All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka Page A

been left by some bastard on the feed trying to warn the Mimics about the attack on Boso Peninsula. There were anti-war activists out there who were convinced the Mimics were intelligent creatures, and they were trying to open a line of communication with them. Ain’t democracy grand?
    Thanks to global warming, this whole strip of beach was below sea level when the tide came in. By dusk, these fucking tubes would be washed away by the sea and forgotten. No one would ever know. I kicked one of the melted tubes as hard as I could.
    “Well, what’s this? A soljer?”
    I spun around.
    It had been a while since I’d heard anyone speak Japanese. I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize anyone had come up behind me.
    Two figures, an elderly man and a little girl, stood atop the embankment. The old man’s skin would have made fine pickle brine if you set it out in a jar on a bright day like today. In his left hand he clutched a three-pronged metal spear right out of a fairy tale. What’s he doing with a trident? The girl—she looked about the right age to be in elementary school—squeezed his right hand tightly. Half hidden behind the man’s leg, the girl looked up at me unabashedly from under her straw hat. The face beneath the hat was too white to have spent much time cooking under the sun.
    “Yourn an unf’milyar face.”
    “I’m from the Flower Line base.” Dammit! I’d run my mouth before my brain.
    “Ah.”
    “What, uh, brings you two out here?”
    “Sea has fish wantin’ t’be caught. Family’s all gon’ up to Tokyo.”
    “What happened to the Coast Guard?”
    “Word come ’bout the whoopin’ we took down on Okinawa. Why, they all up ’n’ left. If the army kin take care them croakers for us, we’d breathe easier, that’s fer sure.”
    “Yeah.” Croakers was obviously some local slang for Mimics. Ordinary people never got the chance to see a Mimic with their own eyes. At best they’d catch a glimpse of a rotting corpse washed up on the beach, or maybe one that had gotten caught in a fishing net and died. But with the conductive sand washed away by the ocean, all that would remain would be empty husks. That’s why a lot of people thought Mimics were some type of amphibian that shed its skin.
    I only caught about 70 percent of what the old man said, but I heard enough to know that the Coast Guard had pulled out of the area. Our defeat at Okinawa must have been more serious than I thought. Bad enough for them to recall our combined forces up and down the Uchibo line. Everyone had been redeployed with a focus on major cities and industrial areas.
    The old man smiled and nodded. The girl watched him with eyes wide as saucers, witness to some rare spectacle. He put a lot of hope in the UDF troops stationed at Flower Line Base. Not that I had signed up to defend him or anyone else for that matter. Still, it made me feel bad.
    “You got any smokes, son? Since the mil’tary left, can’t hardly come by none.”
    “Sorry. I don’t smoke.”
    “Then don’t you worry none.” The old man stared out at the sea.
    There weren’t many soldiers in the Armored Infantry who suffered from nicotine addiction. Probably because you couldn’t smoke during battle, when you needed it the most.
    I stood silent. I didn’t want to do or say anything stupid. I couldn’t let him find out I was a deserter. They shot deserters. Escaping the Mimics just to be killed by the army didn’t make much sense.
    The girl tugged at the man’s hand.
    “She tires out real easy. Good eyes on her, though. Been born a boy, she’da been quite a fisherman.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Just one thing ’fore I go. Ain’t never seen anythin’ like this. Came runnin’ out my house quick as I might, found you here. What you make of it? Anythin’ to do with ’em croakers?” He raised his arm.
    My eyes followed the gnarled twigs of his fingers as he pointed. The water had turned green. Not the emerald green you’d see off the