Chapter 3
Inquiry

"I’m so sorry to wake you, but we do have some sketches to complete, Miss Landon."

Sarah was bleary-eyed and looked frayed well beyond her years that morning, as if some great exhausting task had been set to her that had tugged at and pulled apart the very fabric of her being. Whatever the reason, her figure drawing instructor would not let her forget it.

"I’m sorry, it was a long night."

"Assuredly. So long, in fact, that apparently you are still in the midst of it."

It was more true than she thought, but Sarah declined to comment. "I’ll try to wake up a bit more."

"I sincerely hope you will do more than try. Please, do try to capture a bit more of the stretch in the shoulder blades."

Sarah attempted to focus on the model, a young and supple woman lying on her side and supporting herself on one elbow, but her eyes seemed to strain into the distance, looking past to something that was completely absent.

Her sketch, correspondingly, suffered. When the time came to produce a watercolor of the subject, who had long since left, she panicked and made her best guess at the proportions and hoped it was right.

"Ah, Miss Landon, very good. But perhaps you would to do well to notice that the model for the watercolor was meant to be the man who was here before you deigned to regain consciousness after the woman had left."

"Sorry, sorry! I didn’t know, I’ll start over –"

"No need. I can see something momentous must have happened, and as I don’t believe it involved alcohol, I’ll let it slide. But get some rest next time, please?"

"Yes, I will, thank you."

Sarah had been up for many hours arguing with herself over whether to confront the bank teller or not. Something told her that he might have some knowledge of what was causing her to go on her nighttime wanderings, but at the same time, if he didn’t, or if she had merely imagined him on the bridge that morning, she would look crazy, or even worse, like a fool. Neither alternative was particularly attractive; still, she ran over all the situations in her head.

More chillingly, she wondered why he had been so macabre when he first spoke to her. Had he been hoping to influence her in her suggestible state? What could he possibly have meant by telling her "four seconds"?

Worse still, what if he did know what was happening to her, but refused to tell her the reason? Then again, she suspected that no one could be so cruel. Her mind was yet untouched by the suspicion that innocence did not exist: in this way, it was a paradoxical proof of her own inevitable fall from naivete.

She packed up her sketchpad and resolved to go and see him right away. If he did not turn out to be the one, at least her half-asleep mind would no longer be haunted by thoughts of the fall.

Sarah walked into the bank. There was no line at this time of day; she walked directly underneath the atrium and paused. This was a very old bank, which still had desks equipped with low green lamps controlled by pull cords, ornately wrought metal and a certain magisterial quality which the new, generic branches could not hope to match. It was an edifice that was inescapably tied to the old ways, and she felt strangely ancient simply by being inside, as though she were a librarian amidst the tomes of Alexandria, already drowned in the sea, sifting through the stacks with a watery gaze –

"It’s true, you know."

She was jolted out of her reverie with a shocking abruptness. "So it was you!"

"Yes. You’re in no danger, mind you, I just thought it was an interesting fact," said the man in the spotless suit, toying idly with his cufflinks.

"Aren’t you a rather strange one, to be telling girls such things late at night, all alone?"

"I do not presume to judge, since it seems to me that this whole conversation is strange. Anyway, it was early in the morning if you wish to be technical."

"I suppose I’m at a bit of a loss. Do you know anything about... well... do you know where I was going?"

"How could I?"

"You seemed to be more on top of things than I, at least."

"I ask again, how could I?"

"That’s your affair. Nevertheless, you might. You still haven’t answered my question."

"It’s not for me to say."

"So that’s it, then. You only intended to let me know that you were in on the game, but never had any thought of revealing your role in it," Sarah said in frustration.

"A game? I wish I had the opportunity to tell you the tale. But no, there is no game. Only you, and your questions, and time."

With that, he stood up and walked out of the bank. Sarah wondered that he could leave so freely, but he was probably on his lunch break, if indeed he worked for the bank at all. Such a peculiar man was not certain to have any semblance to a normal connection with reality, considering his past behavior. Then again, she was forced to question her own grasp on the present, seeing how easily she slipped into and out of trancelike states and seemed at times to lose control of her actions, given over to some kind of metaphysical ecstasy that transcended the moment and made her pursue extraordinary endeavors.

There was little doubt, however, that he knew more than he claimed; she resolved to find him again and not let him go until he answered at least some of her queries. Throughout the interview, she had noted that he was almost unwilling to be so circumspect with his answers, as though a great force bade him be silent even in the face of her forthrightness and intensity.

She traveled next to the student union, looking for some more mundane contact to ground her again in the world of the ordinary. Her friends from Art History smiled at her, waving affably. Little did they know what could possibly have transpired with the suited man, and she had no intention of telling them; her new-born second life must remain strictly a secret until she determined the meaning of her own inexplicable actions.

***

It was not yet light out, but Michio found it impossible to sleep any longer. Rousing himself, he put on a jacket and stepped into the brisk night air.

"Good evening to you," called a woman who stood at the end of the path.

"Good evening... who are you?"

"I’ve been very worried about you, Michio. You hardly ever come to see me anymore, and I’ve grown quite lonely. I even considered – drastic measures, shall we say, for us to meet again. But this will do, I suppose," she replied, adjusting the hood of her cloak. The woman was a lively young sprite, with petite features and a coquettish look that seemed to conceal an element either sinister or merely mischievous, although it was impossible to tell which. Her was long and colored a very pale shade of blue that was almost white.

"You must be mistaken. I’ve never seen anyone like you before in my life."

"Come now, you can’t mean that you’ve forgotten! Really, you should know better than that."

Michio felt that life was being patently unfair in confronting him with so many inexplicable phenomena. It was enough that he had been forced to question the framework of his entire reality and been hounded by some illusory trickster in a Noh mask, but this was too much to bear.

"Perhaps I’ll just go inside now."

"Oh, don’t go! I was just toying with you, but I really do have something to tell you."

"And that is?"

"I’m something of a connoisseur when it comes to your work."

"That’s very flattering, but most of it has been published under a host of different pseudonyms thus far, and I was under the impression that no one could possibly know about it except for the printers themselves."

"That is as it may be, now. However, I assure you that I have amassed quite a collection of your work under your own name, and wondered if you might autograph one of the selections for me."

She held out a handsomely bound hardcover copy of a novel, which read "The Remembrance of Spring" and had the name Okakura Michio emblazoned underneath.

He had never written anything by that name. Intrigued beyond all possibility of redemption, he reached tremulously towards the volume. "Might I see that a moment?"

"Certainly, and here is a pen while you’re at it."

Michio flipped through the pages of the volume. Here and there he noted a passage that appeared to have been cribbed from his earlier, unacknowledged works, but much of it was new, and he was somewhat surprised by the extensive volume of text that seemed like the work of a more experienced writer.

"Where did you get this?"

"In a used bookstore. One never knows what one will find in a used bookstore."

Quite confounded, he decided he had no choice but to sign his name on the front page. If he was supposed to have written a novel that could compel such loyalty, he would welcome the chance to be associated with it, even if its provenance was more than a little enigmatic.

"I am greatly indebted to you," the woman replied. "Well, I must be off –"

"Wait! I don’t even know your name. To whom have I done such a courtesy?"

She grinned. "That would be telling. I too have my reasons for maintaining a modicum of secrecy and discretion."

"But at least I must inquire as to the way in which you acquired this, since, to be honest, I haven’t written it yet."

"That is no obstacle. We are the embodiment of all that we have been and ever will be. Consequently, the book which you will write is already here in your hands, and I have already left and returned from you many times before. I augur that you made yesterday a voyage on a great vessel, to arrive in a place full of marvel and the multiplicity of thought on which you thrive. If you survived, that is."

"You are too cryptic. Please, just a single clear fact that I can hold onto."

She smiled luxuriously and, rather than walking away, simply faded.

Michio sighed. Today was clearly not destined to be the return to sanity that he so desired. He returned to the cluttered desk and thought about trying to capture in writing what he had just experienced, but it was too difficult. The closeness to the subject made it impossible. How was it that anyone could ever write an autobiography, he mused, if they had the obligation to depict themselves in any sort of earnest way? The dialogue would have to be improved for one thing. The characters, too, would have to be compressed onto the page, just as if one were making a sketch; flattened, yet idealized, viewed from a different perspective. And how to forge a cohesive mass out of something so chaotic as a life? Never mind the bizarre circumstances which he had experienced of late; the mundane presented an infinite number of challenges all its own.

He wondered also what she had meant by the boat. Given as he was to a poetic sort of obscurity from time to time, he knew that there was often a kernel of solid intent beneath the vague clouds of literary fervor into which one could occasionally float away. It was nevertheless beyond him to divine the reason behind this assertion.

Bereft of any other activity, Michio resolved once again to sit down and try to write. He had no idea what was going to come of this newest attempt, but he grew more intent as time went on, the story developing into a kind of fable after the fashion of Aesop and the ancient Greeks. His awareness of the outside world dropped to nil, as he became so engrossed in the story that it was as if he had entered an entirely separate realm of existence.

—–

An old koi, solemnly, without haste or avarice, swam in a pond between the roots of the lily-pads and nibbled at them with a distinctive and noticeable restraint. The water insects chattered among themselves; why was the koi so calm, so studious and industrious in its movement, they wondered?

Hearing them, the creature replied, "I act as I do for it is the best way to act, and no other is as suitable for me."

They were skeptical, and asked again, why the fish believed that he was justified in treating himself as unique among the animals in the pond.

"I do not treat myself alone as unique, but have realized that the others, too, have a best way to live, and merely try to follow the dictates of my own ideal lifestyle as best I can," he said.

The water striders, suspicious as they were, accused the koi of being contemptuous of them for their hasty movements which seemed jittery and unstable by comparison.

"Believe me, my friends, I make no such distinction. Each one must act after the manner of his kind. When I was young, I too moved about swiftly, and thought that I must do so or my life would be wasted. Now I grow old, and move more slowly, yet I do not feel that my actions in youth were a mistake. There is room enough to accommodate all types of beings in the pond, be they quick or patient."

Relenting, the insects concurred that perhaps there was merit in what he said, and continued skating across the water as was their perpetual custom, letting the koi exist amongst them unperturbed.

When at last the insects came to lay their larvae in the pond, the koi came at once and ate them all up.

"Why did you do that?!" cried the water striders. "We trusted your honesty in making a speech about each living in the manner of his kind, and now you have betrayed us!"

The koi smiled sadly. "I am sorry, my friends, but this too is a part of life. I eat that which I was made to eat; just as you consume the larvae of mosquitoes without a second thought, so do I eat your larvae in the unconscious state of total perfection that is my duty and my only path for action."

"Yet by commenting on your state, you have just raised yourself to the level of consciousness, and must therefore be accountable for your acts!" the striders persisted.

"Well then, the answer is simple. I will never speak again," said the koi, and he lapsed into an unbreakable silence, and the pond went on in its cyclical fashion as the seasons whirled on a celestial dial. The carp’s body gracefully descended, and a dark cloud swept overhead a thousand days in mourning.

***

“I’ve done some research on the Noh plays. Some of them are quite intriguing, you know.”

Bernard sipped some of Alice’s freshly-brewed tea. She, being of a classicist bent, insisted upon making it the old-fashioned way, reasoning that only the conjunction by chance of the variables of temperature and atmosphere could produce a truly satisfying cup. It seemed as quaint as the belief that one could tell the future by the settling of the tea leaves after one had finished, and equally harmless as long as it was not taken too seriously. It was his opinion that the aleatoric nature of her process was at odds with the prevailing doctrine regarding how people’s tastes worked, but it was nevertheless a delicious beverage.

“They have a certain beauty about them, very fantastic. Rife with spirits and demons, jealousy and love, the old writers captured the wide range of human emotions within the style. You might like to read some, as antiquated as they must seem to you,” she continued.

“I’m sure it’s all very interesting, but I’m still preoccupied with the very contemporary man that I saw. Last night... It was like a weight bearing down on my mind, a persistent pressure of sorts. I dreamed that he stood outside as I slept and was trying to enter my thoughts, without moving. ”

“Perhaps he was,” she replied, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.

“You don’t really believe... well, I see you do. And if so, what are we to do?”

“Nothing, for the present. We have no way of knowing where he is, and anyway we have more pressing concerns to worry about.”

Bernard paused. Alice and he were both very close in the aims of their work, although their fields of study differed; both were part of the council of professionals who were selected to act as a defense against the impending crisis that would signal the breakdown of their society as it was. While Alice’s task was to perpetuate the history of the world, at least in those fields that were of particular interest to her, she had a significant role to play in the future. If, as was a very real possibility, humans were to lose affective capability by the next generation, she had the obligation to chronicle the entire development of human society, in the hope that at some point when humanity evolved its own solution to the problem of their tremendous loss, they would not have forgotten their past, and could hope to avoid the mistakes made by so many civilizations while duplicating the successes. Hers was not a history of names and dates, but one of cultural movements, artistic development, and the prevailing emotional attitudes of ages past. Anything which could inform people of how to better themselves was to be recorded in the annals that she and others collected.

It was a unique characteristic of the world-spanning society of the 22nd century that no one was forced to take on a task for material gain. The many failures of Marxist ideology had always been explained by the rationale that human nature would not permit a society in which all were equal, since there was the need for a backbone of manual labor to support any shining edifice of egalitarianism, and this underbelly was invariably the source of class division and resentment in every culture. But these transitory failures were not a falsification of the theory itself, but a reflection of the times in which they occurred. The technology to carry out agricultural and manufacturing tasks with no human intervention did not exist in those epochs, whereas with the advent of real artificial intelligence and a few advances in robot locomotion and vision, machines more than capable of bearing the entire burden of primary and secondary sector development were present in every corner of the globe. The key to the Mechanist revolution was thus the attraction of a life of complete liberty, which was given to everyone in society.

There was also the benefit of the fact that commonly-held pathologies such as violence and discrimination no longer had a socioeconomic basis to exist, and so those who were acting under no external compulsion against the interests of society as a whole had no recourse to explain away their actions. Prisons did not exist in the same sense as before, but there was no need to keep these individuals away from anyone else; there was no weaker party to be abused, no one left defenseless by the ubiquitous machines, and no one had access to greater resources that would allow them to exploit anyone else. Deprived of their only possibilities to fulfill their irrational desires, most simply gave up and lived a normal life, while those who could not give up so easily were taken into mental hospitals whose caretakers had a genuine interest in seeing them improve.

This was the other great innovation of the new society. People did whatever they wanted, as long as it did not harm others; thus, there were no more teachers who despised children, or doctors who did not care about their patients’ health. Humans were still fallible, of course, but if someone made a poor choice about their career or lifestyle, there was no longer an insurmountable penalty in the form of economic ruin; they simply changed again.

At the outset, there was a tremendous amount of resistance to the massive changes being wrought in the global order. Demagogues the world over arose to combat the menace of the machines, claiming that they would rise to destroy us or, more transparently, that they couldn’t be understood and were thus evil. Fortunately, after a few decades passed completely without incident, these claims faded into obscurity. Likewise, those who were tied up in the idea of war and revolution being the only possible states of existence had no stage on which to project their violent fantasies, revealing their illusions for what they truly were.

A common objection to the possibility of utopia, namely that it would be boring, was also struck down readily. The greatest proliferation of artwork in the history of mankind occurred; a worldwide renaissance, prompted by the total economic independence of every individual on the planet, meant that wholly new ideas that would have otherwise never come to light were being produced at an astonishing rate. This total democratization of the artistic world meant that works were judged by their merit, as measured via popular interest, rather than some artificial conception of “commercial appeal”; this extension of the potential of the comparatively limited Internet was a realization of all that could be created by human ingenuity, and the infinite potential for new combinations meant that boredom was not even within the realm of possibility.

It would be, then, a tragedy of the highest order if people were to be forever restrained from taking advantage of the benefits of all that their technology had brought in such a short time. This was why Alice and Bernard took their mission so seriously; they held in their hands the fate of the entire human race, along with a select cadre of researchers who were working to prevent, or at least partially alleviate the problem. There was always the potential that they would be unable to do anything with a lasting effect, but the least they could do was try.

The greatest obstacle was having too great of an expectation on oneself, due to the direness of the issue and the urgency infused in the concern. The fact that more and more children were born each day who showed a deficiency in charismatin did not make it any easier to find a substitute. In fact, more innovative thought was needed to produce a lasting solution, as they all knew, but hope that the stopgap measures in place would somehow ward off disaster was the only supposition to which one could cling.

This baroque meditation occurred within a short objective time, but it seemed that an entire century had passed for Bernard before he finally concurred with Alice’s assertion that there were more pressing issues.

“I haven’t forgotten. But each time I look into the genetic code, I see our ruin approaching on the horizon. It seems hopeless.”

“There is always the possibility that people weren’t meant to live like this,” Alice mused. “It seems that perhaps things were a little too idyllic and we have grown complacent. I’ve always thought that a spontaneous mutation would eliminate whatever is usurping the requisite genes, once people have gone out and lived in the world per se again for a few generations.”

“How can you be so cavalier about the suffering that humanity will undergo in the interim?”

“Cavalier? Far from it, I care very deeply! Remember that I, however, do not look in the short-term, but consider only the eventual and past causes and consequences.”

“I value what you do, certainly, but your approach seems to me so passive. Do you feel no compulsion to take an active role?”

“It is not a question of activity, but one of practicality and informed treatment of other members of the human race. I never related well to the development of affective technology, and while I’ll be sad to see it go, it’s never quite been my field.”

“Since I was never a Mechanist, I’m not nearly so devoted to the idea of it, but I certainly acknowledge its importance in the changes that have occurred.”

Alice stirred. “It’s as if, rather than being the revolution that we believed it was, humanity was never destined to escape from its cycle of advancement and setbacks, and it has merely come time for the inevitable fall once again.”

“Perhaps. Still, the consequences of affective technology will never disappear, whether humans control it or no.”

“And in that respect it is no different from any other revolution; we learn something, and perhaps retain some of the historical trappings, but society can’t be held static by any means.”

“But I can’t understand why the genes should suddenly become so susceptible. You’ve noted yourself that humans are biologically not significantly different than they were thousands of years ago, and nevertheless we are changing.”

“Self-examination is the hardest science to practice, but it is possibly the most rewarding.”

“Do you mean to say that I can find the answer merely through considering my own experience?” Bernard asked. “That seems rather implausible.”

“I have my own speculation. If you consider the matter carefully, you may agree with me. But I don’t want to influence you any further. Think on it.”

He was bemused, but had to get back to his day’s work anyway, and excused himself from the table as a result. Throughout the manipulation of the projected genome, his subconscious labored without effect against the tremendous problems posed to it. Only in sleep would it have the autonomy to draw upon the mental resources of the scientist and produce any kind of answer. E-mail: vokuro@adelphia.net