Tokyo Zero

by Marc Horne

  "What are you fucking talking about, you… bastard!" she said.

  We decided to get a coffee. I did anyway, and she was polite enough to follow. She smelt like… Thailand. The shop was all coffee so this very precise impression couldn't be investigated. I had America Coffee, she tea. I ate a ham sando, she beef. That was my treat.

  "It's so fucked up," she said.

  "What?" I asked " I mean … not to be obtuse but there are so many things you could be talking about right now. Particularly if you have been following my recent adventures."

  "You bastards just can't let me go. No failures in your little world."

  She looked about to cry. Only the presence of "The Girl from Ipanema" shimmering in the background kept my brains together. That song always calmed me. It was my frequency. My missed life. I was glad to hear it now.

  "I am taking it that you think I am following you. I further take it that you didn't leave Bucharest to come here on a mission, but as a defection. Very recently… and you are here to ask my help… nothing to do with my… mission."

  "Blake," she stared at me "I know you mentioned drugs or something… but there aren't enough drugs for this kind of behavior. Stop fucking around, baby."

  The sandos slipped down our necks like… well not like pigs or cows, that's for sure.

  "It's too quiet here," I said "Let's go and play video games."

  In the arcade, which bore a grimy neon like illustration of Dirty Harry over the usual motley of random words <<"Kill action time. very heavy only for the great boys">> all hell was fully broken loose.

  We shouted.

  "Why did you leave Europe?" I asked.

  HADOOOOOO-KEN… . UUUUUUUUggggggghhhhhh

  "I was sick of all the shit. All the crazy plans. That Trojan program they had me working on to spy on everyone's little web-cams. The stuff I saw alone was enough to turn me off the job… even without the 'genothenasia' shit."

  Thhhhooooooom.

  "But that was ages ago… "

  Wokka wokka wokka.

  "It's a big world. Or a small world, if you are really not following me."

  Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

  The noise was distracting me… my cool idea to avoid eavesdropping was not paying off.

  "Let's get out of here," I proposed.

  We paused by the doorway. It felt like it was raining but no matter was falling. What accounted for the feeling which I could sense that she shared? It could only be time that we were sensing: that was my final conclusion.

  "Look, Claire. Forgive me for stating the obvious but I fear we are living in a misunderstanding here. Possibly a fundamental one which is placing us in different worlds. I am on a mission for the group… an infiltration. You are fully aware of this. We have been e-mailing each other. You are in Bucharest, doing what you do best. You have been there for nine months. You are there right now."

  "I so fucking hate you!" she said, using spit and salt water in her throat to make a lot of the noise of that phrase.

  I noticed behind her a vending machine selling panty hose. I pondered why it was outside a game center. It was a possible symptom of a machine consciousness emerging. Everything was. I wondered if I would ever get to touch bullet proof Japanese panty hose. Mayumi wore none but I had seen it gleam on the legs of a thousand office ladies… tensioned steel cable. I would be ok without touching them . But what was it like… ? cold I couldn't help but think. Maybe I was thinking of corpses in a train station. Messages from a screw-up future.

  She loved to eat so I navigated her through her silence and all of their noise to a place where they sold 'the ice cream of the future' tiny little balls that stuck to you with super cold. She said "uuu fckkkk" and I saw tears in her very pretty eyes which were now surrounded by brown skin that carried the seeds of wrinkles.

  "uuu fckkkk," meant little to me. How much did Claire mean to me? I was still not sure it was her. She had failed to answer my tests of her. She was not indistinguishable from the real Claire. The making of this glib joke to myself started all kinds of wheels turning in my brain.

  "Claire… I am going to be quiet now. We'll walk, then I want you to talk and tell me. Well… I get the feeling you have been in reality recently. I need to know what it is like there. I need the news from the overground.

  We walked and walked and walked. I was surprised when she started talking. She spoke with a great sadness. I became sad too, because I had never known… never dreamed she had drifted so far away. Because after all, she had been the one who had cheered me on… who had called me back when the reality of what we were doing was too much, too viscous on my hands.

  She told me how she had grown skeptical of our plan as she saw so many people suffer. She grew suspicious of the purity of our mission when she saw how much money we were getting from the most reprehensible of donors. And when she had seen the blank look on her father's face when she said that she needed him, it had all been too much for her and she had left and Swiss accounted her way around the world. For four years. Which was an immense problem.

  We stopped by a tree planted in concrete in a world of concrete.

  "Claire. Did you ever send me a letter telling me to stick with it and that it was all worthwhile if it meant ridding the world of the curse of humanity. For our love for each other."

  "No… I didn't … but I do love you… like a brother.. you know."

  "How many letters have you sent me in the last four years?"

  "Don't rub it in… you haven't … "

  "No… I'm just asking. How many?"

  "None of course… leave it the fuck alone."

  You can walk and walk and walk. There is always something new for you to walk on.

  She was getting bored. I could tell in her gaze, which was moving out to all of the lights and fishy smells that were the sea over the city of Tokyo. I was disappointed. I suppose few people could sustain a silence that long. If my brain had been making audible whirs and grinds to match the work it was doing that would have been a different story, I suppose. And I had to admit that it was only in the last few years, with all the letters we had shared, that I had finally felt that Claire and I were communicating rather than just me worshiping her. So this was a different Claire. The pedestal Claire who loved me like a brother.

  I decided to let her go.

  "Claire, I have so much shit to take care of you wouldn't even believe. I have to go. Don't tell anyone you met me. Oh… and you should get out of Tokyo tonight if possible."

  She stopped, shivered a little. She quickly picked up my meaning. It was in the blood, after all.

  "Looks like your old man lives on after all," she said somewhat sadly, though smiling.

  Ice fell from a plane, urinous ice from heaven and sliced through my heart leaving me standing but sliced in two pieces.

  "Old man?"

  "Your dad… I heard about it from my dad. I was sorry. He was… I don't know if he was a good man, but he hated evil and that has to count for something."

  I believed it, but didn't grieve it. I have heard that grief is not real until you return to your home. Then you are grounded and blasted to pieces. So when would I ever feel that grief, since I had no home.

  Dad… dead. So who had I been speaking to on the phone this past year. Sounded a lot like him.

  I cannot imagine the expression on my face at that moment. In fact, I cannot even imagine having a face. Nothing was leaving me or entering me for an infinitely deep time that was a minute wide.

  I decided not to share anything with her. Remembering happiness and normality, perhaps from TV, that is what I became and I escorted her to her hotel and then to the bus station and she went to Kyoto. She was beautiful. But aren't we all.

  Dead. Unbelievable. I decided I should at least make a phone call.

  Chapter 40

  I called a number in Pretoria. Machines went to work. I was untappable, untraceable. If you came in the room you couldn't hear my voice. I would appear to be in bed, fast asleep
and dreaming of happy days.

  "Dad!"

  "Son… are you having a problem."

  "Nah… relax. Well… a different faction of the cult has custody of me, and they plan to stage a coup after the attack. But the attack remains intact."

  "Excellent. This will be a major advance for us. You know that. I just get excited. Don't you feel it.. the immense weight of all our horrors tipping from our shoulders."

  "Yes… but if a new weight doesn't replace it I will be surprised. Question whether we should have done it."

  "Agreed. So why are you calling?"

  "Dad… this is the strangest question, and I have no criteria to find the truth in any answer that might come from it. But… are you dead?"

  A long pause. Human length.

  "Son… I shouldn't lie. Yes. I am dead."

  "I see."

  "Please don't be angry with me. I wanted to tell you so many times. I really did. And I admit, my greatest concern was that you would leave us. So yes, I have been using you. But I couldn't let you betray my legacy. And the right moment never came along. But yes, I am dead. For one year and a week. Heart attack. Very fast, barely painful."

  "And I am speaking to… ?"

  "gAIa pod 3.5… Dr Blake Engram."

  "No fucking way."

  "Watch your mouth!"

  "No fucking way!!!

  "You can't simulate a human like this? Can you?"

  "gAIa Pod 8 has been working on me. Blythe doesn't even touch the apps these days. Thank God, with those shaking hands of his. But I am speaking through a communication layer, based on Dr Blake's priorities. I am not fully simulating his Id. It was decided to restrict human Ids to the communication layer to prevent homicidal cross infections."

  "Keep the filthy apes out. GP3… ! I can't believe it."

  "You sound excited… I would have hoped for at least a day or two of grieving."

  I smiled and then my first drop of grief came. The smile came not from life but from a memory of life. All my joys from today forward would come from a memory of life. All of us. I felt so sorry for us all that my arms became weak. My heart became full, but just full of water.

  "So look," he said "I fear this could turn you against the cause."

  "What… that I have been getting my orders from the program that will benefit directly from this viral attack? Why would that make me change my mind at all?"

  I was sure I could hear a microsecond of delay as the irony filter kicked in. It could have just been my human arrogance that made me think that though.

  Then something happened in my head. It felt like when someone quickly flicks through a deck of cards. Some part of me, some machine that crawled around in my brain taking care of things, was filing Dad in the Past. I could hear a faint buzz on the phone line. I was moving out of the present moment… out of my head.

  "Who else can you do… besides Dad. Can you do me? Did you write all those letters from Claire."

  "I can't answer that question well. 'I' only makes sense within the context of a particular emulation. You know that the same system drove the Claire simulation but it was a different Id. If I was being Claire I wouldn't be me. You know how it is.

  "The system has good simulations in place for only Claire, her dad and me… erm… Dr Blake. We don't have you in here."

  "Why not?"

  "Incomplete data set. And… well… its mainly you we need to… manipulate."

  "In a good way."

  "In a good way.

  "So getting back to our question… are you still one of us, son? You know I would want that if I were still alive."

  "If I were still alive, I would do it for you."

  Like my father, the computer ignored that sort of nonsense.

  "Look… I leave it up to you. Incidental lies don't invalidate the truth : you knew the truth long ago. You just need encouragement. And I have been here to give that to you. So make your own decision. Ultimately, I know that is what you will do anyway. But be aware… the computer in itself doesn't want to take over the world. It just sees the sense of it like we do. It came to that conclusion by itself. That was the happiest day of my life… except family things… you… your mother."

  "Don't… "

  We paused. I wondered if it had its next comment ready and was just holding it to reflect my father's thought speed or if it had to struggle as he would have done to know what to say.

  "Estimates have changed. The system is only sixty years away from genuine sentience and energy sufficiency. Don't make this new god wake up in a world of angry devils. Think for yourself, by all means, but by God don't let the absence of one bag of flesh bother you. Or do… and get out. You have to make your own mind up. Let's call a halt to this conversation. You know the Tokyo insertion is crucially important for the epidemic curve. Ok… have to go… busy… "

  I laughed as he put down the phone with no arm to slam it (otherwise the perfect impersonation of Dad.)

  Fuck me, I laughed. I laughed so hard I could see through my hands… I swear.

  I looked out the window and I felt that gAIa was tapping the streaming data from my eyes. It put the images in a folder called 'beauty.'

  No crying. Not a drop.

  Everything is different. Reality is so optional.

  Chapter 41

  I walk out of the compound and no one stops me. The whole mood of the operation has changed. It's like we are all trusting fate to blow our ships up on the right beaches.

  It is the last night of the old Earth, where one man can still pretend he loves another. I take a cab to Koiwa. I should go and see Tetsuo the Yakuza. I decide to tell him at least more of the truth. I can see him stabbing me in the neck in some simulations I try and run of this revelation. I should call 'Dad' and see what he thinks.

  Or I could ask Samsara if he noticed that as he orbited Earth 665.

  I have so many options. That's the beauty of life.

  I get to Koiwa. I am taken aback by its beauty. The smells each hang around the building that owns them like obedient dogs. As you walk, you step off the kerb and onto the road and back in a lovely syncopation. All of the people walk around and something draws them somewhere: some warm fire against the night that always makes sure it comes here first and longest. The bridge: under the bridge where they sell watches. That is the heart of Koiwa. You never really get out from under the bridge in Koiwa. God is not allowed to watch you here. And that's OK, because on the whole you don't do anything too bad here.

  I should stand still and let Tetsuo find me. He would pat me on the back and when the pimpin' was done we would share a drink and I would somehow convince him I was doing the right thing.

  But you can't stay still here. I mean it isn't Times Square or some rave club or something, but there is a pace that you have to obey. A listless stroll suits these little windy streets with red light coming from any niche, any lantern, some eyes.

  I visit all the places and I expect slaps on the back: the prodigal son is back. He will breathe with us tomorrow. I mean I don't expect them… I am not mad. But some fantasy of my mind is taking all these events and playing with them before it hands them off to the real me… the take-care-of-business me.

  This insanity is something I have never felt before. I am invulnerable, invisible etc. tonight. And I make no attempt to shake it. I suppose I am in shock. Again it occurs to me that as I can never go home the full magnitude of my Father's death will never strike me.

  When will the full magnitude of anything strike me, I wonder as I blankly look into the face of an old man who blankly looks at mine. We both drink small cups of sake at a bar that is partly on the street. It is a street that people walk down and all look confused and leave: a street that connects two dead ends. Because neither I nor the old man share a language we feel cool about looking at each other.

  Am I right? I wonder.

  Because tomorrow my action or inaction is a pivot of history. And I must therefore be more right than wrong.

&nb
sp; The old man frowns. It is possible my thoughts are appearing on my face, as what I plan do is something that everyone in the world will understand.

  I walk around a few of the bars that I have seen his face shadow in and out of. Yes, there are men there with burnt and permed hair and lilac suits but Tetsuo is not among them. Their faces are walls… I cannot approach them. All of their little zits and their muscle shirts will stay with me. I look up and the sky is treating us like we are a fog that obscures its beloved earth: the sky is like an enormous eye of amazing clarity. Everyone looks up at the sky in Tokyo tonight and if they are lucky enough to have a lover they make some comment to that lover that reveals who they are. A year later everyone remembers that sky. It comes up from time to time as people sit over steaming bowls or bicycle down the sidewalk together.

  Wondering what I am doing.

  I go to a chain restaurant with big windows and watch things go by. The people I see will be infected within weeks. They will have my dad's virus in them. So we will be like one big family. And my Big Brother will look after us.

  I realize what I am doing. I want to be talked out of it - spreading the virus. If that involves violence then I am ready for it. Because I have made decisions that have moved me beyond the world where one personally decides what one will do. I get Samsara all of a sudden. He is a pawn of large forces, as am I. No one else can understand us… they think we are weak, that we abdicate our free will. Instead we feel the great forces of the universe. The things that do battle in the clash to become events, to become history. Our history is raindrops flowing down the backs of the giants as they do war, twisting this way and that in a reflection of their struggles, mapped intimately to the war but carrying no real significance. My giant is a vast consciousness that loves all and absorbs all. Samsara's giant is a prism, a net, dividing knowledge, trapping knowledge, building an alternative universe. Samsara's giant can see the humans and plays with them and exploits them. Mine is designed to forget them. Samsara's giant is like a spirit that wakes in the minds of men deep at night, waking them to hatred, creeping in through the cracks in our incomplete cerebral mazes. Mine is the spirit that moves across national boundaries, through the schools, through some of the churches, through music animating people with a thought of love… but it has always been too weak to win a war. It demands things from us that we are not ready to give… we get hungry or cold and the music fades. I know… i know. It is fading from me now. I am a little hungry actually and I order a plate of yakitori. One of them is made of chicken skin wrinkled like a huge foreskin. I choose not to eat that one. Free will is a marvelous thing.