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Isaiah Jones vs the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

‘Lunch Box: “Breakfast of Cyborgs**

“Next motherfucker’s gonna get my metal.”

-Marilyn Manson

The following morning Eiichi Tarō returned to the Hanzō home to speak with Isaiah after breakfast, he caught the young mathematician in the back training in the garden working out on the Mook Yan Jong (the wooden man), his shirt hung on a fence post near the entrance to keep it clean as he practiced a Chinese style everyone recognized Wing-Chun with a mix of Muay-Thia and MMA. There were moves he did not recognize from the Asante war masters training. The tall, lean Akan warlord’s back was covered with the scarification tattoos of the Asante master of war blades symbols etched into his flesh by the twi-speaking Akan elders with ancient stone blades.

The staccato rhythm of his punches and kicks drumming into the body and limbs of the wooden man surrounded by the bamboo groves, waterfalls, and summer foliage of the 4 centuries-old garden of his wife’s ancient family estate. In the spring, the cherry blossoms would bloom here; for now, there was the shade of the plants and trees and the sound of Isaiah training. The saffron-robed brothers from the Buddhist temple in China were all volunteers from the resurrected Shaolin Temple, the first to begin to train Africans in traditional Shaolin kung fu almost three decades ago. Now, there were thousands of orange-robed, shaved-head, black monks training at the monastery in China and across the African continent at all times. An extension of China’s soft power and cultural exchange on the continent that began in the middle of the 20th century.

Seven years ago, immediately after the formation of the AUA/African United Alliance created the 54-nation superstate, the Shaolin temples’ African brothers had all petitioned their sect leadership for permission to join the AUA’s ADF /African Defense Force and were instead assigned to guard Sumiko and her family. The fact that his wife was a Shinto priestess in bad favor with her order did not bother the Afro-Chino monks of the order. They had one mission protect the family of Isaiah Jones.

After Isaiah finished his morning routine, the elder scientist sat and watched, sipping green tea served by the monks. The black monks should have been the oddity, but what stuck out was the lone Gaijin girl training with them. She was tall even for a Westerner, 5-foot eleven, gangly, feral looking with huge bright brown eyes and shoulder length curly brown hair. She wore the same saffron-colored robes as the brothers but did not shave her burnt umber curls.

The two men had lunch together and later in the afternoon as they strolled through the 4-century-old gardens. Eiichi, in good spirits, was making points, waving his cane-wielding hand as they talked, each knowing they would end up at the helipad. General Intelligence Joint Actuated Autonomous Neural Exoskeleton, GI JANE, or just the Jane, as the techs at the labs where Sybil’s exoskeleton was constructed called her.

The titanium-plated hardware, anyway, was manufactured right here at Taro Tech Industries Subterranean Facilities in our own black site Laboratories. Hiding in plain sight rather than a remote local where the traffic delivering supplies to and from the facility would stand out. We built the laboratory in an abandoned silo beneath the facility, long forgotten after the Second World War. By locating our black site lab here, its supplies and deliveries blend right in with the day-to-day operations of the above-ground, pun intended, facility.

Our location has not been compromised yet, but there is someone in the street-level factory stealing company secrets and selling them to buyers from unscrupulous rival corporate entities. We can tell only that they are a low-level employee or contractor snooping around. Their actions so far have been confined to the upper levels, our in-house security confirms to date; all leaks are coming from someone who does not have access to or knowledge of the labs below. We need to keep it that way.

They need to be located and dealt with before they discover our underground lab’s existence. Or disclose any of our black site labs’ other off-the-books activities, regardless of who they ultimately report back to, we can’t do anything rash, but we need to somehow convince them that there is nothing unusual going on here.

Isaiah thought out loud as they strolled through the bamboo garden.

“If you could distract them with a decoy location, they might move on. It would need to be a believable alternate target and not an obvious distraction; they need to feel clever, as if they’ve uncovered the evidence themselves.”

Eiichi nodded in agreement with the shrewd young mathematician.

“I think I have an idea for who could play the perfect patsy, Knocks Industrial LLCs. They keep their grubby fingers stuffed in the American military-industrial complex’s pie. They are a mid-tier US defense contractor. Their CEO, Tray Knocks, is an amoral bottom-feeder with a long list of ethically questionable corporate dealings in his past, making his company an easily exploitable mark for our purposes. Knocks Industries is big enough, with enough skeletons in his corporation’s closet, they could spend a lifetime investigating this slippery bastard and save themselves the cost of the airfare to Japan.”

“Good, Isaiah said eager to put the plan into motion. Then let’s get to work right away.”

Relax, Eiichi said, reclining in the lawn chair. Sumiko has taken Sybil and the children into the city to do some shopping before your flight leaves this evening. And we will need Sybil’s help to lure the rat away from my factory. He took a few puffs and smiled.

“This is a fine cigar, Isaiah. Eiichi said, slowly exhaling a serpentine trail of smoke. I have not had a good Cuban in quite some time. Thank you, “the old man said as they sat across from each other, gazing out over the garden as the light danced through the shadows of the bamboo leaves and branches. They both sat in quiet contemplation, gazing at the serene image of light and shadow dancing between the leaves of the ancient garden. Sumiko’s home was a picturesque 4-century-old house that had been in her family for thirteen generations. [early 1600s Edo period]

Did you know that not only is Sumiko a degreed expert on Edo period art, weaponry, and history, but her family served the Toshinaga Shogunate for their entire reign during Japan’s cultural peak, the Edo period. Thiers was the most coveted position by every blacksmith in Japan, and none in or outside of Japan have ever produced a blade that cuts as well as those made by the Hanzō family. Even today, in the age of the machine gun and synthetic polymers, the Hanzō swords are the most highly prized by any who have ever practiced the art of war sword in hand. Eiichi said, thinking aloud as they drank frosted amber-colored bottles of Sapporo and smoked.

Isaiah looked up from his iPhone screen after reading Aeon’s message.

“We made it to Havana without incident. And are currently in the company of an old acquaintance of yours here in Havana. Naomi was waiting for us when we docked. She gave the three of us, Mau Mau, Penny, and me a VIP tour of the city and insisted we rest at her private villa until you return. Mau Mau and Pen send their love. We will see you soon. ciao.

Xoxo Aeon.”

He turned off the phone, having read the message. He wasn’t worried about the Exodus with those two at the helm, and he was certain they would enjoy spending the next few days in Havana. He would see them both the day after tomorrow, after the 15-hour flight from Japan to Cuba. He picked up his pencil and notebook and began to sketch a pair of shoes for high-speed cyborgs that could withstand the intense heat and pressures of near-instantaneous acceleration to Mach one plus burst of speed cyborgs like Sybil could achieve. The General Intel Janes were constructed to navigate at hypersonic speeds. Their chassis were integrated with the enhanced reflexes and senses with its AI internal interface. Purely organic senses would find it simply impossible to operate at these speeds, even if they could magically bypass the laws of physics and withstand the intense pressure of the g forces generated during acceleration and deceleration on landing. not to mention the heat; early test with organics ended with the titanium armored cyber brain casing being left filled with a liquified gooey mess of the test pilots whose spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

It starts with materials, the footwear needs to be able to withstand the heat of an arc welder or molten lava for the few seconds the greatest heat and pressure is during the activation of the hyper-speed software. It needs to blend in with what she wears, whether formal dinner or hiking in the woods. Then we are talking boots, knee-high to calf-high boots. We use the carbon color made of the right material would work and be the most practical for most of the designs. Isaiah sighed. You know she actually prefers those chunky platform sneakers all the teen girls are wearing here. Well, you know your sister better than anyone else, and there is not much use in making her a pair of practical footwear if she is not going to wear them. Look at what we have become, two grown men discussing women’s shoes with all of the solemnity of casket shopping.

She could just keep a pair of flip-flops in her purse in case of a shoe emergency. Eiichi laughed at the young man’s suggestion. That is a cost-effective and practical solution, but finish the design for the boots and send it to my direct line. I will have my techs make them anyway, should she ever need them.

I’ll show you what we can do with shape memory stored in metals without creasing, folding, or fatiguing the material by sending a charge through the metal after using robots to sculpt the material with pressure on both sides without creasing or folding the metal, then sending the opposite charge through the new shape. and it goes back and forth between the two shapes at the speed of electrons. This is how the cyborgs we developed muscles are able to achieve such high speeds to jump into the air at Mach One, reaching over 3 miles into the air before they return to earth one minute ten seconds later for a 314-pound mass of Sybil’s chassis. But it was the landing that destroyed the steel-reinforced cement of the helipad last night, he said with a grin.

Isaiah shook his head and smiled. Mach one and she stuck the landing, returning to earth to land on the exact same spot she launched from, incredible. It looked more like a meteor struck the helipad than a sinkhole. The three-foot-deep radial crater demolished the center of the steel-reinforced cement landing area.

Sybil just sent a message; she wants us to meet her at the lab later this afternoon.

Ok then, I guess we know what we will be doing this evening. Eiichi leaned back in his chair, puffed the cigar, and kept his thoughts on why she might want to meet at his factory to himself.

Eiichi and Isaiah exited the embassy car and entered the Taro Technologies building atrium on their way to the lobby when they heard Sybil’s voice come out of the shadows.

“Escort the casket to cold storage bay 51. I’ll meet you there.”

He never saw her, but he heard her move fast and knew she was gone before he could ask any questions. The two men continued into the front entrance to show their ID and sign in at the register. Even Eiichi signed the ledger, and he owned the company. A moment later, a courier entered the lobby as they finished signing in. The fat white man pushed the dolly with a crate large enough to hold a casket on a hand truck. The safety yellow 4-wheel contraption was raised to a sixty-degree angle, resting on the extra set of smaller rear wheels that kept it up at the proper tilt.

The brown uniformed deliveryman was a middle-aged, pudgy, neck-bearded American. He headed towards the desk to leave the crate once it was signed for by security. As he left the building, seen only by the security guard behind the large circular desk in the center of the plasticated exhibit-filled lobby, the man’s ID fell unnoticed from the pocket of the private carrier for Knox Industries.

The company’s private delivery boy had carelessly dropped the lanyard with his ID card and electronic key card to the secretive corporation’s facilities located in Science Hill, Kentucky. The large crate looked ominous as the air around it swirled with clouds of condensation drifting around the supercooled contents covered with safety yellow biohazard labels. Eiichi took a look at the invoice personally before he signed for it, then followed the team of techs as they wheeled it into the private elevator.

The receptionist walked to the front door after the area was empty and picked up the Knocks Industries lanyard the courier had dropped, and put it in his pocket instead of calling the company or placing it in the lost and found box. Sybil watched from the shadows in the atrium before she dropped her delivery boy disguise and walked into the lobby disguised as one of the lab techs the security guard at reception had seen step outside for a smoke a few minutes ago. Sybil opened the door to the elevator that only went down to the top secret lab that contained the lab’s cold storage level 51.

The elevator, like the rest of the old silo, had no remote sensors or Wi-Fi internet cordless phone; it was a black hole for AI. All data was transferred using only analog flash drives or compact disks. No electronic signals were transmitted inside, not even radios even the phone lines down here were directly wired to this site only. Eiichi followed the techs to a door marked cold storage. The techs donned parkas, boots, gloves, and full cover of cold-weather gear before entering the foyer for decontamination that led to the entrance to the morgue.

The elevator doors opened behind Isaiah and Eiichi, and both men were happy to see it was Sybil.

Well, Isaiah asked impatiently, did it work?

Yes. He took the bait. Sybil replied with a wide grin. The agent at the front desk stole the ID, and I monitored him sending the information of the delivery from Knox Industries via his cell phone. He has already booked a flight to Kentucky. By morning, he’ll be busy investigating the new lead. It was a clean break.

Well, done, said Isaiah, but what was in the crate?

A chimpanzee corpse under dry ice. It makes everything look very mysterious. Eiichi grinned. Good work, Sybil. You were unrecognizable as the courier.

Thank you.

You two can take the rear exit from here and get back to street level unseen. Your car will be waiting.

Well, it’s been an interesting two days, but we must be going now. I will see you when Sybil returns for overhauls in 12 months.

Good, I look forward to seeing you both again soon, and remember to keep your eyes open. There are players in motion in the shadows. I have no idea who or how many, but there are certainly others on the move. Be careful, my friend.

The two men shook hands and Sybil hugged the old engineer before they left him standing at the threshold of the tunnel entrance, leaning on his cane as the two made their way down the long paths cement tunnel, the lights activating in front of them as they hit the motion detectors and going dark behind them as timers ended, leaving them sandwiched in darkness between the entrance and exit in a bed of light. As much as he was enjoying his time in Japan, he would be glad to get back to his ship. The Exodus was not just a ship; it was his home.

[Notes on monks- African students have studied Shaolin Kung Fu at the Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng City, China and at the Shaolin Temple Zambia. The Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Chinese Kung Fu and Zen Buddhism.

Students

Ishimwe Fidele

A Nigerian student who learned Shaolin Kung Fu and Chinese language at the Shaolin Temple

Peace Emezue

A Nigerian student who was part of the first class in 2013 and became a personal trainer

Sadow Sow

A journalist from Conakry who planned to teach Kung Fu after completing his program

Konate Yaya

A 30-year-old from Cote d’Ivoire who started Kung Fu training to keep fit

Stanley Banda

A 20-year-old from Zambia who started Kung Fu after watching Chinese movies

Gahungu Serges

A 31-year-old from Burundi who learned Kung Fu after watching Chinese movies

Dominique Saatenang

A Cameroonian prince who is known as the “African Bruce Lee” and the Shaolin Temple’s first African disciple

Benefits of studying Shaolin Kung Fu

Students learn about Chinese culture and Buddhist doctrines

Students learn about discipline, patience, and persistence

Students learn about humility, good conduct, and appreciation

Students learn how to be self-disciplined and how to treat others]

[-about the author JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.]