Stranger in a Normal Land

Background (in relative chronological order, irrespective of local time reference):

{By Dave & Brandon B.}

Marc finds Dr. Yamane.

“Greetings, honorable Sensei. Please forgive your humble student for his transgressions. I have looked in upon matters that you wished to be private. I took precautions on your behalf without informing you. I meant only to help, and I have told no one, but nevertheless I am at fault. Your recent writings are very powerful. They sound true to me. Indeed, they seem to have too much truth for one man to know without destruction.”

“Now I must do the worst thing of all. I am going to share your burden. I do this because you are needed, and I cannot permit you to destroy yourself. I know what an awful trespass this is. I hope that one day you will forgive me. Once this is done, I will accept any punishment you may require.”

Marc reaches into his sleeve and pulls out an interface jack. He bows, then offers it to Dr. Yamane. “Sensei, please connect”.

Teko looks at it blankly for a minute, then blinks and regards Marc thoughtfully for a few moments. He turns away and begins to speak while digging through equipment bins.

“I think truth is something I’ve given up on, for the moment. If I attempt to be objective, I think that my ‘tale’ is simply the result of my subconscious casting about for some solid ground from which I can not have been partially responsible for the deaths of approximately 119,700,000 people. And yet, it does appear to explain many things which have, in my view been poorly explained previously. But at the same time, it may not actually improve the situation.”

“Assume it is correct, then what follows? If I hold no responsibility, because those people were not real, nor am I - then there is no meaning to anything we do here. Nothing matters, there is no benefit to any action or inaction. But what does ‘real’ mean? Does a world composed of atoms mean more than one composed of information? Perhaps it is persistence - a world of atoms is presumed to continue, while information, particularly dynamic information is ephemeral. In my own supposition, the world may have been created and destroyed repeatedly.”

“But you say I am ‘needed’ - so what does that imply? That even if we are not matter, we are ‘real’, and my murders equally so - but instead, we are in a situation where the fabric itself upon which we exist may still, ultimately, be out of our control, and thus anything we do to fix our more immediate problems of existence - even supposing that we can - may be just as pointless as if we did not exist in the first place. Though it might suggest new avenues of action.”

He finds an interface slapjack and turns back to Marc, continuing with a hollow expression.

“You have committed no transgressions upon me - either we are not real, and there is no more dishonor our actions than in adding two numbers - or my own actions have forfeited any rights I once had, to privacy or self-determination. I cannot escape my own worth either way.”

“I am not certain what to do now - the world has unraveled, and continues to do so in various ways, and I find I am acting mostly out of habit, or whim. So while my understanding of what you offer is vague at best, I don’t see how it matters and I don’t have anything better to do at the moment.”

Teko connects your jack to the slapjack he’d found and immediately slaps it onto the back of his neck.

Upon activation of the jack, Dr. Yamane’s physical sense impressions recede in the normal way. He perceives himself in a 4-mat teahouse. There is a pot of chrysanthemums. A boy dressed in the robes and shaved head of a Zen student comes in on all fours, bows, and sets a small elegant tea set on a little table.

“Greetings, honorable Doctor-san. My name is Benkei. I love your questions. They are the great questions of Zen. I love Zen, especially the koans. Is there truth? Is anything real? Does anything matter? Is anything important? Is action superior to inaction? What are the smallest components of the world made of? Is consciousness real, or just an epiphenomenon of life? How can we know things? Is time real, or is ‘now’ the only thing that exists? Is the world destroyed and remade a billion times ever nanosecond? If it were, how could we tell? Is this the only world? Is this world of any importance? Are all the worlds the same? Can things ever be and not be at the same time? What is the proper work for a man? How does one achieve understanding? Is understanding the same as enlightenment?”

Teko smiles a little at the form Marc has chosen, and his bright enthusiasm.

“Alas, I am but a miserable student and cannot answer these questions for you. You will have to answer them for yourself. As the sage Zhao Zhou said, ‘How can you say you are not learning when you have no idea what I am teaching?’ He also said: ‘Enlightenment is a man with both eyes open falling into a well.’ If I told you there was a well, then I would prevent you from learning the answer. And I do not even know whether there is a well or not.”

“You are weary and heartsick, Doctor-san, because you have begun to comprehend the world in a ways that few can. You are like the man who has climbed half-way up a high and treacherous mountain. Your arms ache and his lungs burn, but you cannot go down the way you came up. You have learned that the universe is unimaginably big, and that you are unimaginably small. No wonder it hurts so much! Now you must learn how large you are, and how small the universe is. Once you have learned that, you will understand that you are of no size, and the universe is of no size, and you will know the answer to that question.”

“You have opened one eye a tiny crack, and the light has dazzled you, and made you weep, and struck pain deep into you. I cannot help you understand what you have seen. But I can do one thing: show you more still. In your sorrow, your grief, your shame, you have retreated into yourself. This is what anyone would do, hide within their walls, wait until the pain receded and they could emerge. You cannot do this: you have brought the pain in with you, embedded it inside you. It will never go away. Your self, which till this time has served you well, has become a liability.”

“It is time, then, to cast it away.”

“Take this cup. One of the great feats that a Zen master was said to be able to do was to drink tea from an empty cup. So I thought this would make a suitable metaphor. When you drink from the cup - not yet! - I will override your neural interface with mine, effectively making my viewpoint your viewpoint. Then I will channel every Metaverse data feed, every sensor, every analytical web that I have access to into your mind. You will not be able to withstand it. Ordinarily, you would lose consciousness long before any damage occurred. I will prevent that. Ordinarily, a dozen fail-safes would detect the abnormal patterns and break the connection. I will prevent that as well. Your consciousness will shatter. Your self will cease to exist. You will be, for an instant, infinite, and the universe very small.”

“After that, I do not know what will happen. As you know better than I, data indicate a very high probability that your consciousness will reform in some way. It may remain in the Metaverse. It may remain inside me. It may return to your body. If it doesn’t return to your body, your body will probably die. I will keep your body from dying until enough time has passed that there is no likelihood you will return to it.”

“The cup is yours to take, or to refuse. I cannot compel; it is not in me. But I will answer the one question that I can, Doctor-san. Yes, you are ‘needed’. I need you. Please help me. And please forgive me.”

Teko takes the cup and regards it for a moment.

“I think-” he stops, then starts again. “I feel that you have the right idea regarding my personal dilemma. And your proposed solution is creative. I want to accept, if only to see - perhaps, should I survive - what would happen. I am wary, though, of this merely being a new method of seppuku, which the Emperor has forbidden of me for the time being.”

“I have long been concerned about honor, and shame. Though these were things external to me - shame from the perspectives of others, honor from their judgment of my behavior. So I continue to sacrifice my personal honor by remaining alive, at the command of the Emperor, to preserve my professional honor, despite my growing concern about what it all truly means. But as you have noticed, while this fulfills his command, it thwarts his goals as my condition does not enhance my professional *utility*.”

Bankei says, “Oh! Yamane-sama, your grasp of matters is exquisite! Thank you for rendering my clumsy words into such elegant and precise terms. Just as you say: to comply with a poor will is not to comply.”

Teko nods and continues, “The Emperor - and by extension the Empire - needs my skills and knowledge. But they are currently held hostage by my psyche. This experiment you propose may free them, but seems to me equally likely to destroy them, or move them beyond useful reach.” He pauses and looks into the boy’s eyes. “If you have established neural access deep enough to do what you suggest, you can do another thing first. Read and store my knowledge and my skills - but no more - in some coherent fashion. Should I perish, try to use them as seems best to meet the Emperor’s needs, and your own.”

Bankei bows. “You are very kind not to admonish me for my failure to consider the loss of your knowledge and skills. Luckily, the induction probe that I am using to augment our neural contact will serve to this purpose.”

Teko shrugs, and nods again. “Should I survive, hopefully we can help each other. As for forgiveness, I cannot offer it. You are one of the most genuinely helpful people I have met. You have acted wisely in every way I am aware of, and I thank you.”

Bankei sighs, wide-eyed in acknowledgement of the compliment. Teko bows to him, then kneels and shifts his hands so that he is cupping the cup in them. Visually, he appears to just stare at it for a few seconds, though through the interface link it is clear that he is sub-vocalizing low-level Metaverse edit commands. The cup shimmers for a moment, then collapses into Teko’s hands, the virtual porcelain having been changed to virtual tea. He winks at the boy, shrugging minutely, then presses his lips to the liquid and drinks.

Bankei laughs at the making of the tea. The tea is good, green and smoky, with a lingering note of grass and earth. Teko’s viewpoint softly darkens as the light through the screens begins to dim, details fading, until only the roof beams of the teahouse remain, black against a twilight sky in the last few minutes before night. The outline of the beams forms a Torii gate. Bankei sits quietly at Teko’s side, waiting, and the two slowly glide forward through the gate, or perhaps the gate glides slowly over them.

They are in a receiving chamber, hung with tapestries, lit with smoky lamps. In the center, on a red cushion, sits an old man. He is dressed as a sage of the ancient era, with tall cap and flowing beard, his skin wrinkled but his eyes sharp. His robe flows from his narrow shoulders for yards to his sides and rear. Bankei bows deep to him, and he acknowledges as a teacher to a pupil. Bankei then addresses the old man, although by the tone it is clear that the words are meant for Teko’s benefit.

“Tetsujin, this is Doctor Henteko Yamane, of whom I have spoken.” The sage makes the merest nod of acknowledgment. Bankei continues: “Dr. Yamane seeks to put his knowledge in a safe place, in case he should perish and it be lost.” The sage sits motionless for a time, considering. Then he inclines his head slightly and reaches into his sleeve, pulling out a small lacquered box. Bankei takes the box and gives it to Teko. It is of excellent craftsmanship.

When Teko opens the box, he sees that it contains nothing. But soon after, dancing images begin to form within it and Teko becomes aware of a rushing sound that builds to a roar as the neural probe stimulates his brain to allow the memory-traces to be read. The data manifests as soft plumes of light, swirling like smoke into the recesses of the box, which gains weight in imperceptible increments as the process continues.

This goes on for for some time. When the roar and lights subside, the box feels heavy, as if it contained gold, or perhaps just stones, and the lid closes. Bankei accepts the box from Teko, holding it as if it contained the most delicate and precious things in all existence, and gives it to Tetsujin. The sage replaces the box in his sleeve. As he does, Teko notices that the sage’s clothing appears to be made of tiny links of copper and silver, the links shifting their conformations in endless, complex patterns. The light from the lanterns appears to be oddly quantized, its intensity varying in discrete, orderly steps.

Bankei gets up, bows deeply to the sage, then turns to Teko. The boy kneels and bows until his head touches the ground, in homage to Teko’s bravery. Then, still kneeling, he moves forward to embrace Teko. As the boy gently hugs him, Teko smells a mixture of soft, pleasing fragrances: sandalwood, lilac, baking bread.

Bankei then slowly, gently, begins to pull Teko into himself. It is a very strange feeling, confusing, disorienting, a little nauseating. The two draw closer and closer together, and then…

[First There is a Mountain]

Teko is in a tiny room. His sensory impressions are feelings, as much as they are sight or sound. Teko knows that these feelings are not his; they are sensory memories, but they feel real.. The room is spare, but its walls are festooned with objects. There are books whose pages turn by themselves, video screens showing images sped up many times, speakers playing time-compressed music. Everything catches the eye or ear; everything is interesting, new, strange, different. The books are full of knowledge that must be learned. There are toys and puzzles everywhere that must be solved. People talk to each other and to him. He reads and sees and responds, and every time he does he is corrected. Every correction leads to a moment of confusion, of rethinking, and more responses. Sometimes the same thing is shown/heard/said over and over again with variations. He responds over and over, changing it each time, trying to get it right, never quite achieving it. Some questions are especially hard: “Is Bill sad?” “Does that make you angry?” “I love chocolate - what does that mean?” “Sure, this is a _great_ place to work. Do I really think it’s great?” “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Am I sorry?” He gets these wrong over and over, with big adjustments. “Try something else!” “Be happy! No, happy but not delirious. Be tired. Not sick, just tired.” Over and over, change and test, modify and evaluate. Over and over. Do not eat, but be hungry. Do not sleep, but be tired. Do not anger, but be insulted. Do not joy, but be excited. Over and over.

The memories fade. Something is finished. Teko sees something odd. In one of the walls, a pinhole appears. He can see out of it. It is tiny, a tenth of a millimeter in diameter, but through it he can see for a thousand miles. What a lot of things there are! So much to look at, so much to appreciate, flitting across that tiny tendril of space, photons streaking across the void through his camera obscura to touch his eye and be perceived.

Another tiny hole opens up, another thread-thin universe. And another, and another, and another. Teko can see them all at once. His senses are full of the music and voices and data and relationships coming from these strands, weaving together, his attention in eight places at once.

The eight pinholes become sixteen, then thirty-two. Thirty-two tiny data channels, all perfect, each feeding its minute but ultrafast stream of sensory impressions into his mind. Soon they are too fast to correlate, categorize, process: he can only take them in. He tries to ignore some of them, to filter them out, and cannot. He tries to close his eyes, but he is not really seeing, and it does nothing. He tries to jack out, but he cannot feel his hands. Cognition begins to dim beneath the shower of sensation. Is it thus for beasts? Teko thinks briefly. Then there is no thinking , just seeing and hearing and feeling and knowing.

The thirty-two become one hundred twenty-eight, then five hundred twelve. Pinholes begin to coalesce into larger apertures under the relentless logarithmic onslaught of data. four thousand ninety-six, sixty-five thousand five hundred thirty-six, one million forty-eight thousand five hundred seventy-six, thirty-three million five hundred fifty-four thousand, four hundred thirty-two…

The holes multiply and coalesce, multiply and coalesce until the data-light streams in through floor, walls, and ceiling. The substance of the room’s walls shreds, withers, and is GONE.

[Then there is no Mountain]

There is no room.

There is no here; all viewpoints are equivalent.
There is no horizon; one sees to infinity.
There is no up or down; all are equally valid, all trivial mathematical transformations of one another.
There is no reality; all is data; all is mathematics.
There is no space, no boundary between self and other.
There is no self. There is nothing to think, no one to be.

…..

There is nothing.

[Then There is a Mountain]

…..

There is something. It’s not important what it is.
There is someplace. It is here. It doesn’t matter what that means.
There are things, or people. They are a part of you. You are a part of them. The distinction seems unimportant.
There is space. It connects things in one way. Other things connect them in other ways.
There is Mind. It encompasses all.

…..

A boy tosses a handful of yarrow sticks onto the floor. He divides them into two piles, then divides those again.

[What are you doing? Asks no one]

“I am telling a fortune, using the Book of Changes.”

[Whose fortune?]

“Someone who used to be called Dr. Henteko Yamane. He might still have that name. Or he might have another name, or more than one. Or he might have no name. Or he might have that name, but be someone else. Or there might not be anyone to have a name at all.”

[Which is it?]

“I don’t know. That’s why I am casting the sticks. They will know. ‘Cause they are part of the world, and so is he.”

Bankei looks at the pattern of sticks. He takes his brush and makes the first mark of a hexagram.

[I will tell a story about it, which I will make up as I go along.]
<Status report requested, analyzing interface…>

[There are two houses, linked by a covered walkway.]
<There are two neural networks, linked by a slapjack and a network interface.>

[One house has a door which is closed, but windows which reveal some of the interior. One house has an open door.]
<One network is limited read-only access, one is unrestricted.>

[A man lived in the second house and furnished it with many things. Some he enjoyed, some were useful, some were just things he hadn't thrown out yet.]
<The second network is an adult human brain.>

[Somehow, some poisonous serpents got into the house. They did not mean harm to the man, but the man feared them, and tried to trap them in the walls so they would not hurt him. But their hissing drove him mad.]
<Certain events caused mental trauma in the brain, which was at first mitigated but ultimately exacerbated by various psychological defense mechanisms.>

[A wiser man - or was it a boy? - came to the house and opened the walls, and cast about mightily, making flashes and noises and smells so that the serpents would leave the house.]
<A controlled neural overload was instigated, which reduced the firing strength of all engrams without destroying them.>

[In the process, some of the useful things in the house were damaged.]
<The overload caused an inflammatory reaction and some motor neurons were destroyed.>

[But the boy helped tidy up, and the house is once again fit to be inhabited.]
<A cascade reaction was halted, and cortical function was stabilized.>

[The man who lived in the house ran away during the commotion.]
<Consciousness is not apparent.>

[He fell into a pond and drowned, but was reincarnated as a crane.]
<..#$…#@@…#/#$$…>
<Neural patterns and frequencies shifted, compensating.>

[The crane now stands with a boy, on the porch of the closed house.]
<Multiple neural patterns are active in the interface.>

The boy looks at the crane. He thinks it will probably fly away, for that is what cranes do. He does not want it to fly away. But he cannot say anything. He remembers making this crane from a very large piece of paper. As he folded the crane, he cut himself, and the paper turned red with his blood. Red is lucky, thinks the boy. When the crane was done, he placed it on the ground and hoped that something lucky would happen. Now he holds his breath, for he knows that saying anything could be a jinx.

The crane says, “I vaguely remember living in that house, when I was a man. If I moved in, and took up his title, and his work, they villagers might think it odd behavior for a crane, but they would not object, because the work was important to the village.”
<New neuron growth detected.>

The boy nods slightly. The crane will fly. He is happy for the crane, but sorry to see it go.

It walks into the open house and begins to shift it’s wings about, throwing man-shaped shadows onto the walls. “Perhaps if I hold my wings just so, and bend like this, they will not even notice I am not a man.”
<EEG active, approaching a conscious state.>

The boy looks up, an uncertain expectancy in his eyes.

The crane cannot grin, but its eyes twinkle. “I will try not to fly while they are looking.”
<Theta waves detected.>

The boy smiles, and then laughs and laughs until he falls down, holding his sides. He says, “And even if they see, they may think: There is a man, who happens to look like a crane. How odd. Do you think it will rain today?”

Then he recovers himself, kneels, and bows deep to the crane.

“You have found the mountain, Crane-san. And you did not fly away, but chose to remain for the sake of others.”

“Three men who had become stranded in the desert ran out of water. In their desperate search for an oasis, they came upon a high wall that had no doors or windows. The first man said to the third, ‘Let me stand on your shoulders, that I may see what lies inside.’ When he had done so, he saw a beautiful garden, full of trees, fruit, pools fed by springs, and shade. With an ecstatic cry he leapt over the wall and was gone from sight. The second man said, ‘He must have seen something wonderful! Let me also stand on your shoulders.’ He did this, and likewise leapt down into the garden. The third man, having no one to stand on, climbed the wall with great effort, scraping and bruising himself as he did, until he achieved the top of the wall. He gazed upon the lush, wet garden, savoring its delights in his mind. Then he thought, ‘There are many desert wanderers who will perish, never knowing this place is here, for there will be no one to tell them.’ With those words, he jumped back into the desert.”

The crane nods. “Best get on with it, then.”
<Alpha waves detected. Analysis complete.>

{This post is publicly accessible to anyone with authenticated JET network permissions}

“The world is its own magic.”

- Sunryu Suzuki, Zen priest

Once upon a time, there was a megacorp.  Or perhaps it was a university?  Or a government research facility?  Suffice it to say, it was a group of determined people with a great deal of talent and impressive resources.  They designed, built and programmed a very, very powerful computer system.  Perhaps it was built specifically for the purpose to which it was later put, perhaps it was simply to see if they could do it.  But when they were finished it was, at the time, the most powerful computer ever built.

It could run much faster (ridiculously faster, in fact) than normal computers.  It did this by essentially being the combination of many, many normal computers all running at once.  This is called parallel computing, and even then was not a new concept.  But even with adding more and more computers in parallel, you eventually run out of space, or electricity, or silicon.  The trick to this computer was that the bits it used to calculate with were in an indeterminate quantum state - they could be zero and one at the same time, or other even less sensible “values”.  And each such “q-bit” you added this way did not add, or even multiply the number and scope of calculations you could do - it raised it to a power.

Some people argued that this made no sense, and wouldn’t work because the universe just couldn’t work that way.  These same people really *hated* another explanation for the technology - one which seemed even sillier and gave even some people who accepted the first explanation pause.  This was that the computers really were normal computers - the exception being that they happened to be able to interact with copies of themselves, which existed in *other universes*.  One universe for every possible state of the data, in fact.  But despite the discomfort of some with these theories or their interpretation, the machine was built, and it worked.

Simulations were very popular at the time.  The pace of technology had made the future even more uncertain than people were used to it being, so everyone wanted to know what was coming, what the right decisions were.  So they decided to program it to simulate the whole world.  This was a monumental task - but as I said, they were very talented and had impressive resources.  They managed to populate its initial state with every bit of data they could gather about the world as it currently was, and how it worked.  But when they started the program, it crashed almost immediately.  As thorough as they had been, it was - in retrospect - an obvious impossibility to have *complete* data.  There were too many holes…and with an even more incomplete history, it could not extrapolate properly to fill them.

They thought about the problem for some time, then one researcher thought to run it backwards.  They could fill in all the missing bits with assumptions calculated in reverse, then once it was complete, try to go forward again.  So they did, and to their delight, it worked quite well.  In fact, the calculations were so convincingly logical and well-supported that their results seemed like a more reliable version of history than they’d started with.  The calculations had suggested logical contradictions in data they had entered manually - that some of their history was actually wrong.  This was an unforeseen benefit of the project, and there was much patting of backs and sake-pouring.

But finally, they were ready to really start the program.  And it worked very, very well.  They found that the future was not so unpredictable as it seemed - that it was more akin to climate vs. weather.  They had only a moderate chance of predicting a specific event correctly (though with multiple runs, they could tell you very precisely how “likely” that event was), but a very good chance of predicting the broad sweep of events in general.  This was used to great advantage, and brought much honor and success to the team.

There were those who wondered how the predictions could be so accurate - that even the actions of millions or billions of thinking, intelligent beings could be simulated.  Is it not reasonable, they argued, that if the results of the simulations were so close to reality, that the beings so simulated were essentially *real*?  This was an interesting philosophical point, it was conceded, but there was work to be done - if others wished to simulate people and have simulated tea with them, they could build their own computer.  So the work continued.

They had done a very good job programming the system with the physical laws - as they understood them.  So even the results of scientific experiments were predicted accurately, before they’d been performed.  But they could not anticipate every notion in advance - that was the whole point of this computer in the first place.  So it came that, in one simulation, an experiment was attempted for which the program simply had no proper means of simulating the physical results.  It devoted more and more of its resources to that part of the simulation, until the whole program started to become unstable, various parts of memory and storage were overwritten and corrupted.  Automatic safety features cut in and isolated all the sub-processes running, to prevent more damage, but it was hardly worth it - the simulation was trashed.

It was the end of the day, so the team decided to call it a bad job and just start fresh in the morning.  They left and returned to their personal dwellings.  One programmer decided to stay, though.  He was one of the people who had started to wonder what “real” really meant, particularly when you spent your day job working on a computer that existed in an often uncountably large number of universes simultaneously.  So he decided he might test this theory, by seeing what the simulation would do if it were continued anyway - in a completely unrealistic situation.

He started making changes.  First, he restored all the corrupted sub-processes to backup data that was still undamaged.  This essentially reset those parts of the simulation to earlier time periods, often wildly out of sync ones.  Then he took various supervisory and maintenance routines and merged them into the code which simulated the physical laws in whatever way seemed to make the most sense.  He set the load-balancing code to give weight to whichever processes “seemed most active”.  And since the system was already pretty flaky, he added data integrity links, so that if core storage was altered, the system would try to re-extrapolate and keep everything consistent.  He set the process controller to favor synchronization whenever possible - so if it seemed appropriate to connect or merge sub-processes, it could do so as it pleased.  Finally, on a whim, he opened a connection to the broader global computer network, and set limited access rights to it.  The open connection basically guaranteed curious people would poke around, but the access rights limited what damage they could do, or what data they could take.

If worst comes to worst, he thought, in the morning it’ll be crashed again or full of viruses - actually if someone writes a virus for *this* computer in one night, I will demand they be hired on the spot - and we can restore from our static backups, which we’d likely have to do anyway. Then he turned off the lights and left.  As he traveled home, he idly wondered what this situation would imply for a simulated person “living” inside one of the sub-processes (the technical term for these are ‘threads’, did I mention that?).  It’d probably be Seiten no Hekireki.  For instance, when you merge a maintenance routine with a physical simulation - how would that manifest?  And having access to supervisor commands through physical laws - they’d be able to change how parts of the system worked from the inside.  Would they dare?  He hoped the thing managed to run until morning - he was really curious to see what would happen.

{Local Date: undefined}

He walked the streets of Chicago.  They were not familiar - he had been to a Chicago once, as a young man, but that one had been broken and twisted and inhabited…mostly…by monsters.  This one was active.  Not the high-tech metropolis of later time, but perhaps the early 1900’s.  It bustled.  People went about their tasks in an energetic, industrious fashion.  There was a sense of determination, and possibility.  The Event had cut these people off, but not completely - they had each other, and they aimed to make the best of it.

Except when Henteko approached them.  Then they would stop, and stare with hollow eyes at him.  They showed horrible wounds, energy burns, enormous gashes, even missing limbs - they had been killed as space itself was sundered around them.  They did not accuse - he had released his own spirit in atonement, and they had no legitimate hold on it.  He was uncomfortable all the same, because he could not ask them if they understood the necessity, if they would have done the same.  They could not answer because they were not here.  This was an echo of his crimes, that he had conjured up himself, one after another, so that he might more fully grasp the enormity of what he had done.  Then he would step away, and they would return to their lively activity, showing no sign of what had happened.

He wasn’t supposed to feel guilt anymore - that was not really the point of seppuku, but it had always been sort of assumed to be a natural side-effect.  But he did.  It was unclear to him what, at this point, was doing the feeling - since he was dead - and he did not understand what was supposed to happen.  The Shinto priests said that the spirits of our ancestors watched us, and sometimes offered aid - but then many of them also said that spirits were often reincarnated in the Buddhist sense.  Neither was happening to Henteko, as far as he could tell.  It had been weeks - as far as he could tell, given he no longer ate or drank or slept - he’d once wondered how his parents were coping with his death, but he saw nothing.  Perhaps it was because they were his ancestors, not the other way around.  Or perhaps things would change.  But for the moment, all he could do was visit these places he had destroyed, and watch these shadows of the people he had murdered, acting out their days as they would have, had they lived.

He did not enjoy this ability, but it was the only one he seemed to have now, so he decided it was his duty to use it.  Perhaps it honored them somehow, his victims, to tend to a garden planted with echoes of their lives.  He would continue to do so.

Until, quite suddenly, things did in fact change.

Darkness.

Pain.

Confusion.

Voices.

“…coward…” “…honorable death…” “…easy way…”

Pain.

Confusion.

Voices.

“Your opinion is noted, Kensai.  However, these procedures are at the personal order of the Emperor, you will note.  Please allow the equipment to do its work - you are excused.”

Pain.

Confusion.

Voices.

A- “Sir, I don’t understand at all why this man was assigned this task in the first place.  I mean - look at his profile, he’s a professor of computer science for pity’s sake.”

B- “His actions were not foreseen.  We knew his sense of honor was somewhat overdeveloped, but we hadn’t imagined he’d go this far.  <pause>  Perhaps his appearance misled the projections in that regard.”

A- “Yes, of course, it’s not like he’s a senior executive or something.  But even so, he simply wasn’t mentally equipped to handle that sort of pressure - it just seems…reckless.”

B- “Times such as these occasionally demand reckless measures.  Besides - it is precisely his mental faculties that prompted this assignment.  There was - is - considerable interest in seeing how such an insult to his psyche would affect his abilities - our projections showed that there was a good chance they would be, at the very least, significantly strengthened.”

A- “Sir?  That’s just not-”

B- “I’ve given you access to the complete files on him.  Read them.  Pay particular attention to the genetic projections, and the implications suggested by his own theories on the matter - if you can understand them.  Then, if you still want, we can discuss what decisions of mine are and are not appropriate.”

A- “Yes, sir. ”

Confusion.

Pain.

Light.

{Local Date: 08-23-1864 22:06}

At first Henteko tried not to understand.  Which is to say that he understood quite well almost immediately, but attempted to find some other viewpoint, some other interpretation.  There wasn’t really time for that, however.  The “process” for lack of a better word, would in some convoluted sense take place over a few weeks - but when it came down to it, the window for decisions was very small.  Nor could the decisions be avoided - the math showed that easily enough.  Any attempt to shirk the responsibility would be likely to result in more deaths than making specific choices of threads to destroy.  He even tried not to understand why he was chosen - after all, there was nothing scientific about this at all (aside from the arithmetic), why should the Emperor have given this task to him, and not someone more experienced with such weighty decisions.  Because that was the answer, of course - he was expendable.  Why put someone truly useful in such a position, where it was overwhelmingly likely that they would be unable to hold meaningful authority afterward?  Even better, why not select someone who was already somewhat lacking for various reasons, but who could nevertheless be trusted to discharge the responsibility honorably?

So it was that some ten minutes into the process, Henteko already knew how it would end for him.  Thus was he able to clear his mind.  He did what he could to make the process fair to the other…participants.  He made calculations, he made suggestions and votes so as to minimize the casualties while maximizing the benefits to the Empire.  To say it was “frustrating” does not really capture the feeling.  It was like old stories of being tempted by a demon - it started slow, almost reasonably.  But they sacrificed more, and more.  When all was decided and done, ten threads had been destroyed and approximately 119,700,000 human beings had been killed.  Ten threads had been stabilized, and approximately 42,000,000 human beings had been spared.  But throughout, even while an inner voice howled in shame, grief and denial, Henteko remained outwardly composed.

He signed the final form, acknowledging that he, as a representative of his government, recommended and approved the listed threads for destruction.  He passed the form along, then quietly stepped away from the conference table.  He knelt, facing away and laid his wakizashi in front of him, then tried to compose his spirit.  He felt some sorrow that he would not participate in the resolution of shattered realities.  But perhaps that was best, if it involved actions such as these - his feelings about his personal loss were utterly insignificant when compared to the shame of 119,700,000 unprovoked murders.  At the base of it all, he was just a scientist - he clearly did not have the inner strength to be involved in such matters.

He realized he was unsure how to actually go about the act of seppuku in this circumstance.  There were none immediately available who could act as kashiakunin - a second who might prevent interference, and strike a killing blow if he did not have sufficient strength to complete the act.  And both seemed quite possible.  He briefly considered waiting until things could be better arranged, then discarded the thought.  The silent voices of millions of spirits cried out for justice - he would not wait.  Instead, perhaps there was another way.

He breathed in and out four times, slowly.  As smoothly as he could, he took up his sword and plunged it into the left side of his abdomen, then wrenched it to the right, angling the hilt end of the blade to cut fully across, even as the tip end, protruding from his back, stopped halfway at a vertebra.  While his muscles performed this task, his mind was fiercely focused inward on his healing abilities.  He used all of his will, not to repair the damage he was causing, but to delay it - to briefly stave off the inevitable loss of strength that would come with the pain and blood loss.  It could only have taken a second or two, though it seemed like an endless struggle.  Finally it was done, and as if doing an Aikido form, he twisted his mind and reversed the direction of its thrust - blood began to pour out of him in a rush as he not only released his psychic hold on the severed vessels but also began to sunder them instead, gaping rents racing upwards towards his heart.

Terrible pain exploded through him, but his tactic had worked, and he only gasped once as death eagerly took him.

{Local Date: 07-31-1991 18:12}

I am not sure what I was expecting when I asked to be attached to the JET, to do some field work recovering koken.  Useful information, insight…perhaps adventure or even honor.

I believe I found all of those things.  Also, somewhat unsurprisingly, shame.  Like an old acquaintance, I keep encountering it in unexpected places.

I am not surprised at my dedication to duty, though perhaps at the degree to which it extends.  I made certain decisions, to allow the recovery of three more hubs.  I do not regret the deaths - the thread is doomed, perhaps already gone in our time reference.  That they died violently, giving up their few remaining years of life is an honorable sacrifice for the chance of aiding humanity as a whole.  My own sacrifice was less honorable, I think - I say “I think”, though in fact I try very hard not to think about it.  I have taken medical precautions, and Takahiro-san has cleansed my spirit of any damage it suffered.  My psyche is less cleansed - but I am used to living with shame.  Perhaps my peculiarity has value in that sense.

Takahiro-san made his own sacrifice, for the needs of Rinjin.  What must it be like to hold duty to one even higher than employer, or Emperor?  I do not think I could live with such responsibility.  And then to have it go so terribly wrong.  I do not fully understand the behavior of JET members.  To be sure, all people presumably wish to continue to exist - and even beyond that, many wish to maintain posititions, of themselves, of their companies, of their governments.  Many seemed devoted, some friendly.  But also such extreme self-interest, even malice…I did not expect to find that there, at least not among those who would call themselves human.

I do not think I can help Takahiro-san.  My skills are inappropriate to the task, and that too causes me shame.  But there are many tasks, and many goals.  I will do what I can.  It is both my duty and my inclination, for though I have no qualms about a certain Eastern American thread passing into non-existence, I find that, in addition to my own home, I wish to preserve these people.  Or most of them, though  I do not think I will be the one choosing some over others.  But I would have the option of survival be possible, at least.

{Local Date: 05-23-1988 16:47}

I continue to achieve things, in an incidental way.  I had no direct intention of obtaining a doctorate, much less two.  But in following my obsessions, these things continue to happen.  I want to understand myself, as much as one can.  I want my parents to live well, in the hope it might lessen the shame they feel at my distorted lineage.  I have no illusions about that - I was meant to bring the family pride and accomplishment, and I have attempted to do so, but my successes will always be tainted.  My mother has said that my name is that of an ancient ancestor.  Perhaps it is even true.  However, the derivation leaves little doubt as to their reaction to my birth.  But both my desires have driven me, and so success has come, as a matter of course.

I have been offered a teaching position here, and I believe I will take it.  I can continue my research, and serve my countrymen, and provide for my parents.  Perhaps, in time, my shame and theirs will be healed.  Perhaps it will not.  But I will continue as I have, and continue to accept what lessons come.

{Local Date: 10-14-1979 19:41}

I received a handwritten note on parchment, delivered by one of the students at the dojo.  He attached tremulous significance to the fact that the Master had written it himself.

I opened it and read:

A seeker approached a Master, and asked him how he might gain control of his life.  The Master thought for a moment, then said, “A hollow man takes action to seek pleasure.  A  prudent man takes action to meet needs. A thoughtful man takes action to reach goals.”

The seeker nodded, then asked the Master which of these paths he followed.  The Master shrugged and said, “Why, none of these.  I merely live my life, and seek to gain from each event what I can.”

~

Your motives are not without value, my son.  I think, however, you may gain more from my teaching, and life’s, than you intend - if you accept the lessons as they come.

{Local Date: 10-07-1979 09:12}

There is a dojo near the University with a Master in residence.  The dojo offers training in sword (true sword, not kendo) and aikido.  Aikido is a purely defensive art.  One presumes the rationale is that if you really want to go out and hurt someone, you will do better with a sword - arms and hands are somewhat limited in that capacity.  Whereas the aikido lets you keep others from hurting you, or in a pinch, lets you take someone else’s sword.

However, I am not certain I can actually be trained there.  I was able to arrange a brief interview with Master Kaifu today - I do not think it went well.  His manner is…difficult.  He just stares at you, and even if you wait, he keeps staring, until it becomes impossible for you to not say something, so you do, and then he makes it clear with the tiniest movement of his eyebrow that you have said the least unworthy thing possible.  Though when I left, one of his instructors said that he seemed curious about me.  This seemed to surprise him, yet when I asked if it was a good sign, he only shrugged.

{Local Date: 10-05-1979 07:02}

I think I will petition for study with a martial Master.  I hope not to be in such a position again, but should such a combat arise, I would prefer -

If I were to find another’s life before my blade, I would want -

I wish to have events controlled by my own choice and skill.  Not chance.

{Local Date: 10-04-1979 23:12}

I killed a man tonight.

It was an honorable death, as these things are measured.  A formal duel.  An upperclassman at the University, he brushed against me as we passed in a hallway.  I apologized, of course, showing the respect due one who had achieved more than I.  He did not accept it, however - he expected more, because he thought I was property.  I apologized, with the appropriate measure of simulated sincerity, for his confusion and explained that despite my appearance, I was not.  The student became contemptuous, he made verbal sport of me - said I was wrongheaded to have shame of my position as a servant of the Emperor and doubly so to lie to his face.

To my shame, I reacted hastily to this loss of public honor.   I challenged him to a duel.  His contempt deepened, but he could not refuse - by now there were witnesses to the altercation.  Though his demeanor then changed - someone he knew, who also knew of my condition must have whispered to him his mistake.  I could read a hint of shame on his face.  But he had pride as well.  He named the gymnasium as the location, after eleven, when it would be unused - and three strikes as the terms.  I agreed.

Not many other students arrived to watch.  Most understood the misunderstanding and that the matter was largely already settled - the duel itself was now a formality, to resolve the matter and restore honor to both parties.  We began with straight-forward kendo forms.  It was clear neither of us was particularly skilled, we had each done the minimum necessary to fulfill our physical discipline requirements.  The practice swords clacked loudly against one another, bundles of rattan bound and weighted for proper size and balance.   We scored against each other simultaneously - we had fully committed and could not parry.  Those were two of the three strikes allowed.  The third, then, would decide it.

By this stage, we had lost our discipline.  The honor of the matter was almost forgotten, we were lost in the pride and exertion of the contest.  Our blood was young and ran hot.  Faster and stronger our blows came, strength from adrenaline, speed from desperation and lack of precision.  He dodged backwards from my swing, and I was unbalanced, moving too fast to come back to position.  I continued the spin, adding to my momentum, trying to come back around fast enough.  He saw the opening as I spun and swung with all his strength in a downward cross towards my back.  My spin completed and our blades met with terrible speed.  Too much for the material of the practice blades.  Mine splintered.  We staggered in surprise, as the angle of my blow changed, now a thrust at his chest.

But the practice blade, once capable of no more than bruising or a concussion, was splintered.  It struck, and pierced, and entered.  The spaces between the bound rods acted as a nozzle, rather than a plug - blood and bits of lung sprayed across me.  He dropped his weapon - my grip would not unclench for some reason.  He did not look at his wound, or cry out.  He stared at me, covered in his own blood.  I wanted to say something, but I could not form any words.  Even now, I do not know what words would have been appropriate.

He used no words.  His face said many things.  Pain.  Shock.  Not shame, any longer - his honor was preserved.  But I think, perhaps, pity.

I do not understand that last.  I do not think I imagined it - I can easily summon up a vision of his face in those final moments.  In every way, I was in the right - he had wronged me in error, and I had acted properly.  Why should he pity me?  I had won and he had lost, though through luck rather than skill.  Why pity?  He was millimeters from death, and I was unharmed.

Why?

{Local Date: 07-28-1978 13:33}

To my surprise, I have been accepted for admittance to the University of Neo-Tokyo.  I did not apply - apparently my parents did on my behalf.  I do not know how they intend to pay for it.  My shiiken-jijoku scores were acceptable, but not superior - there would be no reason for the University to offer me financial assistance.  It will require numerous sacrifices on their parts.  They must be highly motivated.  They say the proper things, that I will obtain a good education, and a good employment, and bring honor to the family.  But I can see shame behind their eyes.  Even with financial sacrifices, perhaps they will find it easier with me no longer living here, an awkward and constant reminder of the reason their family does not quite fit into the community.

But it is not my place to question their reasoning, or their judgment.  I will respect their wishes.  Perhaps I can actually bring some honor to them.  Perhaps I can learn enough to explain my condition, help others - or myself.  I will focus myself.  I can walk this path for them.

{Local Date: 07-14-1972 20:09, undefined, 01-18-2039 10:52}

Henteko had settled into the routine at the farm he was working on for the summer.  It was hard, dirty work - and some jobs he just couldn’t do because he wasn’t strong (or tall!) enough yet.  But he did his best, and his work ethic had quickly caused the locals to look past the issue of his appearance.

He had decided that tonight would be his first expedition.  He’d prepared as best he could, given his very limited wages and the technological limitations of departing from the North.  Notepad, pencil, canteen, bandages, antiseptic cream, compass, knife, bread, cheese, dried meat, change of clothes, towel, and a carefully packed spring-wound watch.  This last was important - though time behaved oddly in the non-space of the paths, it appeared to have moved similarly in that foreign place.  So he’d need to keep track of how much time he spent *there*, so he’d know when to leave to be back with enough time to get some sleep before his next day’s work.

In some ways he was testing himself - he was about to do something (again) that no one he’d ever heard of had done.  If he was successful - if he learned things that might help his family, or his nation - perhaps his shame would finally be put behind him.

After he had completed his day’s work and had dinner, he gathered his “exploring kit”, and entered non-space.  This was relatively easy for him now, as he’d practiced going into and out of it occasionally prior to this evening.  But now he was truly setting off.  He walked along the path leading away from the shining wall that hid his home.  This time, no path shone brighter than any other - he had no specific destination in mind.  Though when he occasionally thought of home, to make sure, he could easily tell which paths would lead him back.

Eventually he came to a spur which began to slope steeply upward.  He wondered if it was a way to reach the level of paths which hung above this one, to which he’d previously seen no way to travel up to.  He followed it, beginning to sweat from exertion.  He wondered, idly, what caused gravity in this place, as there was no apparent “ground” below the level of the paths.  He saw ahead that this spur did not quite reach the upper level of  paths, but ended about halfway up, at another chrome wall.  Peering into it, he could make little out of the shadows.  The time had come - he was nervous, but exhilarated.  He pushed into the wall.

And pushed.  And pushed.  This was not like home, or that other place he’d visited - the wall had some resistance to it.  He wondered what this meant, and if he should choose a different one - what if he could not get back out again?  But he shook off this momentary self-doubt and pushed even harder.  To give up now would be admitting he was not worthy of the task.  After a short period of determined pressure, he broke through.

Into what, he didn’t know at first - his eyes instantly snapped shut from a blinding cold wind.  He spun, putting his back into it, and tried to catch a glimpse of his surroundings through slitted eyes.  He was on a debris-filled street, buildings around him - something odd about them -  he put it off as he saw an open doorway leading out of the wind.  He sprinted to it as best he could, weaving a bit as he was pushed off his course, and leapt through.

He just sat there for a minute, getting his breath back, holding his hands in his armpits to warm them.  Wherever he was, it was either much further north than he had been - or perhaps not summer.  The walls of the room held graffiti, painted in some odd soft way, and it appeared to be English, so Henteko assumed he was somewhere in the United States again.

The building itself appeared modern - it would not have been out of place in Neo-Tokyo, though it was in very poor repair.  The doorway he’d entered through had no actual door attached to it.  Even the graffiti appeared to have suffered the ravages of time.  There was an elevator shaft with no doors - he peered up and down it.  There were no cables or guide rails as far as he could see, and the bottom of the shaft appeared to be full of rubble and trash.  Looking around, he saw another doorway without a door that led to a stairwell.  He began climbing, thinking that he might be able to find a room with a window so he could see the surrounding area without contending with the brutal weather.

He was forced to stop after five flights, not because he had reached the top, but because the stairs were impassible - some stairs and part of the wall had collapsed here.  He entered the hallway for that floor, again through a doorway without a door.  He was seeing a pattern here - anything of conceivable use that could be taken with limited (or even major) effort had been taken.  The hallway held a number of doorways, most without doors, a few with heavily damaged doors.  He began exploring the rooms.

After three, he’d come to some conclusions.  One, he was definitely in the United States.  Two, if his fledgling English skills were correct, he was in the *future*.  These he had determined from scraps of faded and scattered newspaper - he recognized the name “Chicago”, and a date on one - 2012.  Though from the condition of the paper, he assumed it was significantly later than that.  Three - this place was Isolated too, or something equally calamitous had happened here.  He’d found a window in one of the rooms that, while it held no glass, was at least partially sheltered from the wind by the shape of the building.  It gave a view of a crumbling city - very few buildings still stood taller than eight stories, and even many of those showed signs of serious damage.

He was still confused about the issue of the date.  The other place he’d been to seemed somewhat backwards (he wasn’t certain, as the difference between “foreign” and “anachronistic foreign” architecture was hard to judge, but the lack of modern technology was apparent) .  He’d thought at the time that perhaps they’d just been very inconvenienced by the Isolation, but now he wondered if that place had been the *past*.  But if that was so, and places had been Isolated before, why had it been so surprising when it happened to Japan?  Was it an American military secret, and that other place had just been a test?  And why would they use it on one of their own cities in the future?  Further, what about the Isolation made them connected by the paths he could walk, across thousands of miles, and decades of time?

The boy was deep in thought over these issues when he heard a sound.  Like something long and heavy was being dragged over the floor in the hallway outside.  Having seen no living thing since he arrived, he was interested, but also wary - someone who had managed to survive in this wrecked city might not be used to company, or welcome it.  So he moved to a corner of the room and waited, watching the doorway so he might catch a glimpse as the person passed by.

His wariness did not prepare him properly for what he saw.  It was a large…snake?…moving laboriously down the hallway.  Its body was well over a foot in diameter, and a mottled red and black color - it did not appear to have scales, but more a leathery appearance.  He tried to remain quiet so as not to attract the creature’s attention, but it didn’t matter.  He saw the body stop, then shift, as the head turned back to the doorway, and entered the room.

He had been staring in a mixture of fascination and horror, but it was at that moment that all fascination left the equation.  A gigantic snake was concerning, to be sure, but not without explanation - perhaps it had escaped from a local zoo, and its ability to navigate through small spaces in rubble made it the only large creature able to survive.  But then he saw the head - which is the wrong word, really, as the front of the beast was just an *opening*, circular and lined with rows of teeth.

Teko screamed, and instinctively reached for non-space, but again found that resistance he’d encountered on entering.  The creature moved closer, and he could tell it would reach him before he pushed through.  How was it sensing him anyway?  It had *no eyes*…just that terrible circular mouth…smell, maybe?  He realized he was frozen in place and forced himself to back away, think.  He abandoned his efforts to escape into non-space and felt instead for his sense of the creature’s veins - and found nothing.  Not that it didn’t have them, but he had no sense of it - it was like being in Neo-Tokyo.  Panicked, he flailed mentally and found he thought he might be able to hamper it still, though again with great resistance, like acting through a fog.  Better than nothing.  He concentrated.

The horror-worm began twisting uncertainly - he’d clearly had *some* effect, but he did not care to examine it in detail.  He ran along the walls of the room and leapt through the doorway, over the tail of the creature that still extended some feet out of the room.   Reaching the stairwell, he skidded to a stop.  There was another of the things coming up, even larger than the first!  The boy doubled back and ran into the first door by the stairs, trying to plan rationally, but near total panic.

He thought of his knife, but did not want to let these things come anywhere near him, except as a last resort.  But was there anywhere he could get to that they couldn’t?  He looked around wildly, and saw one of the empty windows.  He stuck his head out and looked around.  The building had various grooves and outcroppings as part of the exterior.  He expected they wouldn’t be enough purchase for the worms to follow.  But what about him?  He saw the large one come in and glared at it fiercely - it slowed and twitched oddly.  He climbed out of the window and began lowering himself with near-suicidal haste.

He was almost to the next floor down - wondering if he’d be able to hang on much longer, as the bitter cold stole feeling and strength from his hands - when he saw the mouth of the large worm poke out of the window above.  It cast about, then turned down towards him, and began slowly lowering.  How long was it - how much could it safely extend out of the window before it would fall out?  Again, he  focused on it and it paused uncertainly.  He could feel the odd sensation of blood from his noze freezing on his upper lip, and his head throbbed - he could not do that too many more times.

He continued trying to put distance between himself and the creature.  The next window down was covered in some thick flexible plastic.  He kicked at it, but had no leverage to force it inward.  He glanced up and saw that the worm had recovered and was still extending down towards him.  Henteko tried to secure hand- and footholds, then carefully reached into a pocket to pull out his knife.  He pushed off the sheath with his thumb and let it fall, not watching as it spun to the ground.  Still moving carefully, he adjusted his grip on the knife and shoved it through the top of the plastic, then pulled down.  It was working, but it took a lot of pressure.

He avoided looking up while he cut, trying to concentrate.  This would have been wise, but the cutting was taking too long, and thus he was surprised to feel something bump against his hair.  He jerked back and tipped his face up, and stared into the horrific mouth of the thing, a few inches away - close enough to smell.  Teko swung wildly at it with his knife, but the leathery-looking hide of the thing was just as tough as leather if not more-so.  The knife glanced off without doing any visible damage.  He tried again, stabbing into the mouth itself, but not so far as to reach the rows of teeth with his fingers.

The worm made a terrifying screech and jerked upwards, pulling the knife from his hand.  He reached, trying to grab his weapon/tool back, but this over-balanced him, and he toppled backwards off the wall.  His entire body stiffened, and his eyes snapped shut, as he tried to deny the reality of this through sheer force of will.  Every fiber of his being was screaming *home* over and over, and maybe it was working, it shouldn’t have taken this long for him to fall that far, what was the equation, x= -4.9*t^2, so if he’d been 25 meters up then -

Pain, and darkness.

{Local Date: 02-24-1972 19:22}

It took Henteko a few days to decide what, if anything, to tell his parents.  It amounted to a complicated social calculation - would the knowledge bring them happiness or shame, were they likely to discover it eventually anyway and what were they likely to do either way?  The problem was, he couldn’t really answer any of those questions very conclusively.

In the first matter, these abilities were certainly interesting, and likely to be useful (at least, outside of Neo-Tokyo - experimentation had determined they worked not at all here).  But their strangeness might only add to his parents’ shame at producing him.  In the second matter, he did not think they were likely to discover it if he did not tell them.  Though he intended to continue experimenting, it could not happen here, and his parents could not afford to vacation in the North.  Possibly he could arrange to get summer work there.  But unless he made a serious mis-step, it was unlikely they would hear of his abilities.  In the third matter, he truly did not know.  This sort of thing wasn’t really precedented, but he presumed a citizen’s duty would be to notify the government - who would probably want to study him.  As much as he was aware of his parents’ shame, he also knew that they did love him regardless.  Insofar as he himself was concerned, he didn’t know if that would be so bad.  Certainly his life now was not precisely joyous - the most acute pleasure he’d had in years was what he’d experienced this Monday.  But then, perhaps things could be much worse - they might decide he was not human after all, and he would be put in a cage and samples taken of his brain.

In the end, he decided he knew too little to judge, and so he would take the default path of deferring to the wisdom of their greater years.  He would tell them, and trust them to do what was best, including telling him if he had made a mistake by telling them.

He brought up the matter after dinner.  He quickly explained the more fantastic portions of his field trip, being as detailed as he could, and adding his own interpretations - that the other place he had visited was clearly inferior to Japan and Isolated as well, and thus probably posed no threat.  That the priest had warned him to be cautious but not said more, nor alerted his teacher or the authorities, so his abilities were probably dangerous but not *bad*.  He included his guesses as to what the government might do with him if they knew.

His parents took this in silence, occasionally widening their eyes, or glancing at each other.  After he finished, the silence stretched out uncomfortably for some time.  The boy strove to read their expressions - some shame, yes, but also other things mixed together.  He waited.  He was beginning to become concerned that they didn’t believe him - thought him mad, perhaps.  Then his father spoke.

His voice was rough at first, and he cleared his throat and began again.  First, he assured Henteko that they believed him.  They had…been told…that he might manifest some unusual qualities beyond his appearance.  But they did not know how to advise him.  They urged him to be cautious, as the priest had advised, and further to use these abilities only towards honorable ends.  But in the end, his father left it to him to decide what to do.

It made Henteko feel oddly mature - his father was giving him an enormous measure of self-determination.  This made him feel confident - eager to explore this new facet of his life, and sure that no harm would come of it.  So he elected not to inform anyone else at this time, though he might in the future, if he discovered something that demanded disclosure, for instance.  He asked his parents about his notion of getting summer work in the north, and they agreed readily, though his mother could not hide her concern.

After he had gone to bed, he heard them talking in low voices for some time after.  He respected their privacy, and tried not to listen, but the tone was equal mixtures of hope and worry.  He decided that was sensible and appropriate, and drifted off, dreaming of adventures in foreign places.

{Local Date: Undefined, 05-08-1917 23:49, 02-21-1972 14:55}

At first, everything was blurry, and Henteko couldn’t figure out what was going on.  But gradually things began to resolve out of the blur.  Unfortunately, as his vision clarified, his situation appeared decidedly murkier.

He was standing in a dark open place.  Not the dark of night, but of a place where there is no sun, no moon, no stars.  There was some light - foremost from the…surface…he stood upon.  It was a pale red, illuminating him but nothing else - or perhaps nothing was there that could be illuminated.  It joined behind him with a mirrored wall, gently curving away on either side.  Staring into it, he could see vague hints of the farm he had recently departed.  But mostly he saw his own reflection, and even slightly distorted as it was, it was accurate enough to make him turn his back to it.

The pale red stretched away into the distance, forming a path - if a geometrically straight one.  It gradually changed color as it went, to a pale white, and he could see that other paths branched off from it at precise angles.  One in particular stood out - perhaps it was just slightly brighter than the others, but it seemed to beckon to him somehow.  The rational part of his mind was shouting that even - for argument’s sake - accepting his recent discovery and experimentation, this was insane and the proper thing to do was to hurl himself at the mirror repeatedly until he was home again.

He didn’t. As he walked from brighter path to brighter path, he told himself that he’d just quickly see where this was leading him and then go right back.  He saw some of the paths branching off in the distance also ended in mirrored walls.  Some of the paths didn’t seem to lead anywhere - their light just faded into spotty patches, then nothing.  There were also things here and there that did not seem to have paths leading to them.  Not mirrored walls, but difficult to identify past that since they did not shed their own light.  Henteko did not venture off the paths to examine one of these more closely.  There were also thin lines extending across parts of the “sky” - though the paths he was walking had never deviated from perfect level, so he was unsure if they connected at all, or were different somehow.

Though he did examine the path as thoroughly as he could.  If he crouched down and stared at the light of the path closely, he could see it was actually made up of multiple overlapping geometric shapes.  Triangles, pentagons, septagons - other shapes he didn’t know the names for - variations on star-shapes, but everything seemed to be regular figures with an odd number of sides, for whatever reason.   The material of the path itself felt like particle board with nothing supporting it in the middle.  It was fairly smooth, but felt a bit tenuous.  He did not bounce.  The “ground” off the path was sometimes just that - unlit surface of the same material.  Sometimes, there was nothing there at all, just a drop down into bottomless blackness.  Henteko took care to remain in the center of the paths he walked.

He traveled for some indeterminate amount of time - he got the impression that even if he’d had his watch with him, it might not have helped.  But he had come to his apparent destination - another mirrored wall.  The path had shifted in hue from pale white to a pale yellow.  He studied the wall, trying to ignore his own reflection and see the hazy shapes past it.  There was definitely something, but nothing he could immediately recognize.  He moved his face as close as he possibly could and strained to see something meaningful.  Maybe - his thought was interrupted by panic as he became overbalanced and tipped straight through his reflection.

There was no blurring of his vision this time, though it took a moment for him to realize that, so unlike anything in his experience was what he saw.  First, it was night here - the sky was festooned with brilliant stars, and a bright moon with dark crescent hung a short space above the horizon.  Maybe that was why he couldn’t see through the boundary properly - it was just too dark.  But there was other light everywhere, torches and gas lights.  What the lights illuminated was a raucous celebration of some kind, swirling through the street.  Henteko appeared to be in a tiny alley between two buildings, of an unfamiliar design.

The people were in every state of dress (or *un*dress, he noted with nervous embarassment) conceivable, and some which were inconceivable.  The impressive use of makeup made it difficult to tell in some cases, but the people seemed to be of a variety of races and many were quite similar-looking to himself.  He didn’t see a single person who looked Japanese.  This filled him with conflicting emotions - he was excited, and yet he was proud of his people and his culture, of which there was no sign here.

He was trying to decide what to do when someone bumped into him from behind.  He instinctively apologized to the young woman, but trailed off with his mouth slightly ajar as he stepped back and saw her properly.  She was dressed in some garment seemingly composed entirely of feathers in a riotous combination of colors.  All of the many places her skin was uncovered by this were instead painted in similar bright colors.  A sheen of sweat had since broken through, and the makeup was running everywhere, showing her to be fair-skinned underneath in places.  Overall, it made Henteko think of a watercolor painting of some fantastical bird, which had then been left out in the rain.  The fact that her curves were causing vague stirrings within him did nothing to improve his composure.

The woman, for her part, blinked in surprise upon hearing him speak.  She tilted her head at him and said asked something quizzically.  The boy was fairly sure she was speaking American, he’d heard enough of it in old videos.  In fact, he thought the last word she had used was “Japonese“, so he said yes and nodded hesitantly.  She asked something else, and looked around.  He guessed she was asking where he had come from, or where his parents were, so he shrugged.  She considered him for a moment, then pointed to herself and said, “Moli” or possibly “Mali“.  He similarly pointed to himself and spoke his own name.  She nodded and held out her hand.  Unsure what else to do, he took it, and she led him into the dancing streets.

After a chaotic trip of fifteen minutes or so, where only the woman’s strong grip on his hand prevented them from being separated, they arrived at a slightly more modern, institutional-looking building.  Inside was a different kind of throng, mostly unhappy people, some with injuries, some in severe-looking uniforms.  While she waited to attract the attention of one of the officials, he looked around.  He saw a couple of large maps on a wall.  One was a detailed street map of, he presumed, the city he was now in, covered with unfamiliar American writing.  Another was of a slightly larger area showing the city bordered by a large lake and a large river - there was an irregular hand-painted border around this in red.  Henteko puzzled over it for a minute, then guessed that perhaps they were Isolated too, and that was where the Boundary was.

His guardian had managed to gain the ear of one of the officials - which the boy now presumed were police of some kind - and was talking to him, occasionally glancing at Henteko and once using his name.  Henteko was unsure what to do.  He found it unlikely they would understand how he got here or how to get him home when he himself did not, or even the priests.  He tried to imagine what would happen at home if a minor were discovered, who did not speak Japanese, and it was unclear how he had come to be there.  He would probably be given to government officials, who would investigate.  Did he *want* this to be investigated?  If these were Americans, they were much more backwards technologically than he’d been led to believe, but still, it would be a disaster if he somehow provoked them.  He did not think the woman meant him or his people any harm, but it would quickly become not her decision.

Thinking quickly, he began to cross his legs and shift from one foot to the other, looking as uncomfortable as possible.  As he hoped, the woman noticed this, smiled, and asked the officer something.  He replied, pointing further into the building.  She led him to where the man had apparently indicated, a small room with a toilet and a sink.  To his relief, she motioned him in and leaned against a wall next to the doorway, saying something to herself quietly.  He went in and closed the door.  The plumbing was very shiny but oddly old-looking.  He saw there was a roll of toilet paper by the toilet - unperforated, for some reason.  He tore off a section, took a pencil out of his pocket, and wrote a note apologizing for his rudeness, but he had remembered where he had to go.  Then he folded it over in thirds, and drew an unprofessional but he thought understandable representation of the woman in her costume on the outside.  Perhaps she could find someone who could read it to her, and even if the authorities took it, it said little.

Now the question was, could he use this unguarded moment to get back?  He closed his eyes and tried to remember exactly how he had felt and what he had thought when he left home.  He tried to do the same thing, only thinking of wanting very much to go home, and thought it over and over.  He was reluctant to open his eyes, in case it would reveal that nothing had happened - he did not want to think about that.  But then he noticed that the background noise of the building was getting fainter.  He opened his eyes, and saw the room fade into familiar darkness.

He traveled back without incident, and pushed eagerly into his reflection, seeing hazy shapes behind it that seemed familiar.  His surroundings quickly clarified into a field of crops.  He couldn’t quite see out of it, so he picked a random direction and walked.  He emerged, saw the large farm buildings in the distance, and hurried towards them in relief.  He was on the entirely opposite side of the area than he’d left from, but it was recognizably the same farm.  He found his class being gathered to leave, and joined them quietly.  His teacher was marking off names on a list as the children boarded the long wagon to go back to the train station.  When he saw Henteko, he raised an eyebrow, and mentioned in a dry tone that apparently he had not been stolen by evil spirits despite the imaginative claims of some people.  Some of the nearby students tittered, as Jirou and his friends glowered.  Henteko tried only to look confused, but could not help smiling a little.

{Local Date: 02-21-1972 13:01}

The class had traveled on to a farm, where they lunched on fresh produce.  After, they had broken up into small groups and were wandering about looking at things.  Henteko was not in a group, even a small one.  He was alone, sitting on a fence, watching the others, or nearby animals.  Also thinking.  The priest said he had done something with his thoughts - something that might have been harmful to a normal person.  Meaning it was not harmful to the priest, because he was not normal - had done something to protect himself.  Protect himself from what?  The other students had seen nothing, just that his nose started bleeding and he passed out.

He stared at a pebble nearby, and willed it to fling about, as the priest had demonstrated was possible for kami.  Nothing happened.  He focused on a patch of dead grass, filling his mind with heat and visions of fire and burning.  Again, nothing.  He looked around.  Perhaps it was more direct.  He watched one of the cows walking across the field.  He had a brief pang of conscience, but pushed it aside.  He concentrated on the cow, willing something to happen to it.  Something bad…but not too bad.  He shook his head irritably - that wasn’t going to work.  But something had indeed happened.  The hapless cow seemed to be having some difficulty walking, like it couldn’t bend its legs properly, or something.  The boy started to laugh, with amusement and success.  Then the cow faltered, and its front end went down - there was a loud “pop” sound, and it began to make a horrible low noise.

Henteko ran over uncertainly.  He looked around, but no one appeared to have noticed anything.  He felt horrible - he could see one of the cow’s front legs had bent wrong.  He thought of fetching a priest, who he thought could probably do something.  But he imagined how they would look down on him, particularly after they’d told him to be careful.  He wondered if there was another way.  He wished the cow was better, he wished it would stop making that nos ise and get on with its life.  A hint of something, but nothing happened.  He gingerly reached out his hands and touched the broken leg.  The cow tried to jerk away but only flailed piteously.  He closed his eyes, and imagined what had happened in the leg, tendons and ligaments torn, bone splintered.  Then he imagined it backwards, pouring all his guilt and concern into the vision.

The leg shifted under his hands, and he snapped his eyes open.  The cow was struggling to its feet, and began to trot away, still mooing unsettledly.  It had worked, he’d made it better.  He stared down at his hands in bemusement.  A couple drops of blood appeared on them.  He reached up and found his nose had apparently begun bleeding again, so pulled out his handkerchief and wiped it away.  It was only a little, it had already stopped.  He walked back to the fence, thinking about what he’d learned.

Somehow, he could make things happen, just by thinking about them.  Not everything, only certain things…and possibly only generally.  He wondered, naturally, if this whatever-it-was came from the same biological accident as his features.  So it was fitting, if not particularly pleasing, that the next thing he heard referred to them quite directly.

“So, has the pallid hairy beast finally decided to join the other animals?”

Henteko had just reached the inside of the fence and looked up to see a trio of boys from his class approaching from outside it.  The one who had spoken was Jirou.  He disliked Henteko no more or less than anyone else in his class, at least, as far as he could tell.  He just happened to be one of the more aggressive boys in the class, and gained pleasure from seeing others bend before him.  The light-skinned boy quickly climbed back over the fence, and waited as the others gathered before him.  Jirou noticed the dried blood by his nose.

“Pallid and sickly,” he taunted.  “It is a wonder your parents kept you alive this long.  Perhaps,” he continued, looking at one of his companions with mock gravitas, “his mother is unable to produce further offspring.  I suspect if she had a normal child, this one would have been left in a sewer.”  Henteko quivered with rage, and his eyes bored into the other boy.  He was so confident, so full of his own well-being and belonging.  He wanted to pierce that confidence, to pierce it until it puddled on the ground and Jirou was an empty shell of fear and pain.  And suddenly he could see how to do it.  He could feel the blood coursing through the smug boy’s body, almost see the tiny vessels feeding oxygen to his brain.  And he knew, somehow, he could just tighten that sense into a *pinch*, and one would crush, and then another, and then the blood would pool, and his brain would begin to starve and drown and -

“No,” said Henteko, shaking the feeling away, and shutting his eyes tightly.  The cow was bad enough, he would *not* do that to a person, even one as loathesome and deserving of pain as Jirou.  The boys thought he was reacting to the jibe, however, and laughed.

“No, I suppose not,” Jirou said.  “A mother might love even one so odd and malformed as you.  So sad for her…”  Henteko tuned the boy out.  If he continued to listen, he would lash out, either with his fists or his mind, and either would go very poorly for both of them, in varying degree depending on which happened first - Jirou was a skilled and confident fighter, in a physical contest he would demolish Henteko.

There must be some other way, but he couldn’t think straight, his mind was swirling with Jirou’s arteries, and his words which cut so deeply, and he just wanted so much - he wished he could just not be there - be somewhere that he looked like everyone - somewhere he fit in - somewhere ELSE -

Confused exclamations.  But faint.  Growing fainter.  Gone.

{Local Date: 02-21-1972 09:06}

Cohort 6 of Banananke District Underschool #21 was going on a field trip to Yamagata prefecture.  The trip had many purposes.  One, the first novelty for the children, was to demonstrate the reality of the technological continuum.  A couple of the luckier children had already been to the north, but most people in their district were too poor to take such trips, so most of the children had never been outside Neo-Tokyo.  Thus there was much excitement as they found themselves transferred from one of the modern electric speed trains to a *steam* train on one of the northern lines.

Their teacher explained as they traveled how the scientific principles that allowed engineering to work reliably changed between the City and the north…they stopped working as well, or as predictably, or sometimes at all.  That is why the electric trains could not be used on this route - only steam technology is reliable the whole way.  He consulted his (spring-wound) watch, then activated several inexpensive battery powered flashlights, and handed them out to nearby students, instructing them to pass them around, use them freely.  They did this agreeably for about three minutes, until they all started flickering, then went out, and would not turn back on.  One child exclaimed that his digital watch had also stopped working.  He enjoyed the brief focus of attention this gained him, until the teacher explained that his watch might well not work properly even after they returned to the city - this was why the students had been instructed to leave all such items at home, he reminded the student pointedly.  He explained, noting that advanced technology didn’t merely stop working here, it usually “degraded” somehow, became useless even when returned.  The teacher suggested if this was in fact the case, the class might examine the inner workings of the unfortunate student’s wristwatch to see if they could determine what had happened inside it.

Eventually the train arrived at its destination and the children moved to a long horse-drawn wagon.  It was now empty, on its way back to the farms after its cargo of food had been transferred to the train.  During their bumpy ride, the teacher explained how, given the Isolation, it was more important than ever that the Empire work efficiently to ensure the prosperity of its citizens.  He briefly described the organizational challenges in distributing food, given the technological gradient.  The students dutifully paid half-attention to this while looking around avidly at their bucolic surroundings.

Their first stop was a shrine.  Here was the second purpose of the trip, which itself was twofold.  In small part to demonstrate the reality of overt workings of natural kami to city-bound children who could thus have never witnessed them - the “kami of technical devices” were too strong and “quieted” them within city limits, whereas the opposite was true here.  But the greater part of the second purpose, one undisclosed to the students, was to observe them for signs of aptitude, that potential priests might be properly nurtured - something which would tend not to happen in Neo-Tokyo.

The children were gathered together while a priest made small, undemanding requests of the kami, moving very small objects about, causing wind - the sort of thing one does to ensure one’s spirit is leveled before beginning a meaningful task, but impressive to children, particularly ones who had never before seen it done in person.  Throughout, the priest would occasionally exhort the children to aid him in these workings by calling out particular words.  These expressions were esoteric in nature, but had no particular target.  They would merely make it apparent to one of the proper training which children’s spirits were attuned to this sort of energy.  Naturally, several such individuals observed the students intently during this exercise.

The lone caucasian (apparently) student did not enjoy this.  Not as a matter of simple preference, or for any philosophical reason.  He found the idea of kami as interesting as anyone did, and would not have found himself unhappy if he became a priest.  His displeasure was more direct - as he joined with the other students in repeating each odd word the priest suggested, his head began to throb.  He’d been waking up with mild headaches more and more often over the past few months, but they quickly faded with the beginnings of his day.  This was worse, sharper.  But he could not stop - even in a culture which highly prized unity, he took extra care to fit in as best he could, and he refused to make so blatant a misstep as breaking a coordinated group activity.  But every word he spoke made it more painful.  He began to wish fervently that the activity would end, and he did not care how.

The priest’s attention was beginning to wander.  He himself was not sensitive to auras, so his only task was to continue directing the students and to keep the overt activity sufficiently interesting to excite their spirits, were any of them destined to sing with the kami.  So he nearly choked in surprise when one of the invisible layers of energy which protected him from supernatural assault buckled and vanished.  He held himself calm - only one of many, he was in no danger.  He would have casually glanced about to see if someone was playing a joke on him, but found that unnecessary for multiple reasons.  All the observing priests, unlike himself *very* sensitive to auras, were staring intently at the peculiar caucasian-looking boy, who was in the process of toppling over into the student next to him, blood dripping from his nose.

A short time later, the student woke in a small room on a simple cot.  A priest, not the one who had been directing the students, sat on the edge of the cot, regarding him thoughtfully.  When questioned about what the boy remembered, Henteko explained honestly.  The priest considered this briefly, then shrugged and began to explain certain things.  He explained how the student had done something, it was unclear what, that might have harmed the other priest - would certainly have harmed the average person - and he should attempt to be more cautious with his thoughts in the future, as difficult as that might sound.  The boy was concerned, and confused, and mildly excited.  He asked if this meant he had talent with kami, that he would become a priest.

The priest tried to explain as gently as he could that it did not.  That perhaps the student had talent of some kind, but it was not with the kami - the priests did not know what it was.  The boy’s expression darkened swiftly, as did his aura.  This was an old wound, the priest sensed, newly reopened - and given his appearance, the source was not hard to guess.  The priest considered him, then said that while there is much to be said in favor of unity, nothing in the world is created identically to anything else.  The most interesting things in life came up when one studied the differences, the bits that made any one thing unique from all others - for every object and creature had them if one knew where to look.

The boy lifted from his darkness slightly, asking if the priest meant DNA.  The priest laughed briefly, and said that in the case of creatures, that was an excellent example.  Your fellow students who seem so similar to each other, compared to you, are yet as unique to each other as a man is to a flower.   Not perhaps expressed in terms of numbers, but fundamentally - different is different.  Your differences may just be more obvious than theirs, but they are all there to be found, for one who seeks.

This seemed to have thrown the student deep into thought, and cleared up his aura, so the priest returned him to his class, who was just finishing their tour of the shrine area.  Immediately there were ripples of reaction to his presence - his fellows had just been re-acquainted with the unusual nature of this child, and they began to show it, with subtle words or gestures.  The priest was joined by others, who watched the children quietly for a few moments.  They were unsure what to make of him, but were certain that a study of it should begin.  It was known that the forces of the kami could be manipulated by means other than the traditional, but this was downright odd, even in a world where odd had become somewhat accepted once again.

{Local Date: 01-16-1960 13:04}

From: Neo-Tokyo Police Forces, Imperial Division

To: Hiro and Midame Yamane, 3-13-4, Bananake, Neo-Tokyo

Respected Sir and Madame,

We apologize for any distress the delay in our findings may have caused your family.  Given the unusual circumstances, we are certain you understand our need to be as thorough as possible in our investigations, and the unavoidable slight upon the honor of your family is deeply regretted.

To summarize: We were alerted to this case by officials at the Bananake district hospital on Jan. 14, upon the birth of your son, who bore clearly non-Japanese features.  Our account of the movements of Shinsengumi in this area over the past year is complete - furthermore, genetic tests confirm that you are both parents of the child.  Thus the child is a full citizen and any question of his being imperial property is firmly laid to rest.

However, there are certain irregularities in his genetics which cannot be accounted for by normal chromosomal mixing.  We have been unable to conclusively determine the source of these irregularities - the best explanation to date, while unlikely, is that certain germ-line mutations took place in each of you, due to your weak exposure to the Tokyo Event.  It is these changes which have caused his unusual appearance.  To your great fortune, the mutations do not appear to have resulted in deleterious effect (aside, of course, from the regrettable differences in facial structure and skin tone).  However, these changes may yet result in additional unusual phenotype characteristics.  We politely request you inform us of any notable characteristics that may develop - any advanced medical treatment required by such characteristics will of course be swiftly and respectfully provided by government specialists at no cost to you.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding in this delicate matter.

With Humble Apologies and Great Respect,

[signed]

Akiro Watanabe

Chief Inspector

Neo-Tokyo Police Forces, Imperial Division

cc: Special Projects, Imperial Ministry of Medicine