“I’m awake!” Osanai shouted, almost shrieking.
Osanai was in his apartment on the fifteenth floor. His bedroom was full of PT devices. On the bed, Paprika was grappling with him in his pajamas.
“How can you be here?!” Osanai yelled in terror. “I’m awake! I’m not dreaming anymore!”
He hadn’t returned to reality. In reality, she was Atsuko, but in Osanai’s dream she was still Paprika, clinging to him like a bad girl fooling around. Odd, she thought, that she could sense a smell exactly the same as his breath when he’d tried to rape her.
“You only think you’ve woken up,” said Paprika, “but that’s a dream too. You’re dreaming that you’ve woken up.”
Paprika laughed as she reached out toward Osanai’s head. She knew perfectly well that she was in a dream, but she simply had to remove the DC Mini from Osanai’s head. “Hand this over. I’m confiscating it.”
She felt the sensation of something solid in the palm of her hand. The device was attached to Osanai’s head with sticky tape. She pulled it off. She seemed to have grabbed some of his hair in the process, but what the heck – it was just a dream. She wrenched it out with all her might.
“OWWWW!” cried Osanai. “What are you doing? You said it was just a dream!”
In acute pain, Osanai pushed the dream detective away. She hit her hip on something hard and awoke as Atsuko.
She was sitting in front of her PT equipment. Shima was sleeping on the patient’s bed to her right, and Tokita on Atsuko’s own bed to her left. The room was dark, the only light issuing from the monitor screen.
Atsuko’s hip hurt. She must have had an actual pain there, which had registered as pain in the dream when Osanai pushed her away. Atsuko looked down at her clenched right hand. Human hair was protruding from between her fingers.
Atsuko opened her fist and caught her breath. If her two patients hadn’t been sleeping there beside her, she would have screamed aloud. She was holding a DC Mini, together with some sticky tape and a clump of hair. It was the one Osanai had been wearing. “I brought it back with me,” she said to herself. A shudder went through her. “I brought it back.” From the middle of a dream, to the waking world.
5
“Something unbelievable has happened,” Atsuko told Noda when he called the following morning. She didn’t even give him a chance to state his business.
Noda felt inclined to believe the notion, however incredible, that Atsuko had brought something back from Osanai’s dream. But even he couldn’t resist the urge to check the alternatives. “Paprika,” he said with a little groan, “are you sure it wasn’t the one you had before? The DC Mini?”
“It was still on my head. Now I’ve got two of them.”
“Wow. This is serious.” Recognizing the gravity of the situation, Noda chose his words carefully. “Paprika. Is there any way you could see Osanai and confirm this? Make sure you got it from him?”
“I ought to,” Atsuko agreed. “I’ll go to the Institute today and see him there.”
She had other things to attend to at the Institute anyway. There were bound copies of papers that needed sending, as well as an unfinished paper she’d left there, not to mention her private belongings.
“The Institute? Where your enemies surround you?” Noda lowered his voice grimly. “They’ll slaughter you.”
“I’m not a child.” Atsuko laughed. “And in any case, I’ve got the upper hand now. I’ve got one of their DC Minis. They’re the ones who’ll be sweating now.”
“Be careful.”
“I’ll be all right. Thanks. Anyway, what were you calling about?”
“I’ve contacted one of the directors. I already knew Ishinaka, so I asked him to meet you and hear your side of the story. I think you should tell him everything. Toshimi thinks so too. Ishinaka was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed. I got him to contact the other two, Owada and Hotta.”
“Owada’s on our side already.”
“That’s right. He also agreed.”
“And Hotta?”
“Hotta refused, apparently. He says he wants to hear both sides of the argument first. That’s fair enough, really.”
“What’s fair about it?” Atsuko countered with some annoyance, remembering the Board Meeting just two weeks earlier. “He’s on their side.”
“Anyway, will you meet the other two? How about this afternoon? Toshimi and I will join you.”
The Chief Commissioner’s presence would surely impress the enormity of the situation on Owada and Ishinaka.
“All right. Four o’clock this afternoon. We’ll meet here.”
“And how are your patients getting on?”
“Shima’s making a good recovery. I’ll make a proper start on Tokita tonight.”
“In that case, let’s take Shima back to his own apartment. I’ll contact Toshimi and ask him to arrange protection. You can’t do anything with Shima stuck at your place.”
“All right. I’d appreciate that.”
“We should also arrange a watch on your apartment, for Tokita’s sake. I’d rather you didn’t go to the Institute until that’s been organized.”
“Agreed.”
Konakawa turned up an hour later, accompanied by Superintendent Morita, Chief Inspector Yamaji and two Inspectors. One of the Inspectors was a veteran called Saka, a dark-skinned middle-aged man who’d worked his way up through the ranks. Inspector Ube was considerably younger than Saka. He seemed possessed of an intelligence that would eventually place him among the elite ranks.
“These four,” Konakawa said, pointing to his subordinates, “are my right-hand men. You can ask them about anything.”
Atsuko spoke with the officers over coffee. It was decided that Yamaji and Saka would guard Shima while Morita and Ube would watch Atsuko’s apartment. Yamaji and Morita would occasionally return to the Department to see to their normal business. It would be a kind of rotating watch.
Once Shima had been returned to his apartment, Atsuko was to be driven to the Institute in a Met car, accompanied by Konakawa and Morita. Atsuko was concerned that arriving in a police car would cause unnecessary commotion at the Institute. Fortunately, though, the car was unmarked.
Since visiting vehicles could go no farther than the hospital’s front entrance, Atsuko was obliged to pass through the hospital reception after getting out of the car. The doctors, nurses, medical office and administrative staff who happened to be in the vicinity looked on in stunned amazement, stared wide-eyed, or stopped in their tracks when they saw Atsuko. She deliberately greeted them with a cheery smile or a glib wave of the hand as she made her way through to the Institute building and headed for her own lab.
There, she found Hashimoto in the process of taking documents from her drawers and piling them high on her desk, peeping at them whenever he thought it necessary.
“Hashimoto! What do you think you’re doing?” Atsuko demanded, glaring at him angrily.
“This is my lab now,” he replied with a sardonic smile, as if he’d been ordered to taunt her as much as possible.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Atsuko said, snatching her papers from Hashimoto’s hands. “What you’re doing is criminal!”
“It’s your own fault for going absent without leave. If you don’t like it, go tell the Vice President.” He started to pile Atsuko’s personal belongings together on the desk. “Here, these are yours.” He’d brought his own things in and had placed them on the chair.
“I think you’d better stop what you’re doing right now.”
“There’s no place for you here anymore. The system has changed.” Hashimoto was enjoying his moment.
“Is that right. Well, shall we call the police then?” Atsuko picked up the telephone.
Hashimoto instantly reverted to his usual chicken-livered self. “OK, OK!” he whined. “I’m leaving. OK? I’m leaving.” He grimaced and mockingly twisted his body like a girl. “Gee, you’re so scary!”
“Ha! So you’re saying
the whole thing was a joke?” Atsuko laughed back. “In that case, I’m sorry!”
Atsuko picked up the heavy bundle of documents Hashimoto had brought with him, hurling it through the open door onto the floor of the corridor.
Half an hour later, while Atsuko was still clearing up her papers, Osanai walked in. Hashimoto must have told him of Atsuko’s arrival.
“Doctor Chiba.”
“Well! Doctor Osanai. So sorry about last night.”
It was a line she’d prepared in anticipation of his visit. Stunned by her pre-emptive strike, Osanai rolled his eyes in bewilderment. Now Atsuko was sure she’d taken the DC Mini from him in the dream.
“And did you know the DC Mini had such dangerous functions?” Osanai regained his composure and glared menacingly at Atsuko.
Atsuko glared back at him. She pretended to know, to maintain the momentum of her offensive. “What dangerous functions? There are so many. Do you mean the one where the DC Mini can be moved from one real location to another through a person’s dream?”
“From a dream. Not from a real location. From a dream!” Osanai screamed as if momentarily afflicted with madness.
“What? You were awake, weren’t you?”
“No! I only thought I was awake. You said so yourself. After that, I woke up properly.” His hand made an involuntary move toward his head, as if in search of the missing clump of hair. “When I woke up, the DC Mini was gone. You’d stolen it!”
So she hadn’t brought it back from reality via her dream. She’d brought it back from reality via both of their dreams. That aside, Atsuko was bothered by Osanai’s mention of danger. She wasn’t sure what he meant by it.
“Are there any other functions we don’t know about?” asked Osanai. “If there are, you’d better tell us quickly. This device is dangerous. We need to control it rigorously, under high-level isolation and in all secrecy. Please return all DC Minis in your possession to us.”
“Who’s this ‘we’ you keep going on about? Would it be you and your gay lover?” Atsuko countered with a smile. “I wonder if he’s at work yet. There’s something I want to ask him.”
Osanai blushed slightly, but seemed well prepared for the moment when his relationship with Inui would be revealed. He quickly returned to the offensive. “See? If you keep them, all you’ll do is abuse them to pry into other people’s private lives. The Vice President will not be coming in today. Anyway, please give them back to us. You don’t have the faintest perception how dangerous they could be. What if they also had a function whereby not just the DC Minis themselves but other matter could also be brought back from a dream? That would be no joke at all.”
Indeed not, thought Atsuko. In that case, even virtual constructs that only exist in dreams could be made to materialize. Atsuko said nothing. Osanai and Inui may have discovered something while at the experimental stage; he may have been testing her to see if she knew about it.
“There seems to be some mistake here. I’m the one who wants the DC Minis back,” Atsuko said icily. “They’re not playthings for gay sex games. Come on. If you’re not going to give them back, please get out. I’ve got a lot to do.”
But Osanai wasn’t going to back down that easily. He turned at the door and grinned. “The Institute’s policy has changed. You’re no longer wanted here. I reckon you’ll be getting your notice soon.”
6
“So the DC Mini was temporarily reduced to the level of atoms or molecules or whatever, using a function built into the device itself, or possibly the latent psychic energy of the person wearing it, and was then resynthesized, more or less instantaneously, in another place, where someone else was wearing a DC Mini?” Noda said incredulously. “That’s amazing. It’s like something out of a science-fiction story. Teleportation, or whatever they call it.”
“That’s the only possible explanation.” Atsuko felt compelled to agree, although her only knowledge of teleportation came from The Fly, the science-fiction film based on George Langelaan’s story.
“I tell you, if PT devices hadn’t already been developed, we’d be falling around laughing at the idea,” Owada said with a groan. “I’m beginning to think we shouldn’t be surprised at anything Tokita invents from now on.”
“No, no. I think this function developed itself spontaneously, as a side effect,” said Atsuko. “It has nothing to do with treating schizophrenics, after all.”
“But anyway, it’s just too incredible. It’s quite literally unbelievable.” Ishinaka wiped the sweat from his brow. “Still, I suppose we shall have to believe it. Because it has actually happened. In reality.”
Chief Superintendent Konakawa, Superintendent Morita, Chief Inspector Yamaji, and Inspector Ube were also present. Inspector Saka was guarding Shima’s apartment. The presence of so many high-ranking police officers left the two directors in no doubt as to the gravity of the matter. Their hearts leapt with astonishment as they listened to Atsuko’s lengthy explanation of the situation so far.
“In that case, this affair can no longer be confined to the Institute,” said Owada, Chairman of the National Association of Surgeons and a man of eminently sound judgment. Now, at last, he understood the reason for the unduly large police presence.
“That’s true, but neither is it a problem we can make public,” said Konakawa. “The Vice President and his gang are banking on that.”
“All right, what about at government level? …” Ishinaka ventured.
“Personally, I think this is a case we should handle by ourselves,” Konakawa said decisively.
Ishinaka wasn’t stupid; even he could appreciate that the matter should be resolved under the cloak of secrecy. But there was an unmistakable air of fear about him. “So, what, in fact, are you suggesting we should do?”
“That’s what we need to talk about,” said Noda.
The discussion moved to remedial measures. It continued for another four hours, until eight o’clock that evening. Not that they’d made any particularly important decisions in that time. They had merely decided some basic principles for the time being; after all, they had no way of knowing how things would develop from now on. Inui would almost certainly call an urgent Board Meeting to solidify his own position. All in attendance agreed that the meeting should be opposed on grounds of Shima’s and Tokita’s absences due to illness. They also considered explaining the situation to as many of the trustees as possible, thereby trying to win their support. Such an approach promised little, however, since they wouldn’t be able to explain the whole truth to them.
Owada left for Shima’s apartment on the same floor, guided by Chief Inspector Yamaji, to examine both Shima and Tokita there. Noda and Ishinaka went to have dinner in the restaurant. They had other business to discuss anyway. Konakawa and Morita returned to the Metropolitan Police Department. Ube went to grab a bite to eat, promising to return soon.
Atsuko cooked some spaghetti and opened a can of seafood, which she stir-fried in sesame oil while blending in the pasta. She made extra portions for Saka and Ube to eat later that night. Noda had brought several cans of the seafood with him, explaining that Atsuko would probably be eating at home more often from now on. He’d arranged for the cans to be prepared specially by a hotel chef he knew. Ube returned just as Atsuko had finished a simple meal of seafood spaghetti and potage soup.
“Will you be treating Mr. Tokita now?” Ube asked as he joined Atsuko for coffee. He looked at her with the keen eye of a young man.
“Yes. I appreciate your being here. I have to go into semi-sleep to carry out the treatment, so I’ll be completely defenseless then.”
“Semi-sleep?” Ube looked puzzled. “Can you make yourself do that?”
“It comes with practice. And seeing another person’s dream itself has a soporific effect.”
“So you mean, you can go to sleep anywhere you like and wake up any time you like?” Ube said with some envy. “We could do with that in the force. Then we could take routine naps while keeping watch o
n someone.”
Atsuko laughed. “It doesn’t work like that. When it’s just for myself, I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep sometimes.”
“And isn’t there a danger that, once you’re inside someone else’s dream, you could fall fast sleep?”
“That’s a big danger. It takes a lot of skill. If my reason starts to feel hazy while I’m in a patient’s dream, I have to wake up immediately. Then again, with the DC Mini …”
Atsuko stopped short. She’d suddenly remembered something that had bothered her during the conversation with Osanai earlier that day. Did the DC Mini have the effect of making the wearer sleep more deeply? The previous night, in her half-sleeping thoughts, she’d been briefly struck by a sense of danger, as if she was falling into a deeper sleep. Even Osanai had been unable to wake up when he wanted to, and he should have been quite adept at using the DC Mini. He thought he’d woken up, but in fact was only dreaming that he had. If this was a side effect caused by anaphylaxis, it would mean that using the DC Mini over the long term could be extremely dangerous. Were Inui and Osanai aware of that?
“Is something the matter?” Ube asked to interrupt Atsuko’s thoughts.
“No,” she replied quickly with a shake of the head. At the moment, it was nothing more than a suspicion. It would have to be confirmed before she could share it with anyone.
Atsuko went into the bedroom. Tokita was still sleeping like a baby. She had fed him some rice soup just before meeting the others. Eating only twice a day might help him lose some weight, but a lack of exercise could make him even fatter, since he was generally inclined toward obesity. Atsuko fitted the gorgon on Tokita’s head. Without warning, the maternal affection she felt for him as a patient merged with her true love for him. She found herself kissing him on the cheek as she started the treatment, aided by the DC Mini.
Atsuko was well acquainted with Tokita’s habitual dreams. But they were difficult to distinguish from those of the equally geekish Himuro, which had been projected into his unconscious mind. Atsuko had no choice but to carefully isolate, one by one, the fragments that could clearly be identified as Himuro’s. If the Japanese doll appeared, she would replace it with machine tools, Tokita’s obsession; if an infantile computer game, PT devices. Luckily, Tokita lacked Himuro’s sweet tooth. Whenever candy or chocolate bars appeared, Atsuko replaced them with grilled aubergine in sweet miso paste, or grilled fish, or some other dish Tokita loved, and was thus able to remove the offending elements immediately. Atsuko started to feel as if she’d reached a turning point in Tokita’s treatment. It was already past midnight.
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