Prologue 4—The Star Accepts the World
The girl was fleeing desperately.
She could almost hear her legs screaming underneath her as she sprinted through the dusky town, her knees quaking from time to time, running, running, running—
It was as if her mind had completely disconnected from her body: While her legs traveled forward with all their might, her eyes were constantly shooting wary glances behind her.
To be accurate, she wasn’t being wary.
She was just afraid.
She wasn’t running with a specific destination in mind.
She was simply fleeing, driven by a primitive terror, based in both instinct and reason.
The girl pushed her legs past their limits, just to put even a few more feet between herself and the something that was closing in on her.
At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything in the spot she was looking at.
However, her body began to give out before her spirit did.
She had no time to think about running or even to scream.
The only thing in her heart was terror of the thing bearing down on her from the depths of the twilight.
“Agh!”
The girl tripped over something, falling hard onto the road.
“Ngh… Aah…”
As if she didn’t even have a second to brush off the mud, she got up as quickly as she’d fallen, then started running again without bothering to check on the places that hurt.
But then it occurred to her to look at what had tripped her. It was a mistake.
What she saw was…
The lower body of what had once been a soldier, after his upper half had been mercilessly chewed off.
“……!”
The girl’s face twisted, but she didn’t scream.
After all, she’d grown used to the sight over the past few hours.
When surveyed from overhead, the area around her was littered with red splotches.
She knew what they were.
They were all “leftovers.”
The girl broke into a run, attempting to flee from the inevitable, but—
It was already too late.
It was over before it had even started.
Running along the ground on just a thin pair of legs, she could never have hoped to escape from something free to swim through the air.
And then she saw it.
An enormous great white shark, blood dripping from its teeth as it powered through the air, bearing down on her from high in the sky.
“Eep…”
The girl could do nothing but stare up at it with unfocused eyes. It was as if she couldn’t process the fact that the shape belonged to a fish.
A shark was flying.
It was a ridiculous reality, but seeing it, she knew that nothing but death awaited her.
The shark closed in on her, its huge maw gaping.
The enormous creature was violence incarnate; it could probably have swallowed the girl in one gulp without bothering to chew her to bits. It rapidly dived closer and closer, and then—
—as if it had noticed something, the huge fish performed an agile about-face, heading back up into the air.
He was standing there, between the girl and the sky, on the roof of a three-story building.
Wordlessly, he dived off the edge.
As he plunged downward, in free fall, the shark charged toward him through the air like a torpedo or a missile.
Just as the small shape and the shark’s jaws were about to meet—the figure extended an arm, catching the arm of a streetlight, and spun around it to change trajectory.
Skreekl Skreekl Skreekl
Skreekl Skreekl Skreekl
Skreekl skreekl skreek-eek-eek-eek-eek-eek-eek-eek-scree-scree-scree-scree-skreekl-skreekl
Creating a loud noise that echoed through the streets, the shadow skimmed right by the shark and landed in front of the girl.
“Huh…?”
The girl gazed at the one in front of her, wondering if it was actually human.
Iron was the first word that came to mind. Rugged gears had been cobbled together, layer upon layer, to spontaneously generate a new life-form—or so it would have appeared to the average bystander.
The gear monster was shaped like a rather small human. A featureless mask that had been polished to a mirror shine covered its face, and all over the rest of its body, gears moved stiffly in the spaces between its iron joints and muscles.
Without saying a word, the gear monster turned toward the girl, then flashed her a thumbs-up.
As it did, the gears on its arm and wrist all spun at once. “Don’t worry,” the powerful sound seemed to be saying, and the red-haired girl sank weakly to the ground with a forceful nod in reply.
…And that was how she first met the Gear, a clockwork human from another dimension.
“Okaaaaaaaaay! That was great… Really great!”
A man’s shrill voice echoed through the dusky town—well, through the film set that had been built to look like one.
In the same moment, the girl’s stunned expression instantly flipped to a confident smile, and she scanned the area around her.
A crowd of men and women greeted her with applause, smiling at her warmly.
Still beaming, she twirled in place.
Over her head, an elaborate animatronic shark hung suspended from a special crane, waggling its tail fin as if it were the real thing.
“Excellent,” the large black man continued, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. He spread his arms melodramatically and walked toward the girl and the gear monster. “Oh, I’m looking for just the right word… Excellent! I’ll shout it from the rooftops without a hint of shame!”
As he spoke, the man loudly broadcasted his feelings to the surrounding area.
“Shouting is the only way to express it! No, no, excellent isn’t nearly enough. Yes! Marvelous… Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarvelous! No, peeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrfect! Yes, it was perfect, and that’s no exaggeration!”
The several dozen surrounding men and women joined him in shouting with delight, all together. The shout became a cheer for the girl and the gear monster.
“Great work!”
“So it really is a wrap after this, huh?”
“I mean, the director just up and said he wanted to reshoot the opening again, all by itself.”
“Well, it’s perfect now.”
“I tell ya what, though, there was a whole month between then and now, but Claudia jumped right back into character. It was brilliant.”
“Of course she did; it’s Claudia.”
“I hear she was super-careful to maintain her weight until the editing was all finished.”
“I’d love to tell the director about that.” “Man, she’s so cute when she smiles.”
“Marry me, please!” “We’ve got ourselves a hebephiliac over here!” “Somebody go call the cops!”
As the crew joked back and forth, the rotund black man—the one they’d called the director—thumped the immobile gear monster on the shoulder.
“Charon! That was wonderful! You truly are the Gear incarnate! We’ve already finished editing the other scenes, and your stunts were perfect! There aren’t many who can pull off those moves at your age! We never show your face, but your moves are an asset all on their own! What do you say? How about following in your big sister’s footsteps and becoming an actor…?”
“……”
“Ah! Sorry, yes, I’d promised not to bring that up, hadn’t I?! Mea culpa, mea culpa. In any case, what I mean to say is that you did your job perfectly—it was better than perfect! And that’s God’s honest truth, or I ain’t your director John Drox!”
“…Thanks.”
Despite the director’s energy, the answer from behind the shining, mirrorlike mask was a single syllable.
The director nodded with satisfaction. Then he spun to face the girl and praise her acting, his enthusiasm building even further.
“I’m gonna say it, Claudia! People talk about the definition of art, but you, my dear, are a masterpiece just by existing on this world—in this universe!”
The girl grinned and replied, “Thank you, Director!”
Her smile was still youthful, but it was firm and assured. The next day, an entertainment newspaper would describe it thus: “She seemed to be smiling for the sunset, to show off her unshakable confidence and all the blessings the world had given her.”
In other words, that was who she was.
She was a child actor famous all across America, who, despite her popularity, wasn’t picky about the jobs she took.
Claudia’s smile gave them all the hope to carry on this life—the director and even the other members of the crew around them—just as it always had.
Thirty minutes later
“Great work! Another long day today, huh?!”
After returning to one of the most luxurious of the studio dressing rooms, the girl spoke to someone who was already inside. The gear monster, whom the director had called Charon a few moments earlier, looked exactly the way he had during filming.
“Hey, Charon? Just how long are you planning on wearing that suit?”
“……”
“It really does look cool, though, so maybe there’s no need to change!”
The girl giggled, and the gear monster began to remove his mask.
“Huh? Aw, you’re taking it off anyway? Too bad. Say, if we gave back a little of your pay, you think they’d let you keep it?”
“……”
A boy with black hair emerged from the suit. Red was faintly visible at the roots, suggesting he’d dyed it that way.
However, both he and the girl had very similar golden eyes; they were most likely related by blood.
The pair were probably somewhere in their early to mid-teens—still children, really. This dressing room they’d been tossed into seemed too large for people their age.
“……”
Stripping off the gear suit, the boy looked around the room, his face expressionless.
But instead of him, Claudia spoke up again. “I did tell them we’d take a smaller room. Once the makeup artists and the other crew members are gone, this place really does feel empty.”
“……”
The boy was as silent as ever, but the girl didn’t seem to care. “I’m so impressed by modern technology. I can’t believe how realistic that animatronic shark looks, swimming through the air! Seriously, I love him! How much you think it would cost to make one?”
“…Should’ve used CG,” the boy muttered softly.
The girl shook her head, as if to say You don’t get it. “You don’t get that warm texture from computer graphics; it’s good this way. Besides, they’re still using CG to erase the wires. Ahhh, I’d love to hang Sharkey from the ceiling in my room!” Claudia clasped her hands in front of her chest and twirled around.
Ignoring her, Charon picked up a pamphlet that was sitting on the table.
“……”
Silently, he scanned its contents.
They devour the sky!
On a mission to find her missing father, Carrie and her daughter Aisha come to California, where they find a notebook he left behind—but all that’s inside are some peculiar, magical-looking patterns and a drawing of a single gun without a trigger. As mother and daughter work to unravel the mystery surrounding her father, a horde of “sharks that swim through the sky” suddenly attacks!
—But that’s when a strange hero arrives—a being covered in gears from head to toe!
Film directed by John Drox
Based on the hugely popular Mode Gears comic series
The second movie, Shark Flight!
Spring 2003 Distributed by the McDannell Company
Scheduled for simultaneous global release
Pressing his fingers to his temples, Charon sighed.
Whether or not she knew what that sigh meant, Claudia thumped his shoulders lightly.
“Really, you did great, and I bet you’re tired. Why don’t you rest a little, too, Charon?”
“……”
“I wasn’t in the previous one, you know. It was just you that time, in the costume. I knew somebody else did the voice since you’re a dedicated suit-only actor, but…I never dreamed that you actually did all the inside stuff.”
“……”
The girl was rambling on and on without pause, but the boy didn’t respond.
This didn’t seem to bother her; she just maintained the one-sided conversation.
“And like, I thought they used more special effects, you know? But when we started acting together, I saw that no, the inside work really was all you—they hardly even used any CG or wires! You’re more of a main character than I am, so you should take care of yourself.”
“……”
The boy shook his head wordlessly, and the girl’s expression clouded over.
“Okay, Charon. I’m your big sister, so you should at least listen to what I’m telling you. I know you’re a stuntman, but still, if you get hurt, I’ll be, um… Well, it’ll suck!”
“…Sorry.”
The boy apologized to his sister, looking her straight in the eye. There was no timidity or fear in his gaze; he’d apologized after calmly determining that he’d been in the wrong, and it left his sister unable to put any more pressure on him.
“Don’t look at me like that and just apologize… Now I can’t get mad even if I wanted to.”
Claudia’s face had darkened further, but she recovered promptly, looked up—and ruffled her brother’s hair, mussing it.
“Listen, you’re sure you don’t want to be an actor, too?”
“……”
He nodded silently, still no hesitation or compromise in his eyes.
As those golden eyes met hers, the girl laughed.
“Well, I guess that’s how you are, Charon,” she said, and her gaze shifted to the cover of a nearby movie magazine.
Printed on it was a large photo of her own face accompanied by the shout line “The Girl the World Accepted.” A staff member had probably thought of her and left it there.
But when the girl saw it, she seemed perplexed. “They got it wrong,” she murmured. “Well, I don’t mind the compliment, but…”
As she flipped through the magazine, she gave a self-assured smile.
“The world hasn’t accepted me. I’ve accepted the world!”
“……”
“After all, from the moment I was born, the world was mine!”
His big sister was obviously talking nonsense, but the boy simply watched her with those straightforward eyes.
He knew she wasn’t bluffing or spoiled. As far as she was concerned, it was the truth.
The boy just gazed at her, without disdain or respect, and the girl went on confidently.
“After all, this world goes the way I want it to! You see? If I say I can do something, I can. If I can’t do it, then I work on it until I pull it off! If I do that, then everything’s possible!”
“……”
“Come on, say something! I’m giving you an extra-special seat in my world, so say something cute for me!”
“……”
His sister’s demand was patently unfair, but the boy didn’t look the least bit put out. He thought for a little while, and then—
—meeting her eyes, he gave the answer he’d come up with.
“…Meow.”
“Wha—?”
The girl flinched, startled. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that. “…Uh, mm. That actually was kinda cute. You pass.”
She flushed, but her brother’s face remained blank.
“I swear, robots these days have more expression… Don’t just give me words; try looking cute, too.”
It was another random demand, but Charon looked around the room. Then he picked up the magazine his sister had been holding a moment earlier. He rolled it up, held it to his eye like a telescope, and pointed it at his sister’s face.
“……”
However, his actual expression was still blank.
“…D-does that…count?” Claudia didn’t know how to react.
Then her brother held the rolled-up magazine to his lips, like a blowpipe.
“Argh! Now I really don’t know how to respond to that. But it’s kinda cute, like a puppy or something, so we’ll call it good!”
The girl flashed him a firm thumbs-up, and the boy gave a faint smile of relief.
“…! Hey, no! Foul! Smiling now is way too cute; that’s against the rules!”
At his totally unexpected smile, Claudia froze up completely. Then she snatched the rolled-up magazine from her little brother and tried to smack him over the head with it.
The boy dodged easily, his face a mask again.
Claudia’s face was getting redder and redder with each missed swing, but—
—suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she registered the presence of a roly-poly man with dark skin.
“Oh, Director.”
Both siblings stopped moving, then turned to look at the intruder. And when they did, John Drox, the director of Shark Flight, fell to his knees and howled as if it were the end of the world.
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
“…?”
“What’s the matter, Director?”
“Auuuuuugh… The precocious little Hollywood star, playing like a child again with her brother!”
Interrupting the stunned boy and girl, the grown man pounded the floor vigorously, venting his chagrin.
“What a disaster… How could I?! Why?! Why didn’t I have a camera with me when I came here?! That little exchange just now was more chic than any footage I’ve ever filmed! It was completely real! Infuriatingly natural! A perfect opportunity, and I didn’t have a camera— Has the god of films abandoned me?! Oh God… God, my God! What have I done to deserve this?!”
At the director’s heartfelt yell, the siblings looked at each other…and just stood there, unsure whether they should be embarrassed by the man’s lamentations or not.
“Um, I, uh, I’m sorry you had to see that, Director.”
“…Sorry.”
Technically, they didn’t have anything to apologize for, but the siblings decided to help the director save face for now.
“Oh… No, I’m sorry. I’m calm now. Sheesh, you two; goofing around when the door’s wide open really isn’t fair, you know. If I coulda knocked at least, maybe I wouldn’t have had to see the adorable antics I was missing, and yet…!” Once the director had finally calmed down, he recalled the interaction and continued. “Maybe I’ll make my next film a domestic comedy… A forbidden love between siblings. Before long, their relationship creates conflict between them and their parents…”
“That isn’t a comedy, is it? It’s more of a suspense film, don’t you think? Also, there’s absolutely no forbidden love whatsoever between us, so if you go saying that stuff to the paparazzi, I’ll break my contract. Understand?”
“……”
Claudia was smiling brightly, while Charon nodded silently, his gaze cold.
Drox shook his head, bringing himself under control with a couple smacks to his face.
Smacking his own face—which had the sort of charm one would get from crossing a bear with a piglet—the director told them why he’d actually come.
“Oh yes, well, we’ll talk about the next film another time! Never mind that—about the publicity for Shark Flight. We spoke before about going to Japan as part of the campaign this time around, didn’t we?”
“Yes, you’d said to keep a month free, so I’m fine, but…”
Nodding in satisfaction, the director slapped his portly belly and, with an energetic smile, took out two project write-ups and handed one to each of them.
On the paper, written in a firm hand, was a very clear line of text:
Re: The Grand Shark Flight Publicity Plan (and We’ll Shoot the DVD Bonus Footage While We’re At It) On Board the Twin Luxury Cruise Ship Entrance
It was so descriptive that it hardly seemed like an official project write-up at all.
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