White Matter

Graeme - Junko's Arrival

Tokyo is a big city. It stutters and hums, honks, burps and growls. The sound of the front doorbell was just another noise. Kurt slept right through it.

It was Junko, the third of our conspiracy. With a finger to my lips, I escorted her past Kurt's recumbent form, through the lounge and to the spare room. "That's him," I whispered as we passed.

Shigeru looked up and smiled a greeting as I closed the door behind us.

"He's very big," said Junko.

"Kurt?"

"But he looks so sweet. Like he's twelve years old. Men do that, don't they? When they're sleeping."

"Sorry," I gestured toward the door. "I hoped you'd have a chance to say hi. Have to wait until next time, I guess."

Junko dismissed my apology with a shrug and a smile.

"Kurt's had a long flight, then he had to stay up late and listen while I told him a few things. Seeing as he can't be with us right now, I thought it a good time for the three of us to hold a war cabinet."

Junko threw Shigeru a confused look and he gave her a translation.

"Who are we going to attack?" she asked.

"Nobody. This is all about self-defence."

"No surprise attacks?" Bright eyed. Junko had that youthful, elfin look that some Japanese women keep into middle-age. Mid-twenties in Junko's case.

"Have you heard the English expression: 'the best form of defence is offence'? We still might need to play some tricks on our enemies."

We adjourned for several minutes while Shigeru fetched a teapot and cups. I spent the time telling Junko about our trip back from the airport.

"So he didn't get angry at you?"

"I think he's forgotten how. I told him there are things we can't tell him because the information could potentially be read out of his brain scans. We might yet need to do some more of them. I believe he accepted the logic. At the very least, he now understands there is more to this than his own personal convenience."

Shigeru poured the tea. "Okay, Graeme," he said. "War cabinet time. Would you like to lead?"

"Best I do, I think. For now." I told Junko about our fun and games in Jimbocho today. Shigeru went all bashful at mention of his win.

I took a sip of tea, taking care in the confined space lest I spill it on something delicate. The array of laboratory instruments that surrounded us left little room for people. We were seated on office chairs, carefully aligned to avoid knee-contact. "The situation is actually worse than what I told Kurt. You know about the gangsters, Junko. They are a threat, but we think we can manage them. We are the golden goose, you understand?" Junko nodded hesitantly. "You don't kill a golden goose. What scares us most about them is the publicity they bring. We would have preferred to stay anonymous until the machine is perfected. Instead, everybody seems to have heard about us now, bad people included. And there has been a new development – it's part of the reason I came over to Japan earlier than planned. We had a visit from a government agent, from some security agency. The fellow was very polite – didn't make any threats, in fact he tried to make out that he had come to offer us protection from criminal threats. But we've had our lawyers check it out and there are some very bad things this agency can do to us. Designate our machine an 'instrument of torture', for example, or declare us strategically important and make our work top secret."

"If it's the government, won't that solve your Yakuza problem?"

"It might. Then again, it might not. The protestors would be livid though ..."

"Libid?"

"Very annoyed."

Shigeru offered some more words, in Japanese. Junko listened without interrupting. When she spoke, it was in English. "So your worry is that you might run out of time?"

"If the government puts a lid on Spurious Developments, getting access to the scanning machine will become too difficult. I'll still be working on it, of course, but using it to do more scans on Kurt and then bringing the data over here – that won't be so easy to arrange any more. In fact if they caught me doing it they could threaten me with prison, use it as leverage and force me to do whatever they wanted. So I believe we need to press ahead with running up the data we have already. I think it will be enough, and there's only one way to find out if I'm right."

"So it's my debut at last, my turn on the stage?"

"Nearly. Some of the data we got from Kurt isn't telling us all we would like. Shigeru and I still have one or two technical problems to solve – they have been causing us some difficulty, but we believe that having Kurt here will help us overcome them. Assuming that works, only a couple more days."

She squared her shoulders and nodded her head.

"You still have time to change your mind, you know. You haven't done anything seriously illegal yet."

"It's okay," she said. "I'm ready." She beamed at us.

"We're really sorry we couldn't think of any other way to do this." I glanced at Shigeru. "Perhaps you should have served something a bit stronger than tea." Together, we looked back to Junko. "You're really sure then?"

"Hai," she said, with a brief bow of the head, her lips tight and her voice emphatic.