico, where to find her mother, what was in the safe deposit box. He told
her as much as he could in the short time he had.

Emily’s father died that night in a
motel room in the town of Kane, Pennsylvania, on the edge of the Allegheny
National Forest. Emily felt completely bereft at first. When the police arrived
on the scene the next morning, they asked a lot of questions. The death was
clearly the result of some sort of violent incident, or perhaps a hunting
accident. Emily was obviously grief stricken and under no suspicion herself.
But the police did not know what to do with her. She was a minor with little
identification other than a library card and a school ID. No one doubted she
was exactly who she appeared to be, a bewildered, vulnerable child. The police
were only interested in finding a relative to turn her over to. Emily made
arrangements with the local funeral home to have her father’s remains cremated
as soon as the investigation was closed, which she imagined would be soon. A
small town police department was not going to penetrate the darkness
surrounding the events that had just transpired. As the events of the morning
fulminated around her, Emily consoled herself for the loss of her father by
thinking about her newfound mother.
 

Later that
afternoon she drove west out of town toward the interstate and turned south.
She understood her father’s escape route, north then west then south to safety.
It was a good plan, and it was a perfect expression of his character. But it
did not suit hers. She turned back toward her pursuers. If she was the target,
then going to New Mexico might bring them to her mother that much sooner. As
much as she wanted to be with her mother at this moment, she had unfinished
business in Virginia.
 

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Chapter 7:
Back to the Woods

Emily retraced her steps back to
Mill Creek, to where they had left the dirt bike. She was going back to the
estate, and there was no way to approach it in a car without drawing attention
to herself. She gathered the most important things from the various bags in the
car and stuffed them into her pack, which she strapped to the back of the bike.
It was too dark to ride through the forest, so she slept on the ground near the
car. The next morning, she rose early, changed clothes, ate the last two rice balls
and headed off into the forest. The logging trails were easy to follow and she
had a pretty good memory for the route they had taken thirty six hours earlier.
If she made good time, she could be back to the western edge of the estate by
nightfall.

The emotional register of this ride
was almost entirely the reverse of what she had experienced on the ride out.
Then, she sat behind her father, arms wrapped around him, or he sat behind her
enfolding her in his arms. They rode with the sunrise at their backs at
heart-pounding speed, eluding dark forces with deadly intent toward a bright,
uncertain future. Now she was heading straight for the darkness with grim
determination, intent on wresting the future of her choosing from their
clutches. She rode by herself, nothing to hold onto but the handlebars of the
dirt bike. She roared up and down the logging trails, sometimes cresting hills,
or racing alongside creek beds, occasionally bursting out onto an exposed
ridgeline. The scenery was thrilling. The trees still wore their autumnal
regalia. Under the canopy, the sun painted everything in shades of red and
yellow. She rested under a tree just below one of the highest ridges and
surveyed the landscape. In the early afternoon light she could see the terrain
for miles around her, laid out like a harvest quilt, alive with color. A thin,
small warmth stole into her heart. She lost her father just the day before. But
she had found her mother, or at least recognized her for who she really was.
She wept with sorrow and joy at the same time. She was loved. She had lost. The
great absence of her heart, the mother who had abandoned her had been cast out
by the infinite affections of the mother who had always been there, watching
over her. This revelation had cost her her father. It was a heady mix of
emotions, and she felt almost overwhelmed by it.

The thought of the enemy who lay
ahead brought her out of this reverie. She knew she would eventually have to
confront them. But she didn’t want to dedicate her life to vengeance. That was
not her father’s way. He had devoted his life to protecting her from them, and
he hadn’t done it just to leave an avenger behind him. She needed to honor him
by turning her life to sunnier purposes. She felt now she could kill them all
if she had to, but she hoped they wouldn’t make it necessary. She didn’t want
that to be her defining moment. She got back on the bike and rode on.

Around dusk she spotted the
familiar shape of Promontory Rock in the distance. She pressed on, going as
fast as she dared on the narrowing trail. She had hoped to arrive before
nightfall to avoid turning on the headlamp. Fortunately the moon was almost
full, which provided enough light to move pretty quickly for a little while
without lights. But the logging trail eventually dead-ended and she had to
continue on hiking trails. Most of these were quite thoroughly carved out by
mountain bikers, so it was pretty easy going at first. Soon these gave way to
smaller walking trails, and then she found herself riding through the underbrush
itself. She tried to keep to the rivers and streams as much as possible. There
was a little clear sky over them. It was too dark under the canopy to ride
safely. Finally she came upon the familiar stream bed and followed it to the
base of her favorite cliff. She stashed the bike in the bushes, fished the
rifle scope out of her pack, and climbed to the top.

She saw no sign of any activity on
the estate. The main building looked gutted from here. The garage seemed to be
intact, and the family car was still parked out front. There were no police
cars or fire trucks visible. Had the fire department even been called? Perhaps
the house had just been allowed to burn itself out. It would be almost
impossible to spot any tactical teams on the grounds in the dark from this
distance. She would just have to chance it. She needed a few things from the
apartment over the garage. It seemed reasonable to expect whoever had attacked
them had already done a thorough search of the main house and taken anything
they thought might lead them to Michael or his family. They were probably
looking for any signs of an active lab on the estate. Emily hardly knew what
they actually could have found, she realized. But she was pretty sure they
wouldn’t have been interested in what she was there for. She needed clothes and
shoes, but in a different style than she was used to, some camping equipment,
but also some papers,... and her school books! She needed the materials to
restart her life as Michiko Tenno.