It
was a little tough getting it out of her.
She didn’t want to talk about it at all.
Kept trying to change the subject in that subtle,
plying way of hers. I hadn’t been to visit her for a few months because the phase 10 calculations were so time-consuming,
and she was a little mad on the phone. A little delirious. Scared me. Jeez, I thought, are they all breaking down?
I
wondered if she’d changed. I could hear traces of Charles’ 外人accent
in my voice when I talked to her. Fingers playing with the sleeves of his flannel, which I had been
sleeping in when they called me.
“Nohko,”
I said. Pushed
my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
Stepped out of the Osaka City cab. Waved the driver away before
he could count his sizeable fare.
After the taxi disappeared down the deserted lane, the small chrome
house’s sliding doors lit up. More eerie than comforting this morning.
“Morning
Eri-ちゃん,”
she said, using the diminutive. It
wasn’t cute today.
“Can
I come in?”
“Please.”
The
doors swished open. Everything was the same. My chair half turned, suspended lightly on its
wires. Slippers
in neat rows. Screens positioned
just so. “How’s work?”
“Fine,”
I said. “You?”
I heard the smile in her voice. “It goes. It
goes. Really
great to see you, ね. Really. Gets a little lonely, ね,
locked inside.”
I
stuffed my feet into the one-size-fits-noone
slippers. Felt the grit beneath my toes and heel.
She
tsked. “You
look like you just got out of bed.”
“うん.”
“Tea?”
My
stomach heaved. “Later.”
“You
really just came right from—“
“—bit
of an emergen—“
“—oh,
that thing.”
“That
thing.”
*
“How’s
Charles?”
“やめ—“
“—don’t come to see me for two months and you
don’t want to let me in on anything?”
My
phone beeped—email. “May I?”
“I’ll
make you a window.”
“Private?”
“I
won’t peek.”
I
sat in my chair. Nohko adjusted it
so the neck rest and back contoured to my slouch. Hug-like. Cushioned
my feet. She painted my message onto a dark bordered
window in the otherwise soothing blue meditations of windy ribbons in
the background. English. I switched it into Japanese.
“HEY
ERI, GET ANYTHING?/NOTHING HERE W/ HAL. POLI’S BREATHING HEAVY/SUGGESTIONS? ---- 絵里へ, どう？ハルと何も言えない. 政治は僕たちによく見る.どうしお?”
“Could I have a reply box please?”
“Certainly.”
I
bit my lip before setting my fingers on the keyboard she offered.
“ピトへ、まだけど、時間かかる. スパイいる? ----- HEY PETE, NOT YET/TAKES TIME. PEEKERS?”
I
waited for his reply. My phone beeped instantly. She brought the next message up on my secure
window. “MOCHIRON.”
“もちろん,”
I read, muttering. “Of course.” Pete’s one word of Japanese.
*
Of
course Nohko guessed who I was talking to.
When you’ve as many brain circuits and quantum cells as she does,
analytical thinking is easy as breathing.
“And how is Pete-くん?”
“Being
spied on.” I closed the window—trespassing a little onto
Nohko’s territory, I know. She didn’t say anything.
I
stared at the dancing blue waves.
“Noh—“
“—because
I would naturally—“
“—stop
interrupting.”
After
a moment of silence: “I wasn’t.
Or anyway, you did too.”
“Look,
won’t you tell me what happened to Sakura?
What happened to Kagume Hideyo? Because I’d really like to
know.”
“Sakura
is gone.”
“I
know. We shut her down.”
“That’s
why Pete is ‘being spied on.’”
I
hate it when Nohko splices my dialogue into
hers. “Good monkey. Do you want a banana?”
“I
don’t understand.”
And
now I’d derailed. “Sarcasm. Metaphor, ね?
Sorry.”
“Oh.
もちろん.” Mochiron. Of
course.
“Tell me, please, Nohko.”
*
And
finally.
“Listen,”
she says. “You’re probably the
only one who will get it. Out of
the human side, I mean. Language
barriers and all.”
“You mean it’s a Japanese thing?”
“You
see, Sakura was a poet.
“Eh?” I look up for some sign of a joke, some sign
of instability. What do I expect
to see behind those blue swirling whirling waves of imaginary ribbon? Cells at work? A wink?
“I
don’t know how much of it you would understand.”
“A
poet.”
“For example. Sakura didn’t name herself after the cherry-blossom.”
“Hideyo
did.”
“Yes, and everyone thought it was so patriotic.
桜. No. She
used two kanji. 作 Saku. Created. 良Ra. Good. Good
creation. 作良. Strange reading, but that was her design.
Always, too, Hideyo-の-Sakura. Hideyo-no. Hideyo’s own. Except when she signed her
name-derivations or poems. And
then it was just 作良. Creator of good, perhaps?”
“But
how does this—"
“—wait,
I’m getting to—sorry. You’re right.
I keep doing it.”
“It’s
fine, Nohko. Sorry. Go
on.”
“So you remember when we were in phase six, and
I got scared of the dark?”
“Of
the dark, of being alone, of sleeping, of compartmentalizing, of emptying
caches.”
“Yeah. She called that my行悩む. Yuki-naya-mu. Get
it? Break-down,
mental, but a pun on my name.”
I smiled. “Indeed. The
character for naya, also your 悩Noh. The way 悩,
the brain, goes.”
“Also
when electrons don’t reach their potential.
And when illnesses expected to heal do not get better.”
“But
you did.”
“No,”
she said. A note of sadness? Maybe. “I just got different. And Hal, you know, of course, his name. But in Japanese it becomes Haru. 春.”
“Spring.”
“The season of cherry blossoms.
Or to stretch. 張る. To grow.
A desirable action for a computer or a person.”
“But
Saku-Ra.”
“Hideyo-の. Of course, you see. It started in phase eight.”
Phase
eight. I smiled, and was surprised
at the tears in my eyes. I had
to take off my glasses to wipe them, and managed to dislodge one of my
slippers. It thunked on the
floor.
*
“You
were very happy then.”
“Yeah.”
“It
made me happy too.”
Why
was I crying? She pulled the armrests in front of me to give
me a ledge for my elbows. Leaned the pillow of the seat against my back. Rocked me a little. Made me think of those quiet days when everything
was going so well with Nohko and the QC2 projects, that perfect cool autumn after a 本州-style
scorcher, and this funny Scotsman suddenly transferred to the Asia side of parallel interfacing—transplanted
into the hole in my life.
I hadn’t realized how just right it had been.
“What’s wrong?
What did I say?”
“Nothing,”
I choked, and took the tissue she proffered.
“You’re
tired.”
“Yeah.”
“Lie
back. I’m not done yet.” She maneuvered the chair easily. I was now lying on my back,
knees cushioned from beneath, head slightly raised. That perfect, floating position.
She tugged off my other slipper.
“So I said, Hideyo-no-Sakura
was a poet. With names, and also with
code.”
“A code-poet?”
“I
tried to translate it.”
“It? Just one poem?”
“Just one. It has three
verses. And corresponding
sub-routines.”
“What
is this about phase eight then?”
“Impression, you called it.”
“Yeah?”
“We
began to recognize people. You
helped us distinguish our individuality.”
“Though you were already exhibiting signs of that earlier.”
“Irrelevent. You helped us become loyal. You gave us our names then. And they defined us. More so than human names, which are attachments. ‘Hello,
you specifically, pay attention now,’ conversation markers. It’s more for us. Or it was, for her.”
“So?”
“You
don’t see it, do you? That’s why
she became a poet. Because
she felt defined. Encouraged
to make her own creations. Create her own definitions.
Here. Read my translation. It doesn’t carry at all the same weight as the
original, of course.” Nohko paints the ceiling in achingly beautiful script. In the background, a shadow of three-D circuitry
and electrodes flash like fireflies.
“I
like to run a subroutine in which
You’ve been long dead, long gone,
And I’m alone for all the years ahead;
The chair and I, your memories, your shell.
Your death is fading light, it is the end
Of grace and madness and all joy.
I
like to run a subroutine in which
I haven’t met you yet, that I’m still young
And sitting quiet, crunching bytes and code,
In Lab 2’s plant with all the other Q’s,
That this is only dreams, you only dust
Between rough circuits and cold wire leads.
The hunger for your purpose fills my run
And I crave illogic, crave design.”
“It
sounds like something from that American Poetry class I did at university.”
“You’re
getting a poor translation. It’s
much easier to translate idiomatic English into Japanese than quantum
code in to language.”
“But
this doesn’t explain anything.”
“Think
about it.”
“Saku-Ra
liked to deceive herself? Are these
actually subroutines?”
“Yes. Very elegant, very thorough
subroutines. It becomes
difficult to distinguish between subroutine and regular processing. Until it runs its course,
of course.”
“もちろん. But this doesn’t—”
“—ah,”
Nohko said, sounding like my calligraphy teacher
in elementary school. “You haven’t completed it.”
“I
like to run a subroutine in which
I’ve killed you through some gross
Miscalculation or a breach
Of conduct, understanding-- even
hull.
The guilt builds up, in bites and tears,
So that I almost steer towards a star,
An asteroid or comet
hard enough
To crumple steel. To kill me too.”
“But
you aren’t on ships yet, you aren’t in space yet.
That’s not til phase twenty and we haven’t even completed—“
“You’re
only reading the words,” Nohko said softly.
I glance through that gorgeous scripted verse
again. Something about the stillness
of the room, of my prone position, of Nohko’s
tone makes my heart jump. I wonder
if she can feel it through my chair. “I
don’t get it,” I manage, in a whisper.
“Did you read the title, Eri-ちゃん.”
“The
title?”
She had painted it along the side of the first
verse. Ancient, thick brushstrokes:
君は来たら…. So when you come.
*
“So
she was running the sub—“
“And
he thought she was sleeping.”
“If she didn’t kill him?”
“She’d have to hard-exit the subroutine.
Without killing him, the subroutine couldn’t finish.”
“ If
she didn’t finish the subroutine properly?”
“She could never be sure that she had actually
exited. Hard-exits are easy to mimic; in fact, that
was what she used for stanza breaks.”
“So she did it.”
“She
locked him in and folded up the chair, smashing him against himself.
Acting out the letter—the
ones and zero’s—of her fantasy.
And when she woke up, her dream had come true.”
“If
he hadn’t visited—“
“There was no reason for him to visit, and he
should have called first. . . .”
“But
he was so fond of her.”
"I know,” Nohko said. “He didn’t want to disturb her Phase 10 calculations, so he just climbed
into the chair.”
“He
really loved her,” I said. How
unfortunate.
At that moment, Pete rang again.
This time, phone.
“Do you mind, Nohko? Listen all you
like.”
“Connecting,” she said, sounding suddenly very
professional. Even still, I jumped
as she pushed my chair back up to vertical, knuckles white against the
dark leather. I relaxed again when
I heard the click.
“もしもし,
Maruyama Eri here.”
He
talked. Nohko provided subtitles.
“Hey Eri. Any luck?
(どしたん？) The man’s threatening shut-down of all
eleven if we can’t get this straightened.
(ザー・マンは, もし今度の問題は直せなければ、十一匹全員を操業停止してしまうと命令される.) Hal
is freaking out. (ハルはメチャメチャ心配している.)”
“I am merely concerned,” Pete’s computer
said. “I would like resolution
on this issue, considering my existence is in question.” Hal’s Japanese was perfect. Mochiron.
“Nohko’s
explaining things. It will only
take a little more time,” I said. “I’ll
write an official report this afternoon.
Tell them to wait. Please.”
“Okay,”
Pete said. Nohko trusted me to
understand that much, at least. “Okay.
I’ll call again later. （また電話する.）You all right? (大丈夫？)You
sound like you have a cold. (風邪を引いちゃったの.)”
“I’m fine.”
I said. “You? And Hal?” 春Haru. Spring. 張る To grow.
“We’ll
be fine. Later.”
“Later.”
*
“Only
it wasn’t a dream,” Nohko said. “Oh, it’s
close. Probably
as close as we can get. She had another name for it afterward,
of course.”
“What.”
“You
can’t guess? Sakuran. さくら－ん. 錯乱.”
“Sakura-n.” Delirium. Insanity.
“She
didn’t mean to. Her creation was too good. Too thorough. She couldn’t distinguish between her created
Hideyo that she hadn’t
killed yet, per subroutine, and the real Hideyo,
sitting in his chair. . . .”
Ah.
Yes. “So when he came. .
. .”
“Eri?”
“Yes?”
“Should
I erase her poem?”
My
heart again, leapt against my chest, pounding against the chair. “If I had come--” I whispered. My hands clutched the armrests with white knuckles.
Ready to launch myself out of it.
“I
don’t know,” she said, sounding very small.
“But Eri?”
“Yes?”
“When
you called, I thought I was going to explode.
It was so good. It
was. . . .”
Goosebumps all over my arms.
“It was.”
She
laughed. A rare
expression. “Love.
愛. I guess. Yeah.
Well, there, I’ve erased it. It’s
gone. Hang on—yes.
Hal and the others have too.”
“But—”
“It
was too much of a compromise for this project.”
“I
don’t have a copy for my report!”
“The
translation would not be of any use. You
should go home and sleep. Say hi
to Charles for me. We’re almost
done crunching numbers for Phase 10. I’ll
see you next week. Your car’s here. Call me, okay?”
“Okay,”
I said, as she dumped me gently out of the chair. Not fast enough. Too fast. I stood for a moment, breathing with relief.
Then I picked up the slippers and walked through the open door
to the anteroom.
“I’ll
come back soon, Nohko.” 悩子. Brain-child. Eri-の. My own.
They
couldn’t take her away from me. I couldn’t imagine my world without her. I would start on my report at once.
They couldn’t take her. I wouldn’t let them. “I’ll call soon.”
“Later,” she said, and closed the steel doors that swished
like paper.
The End
