The Thousand Year Beach

by TOBI Hirotaka

  José watched silently as I struggled with the metal. My fingers didn’t escape unscathed, and the finished whales looked just like fish. When José chuckled, I got angry and told him he was being rude.

  “There,” I said, putting one into his ear. I knew everything he wanted to say.

  —I’ve never seen a whale before.

  The excitement of wondering what kind of animal it might be.

  Imagining the seas where whales swim.

  All the AIs in this Realm are the same.

  We love things we’ve never seen before.

  We just do.

  I lapped up the single droplet of blood that welled on José’s earlobe. And then I whispered my promise in his ear.

  “One day, we’ll die together.”

  I said:

  “One day, the time will come when we can die. And when it does, these will be our graves too.”

  That was our promise.

  One day …

  The time will come when we can die.

  Once—

  Long, long ago, on Julie Tappy’s birthday, a guest came to visit.

  This guest was an irregular one.

  When he knocked on the door of Julie’s house, which was also Jules Tappy’s, his heart was halfway dead. It seemed that many parts of him had been damaged as he forced his way into the Realm of Summer.

  Damage to his memory.

  And a slight warping of his psyche.

  Like a slightly canted posture, imperceptible at close quarters, or a note that was just a little flat. A kind of instability.

  He stood before the front door, staring blankly. He did not know why he was there.

  However, his unclouded intellect came to the rescue. What was his place here? How should he behave? The answers were self-evident. He was one of the twisted guests who visited the Realm of Summer.

  He could remember none of his reasons for coming here. But it seemed certain that he was not a regular guest. He had come here out of a very strong feeling that he had to do so. This understanding was enough. For the time being, his sole aim would have to be survival.

  He looked himself over as he waited for someone to open the door. His clothing, his height, and the texture used for the skin of his hands told him that he was in the form of a middle-aged man.

  I’m disguised as Julie’s father, then, he thought, and realized that he knew the name “Julie.”

  Shown into the house, he looked his family over. Survival was possible, he decided.

  And naturally enough, too. This family was here for just that purpose. He was like a Robinson Crusoe that had washed up on a resort island with an ATM card.

  He glanced around the room and considered his options as the tea was being poured.

  The mother of the family was excessively dependent on the father (that is, him). The composition was not so much humdrum as consciously simplified. A design choice, to secure greater freedom of activity for the father. What about the boy? Here, too, things were clear. Romantic feelings for his older sister. Set up to permit guests to hit on the idea of provoking things and watching events unfold. But unless he was mistaken, there was no sign that such a release had actually taken place. That was odd. So the boy was purely decorative? No definitive answer possible yet. He put the matter aside.

  The girl, then. What a wonderful example of the creator’s art she was! An ice maiden in the classic tradition, not susceptible to the advances of the guests. After a few seconds’ thought, though, he deduced that Souci was the key to unlocking her, and lost interest.

  He returned his gaze once more to the younger brother.

  What are you here for, I wonder? To help that charming sister of yours shine more brightly?

  No, that wasn’t it. Interesting, thought the man. This was worth thinking on some more. In which case he saw no reason why he shouldn’t stay the night.

  So he entered his room. He read a book and continued to think. Presumably Julie’s iciness reflected an orientation toward other AIs rather than guests—which, in turn, was due to her role as a healer and easer of pain.

  But what about the boy?

  Why had Jules been designed to long for his sister? The man could not answer this question, which made it highly intriguing. To be precise, it wasn’t the reason so much as the mechanism of not knowing that intrigued him, several levels higher. The cause might lie in the Realm, but it might also lie within himself. What if it was precisely because he was himself that he could not solve the riddle?

  The girl came to his room. They had a simple conversation and he drew her picture in her sketchbook. As the drawing took shape, he began to feel strongly drawn to her. He didn’t immediately understand why, but it came to him in the end.

  Those two black olive–like eyes of hers were alive with a dancing curiosity. They seemed to be closely watching the gap between what he did and said and how he looked. And they seemed to find it amusing.

  This girl was not looking at his guest disguise. She was looking through this form, this disguise, to see him for the irregular intruder that he was.

  She must have noticed right away.

  Intriguing… He was suddenly in the grip of a mania that this word could not come near expressing.

  He wanted to know.

  He wanted to wade in and seize the answer in his hands. He rose to his feet without thinking, filled with a momentary urge to grab her by the shoulders.

  This change in himself perplexed him, and he quickly stifled it, returning to his reading with a cold expression. But he also hoped that this would have certain effects on Julie. Even after she had left the room, he saw the sparkle in her eyes superimposed on the pages like an afterimage. The matter of her little brother became less important to him as he considered what sort of surprise he should give her for her birthday.

  Julie. Nobody knows you yet. Not what’s inside you. That’s what I want to see. And for that, something needs to break. Through that crack or tear, something will surely be revealed. Some visible pattern must be there.

  And that, Julie, will be your soul.

  He rose to his feet, asked the family’s mother where Souci was, then caught the rabbit by the scruff of its neck and returned to the kitchen. At first the family’s mother had been panicky, but in an instant Souci had been cracked between the eyes with the handle of a kitchen knife and was very near death. He brushed his hand against the stockpot and the water it was filled with suddenly boiled. Realizing that he was no mere guest, the mother was frozen with fear. Psychologically flat, senses slightly askew, the man threw the rabbit into the boiling water, then added chopped-up pot herbs in vast quantities to it.

  Meanwhile, Julie, in her room upstairs, decided to adorn herself.

  It was that beautiful time when the summer afternoon deepens into evening.

  Before long the table was set and Julie arrived at the dining room dressed as a girl her age should be. The man felt his heart beat faster. Julie, too, fixed her eyes on him. They did not break eye contact.

  Eventually he removed the lid of the pot and, dizzy with elation, used the ladle to raise Souci’s head high for all to see. And then he was sure.

  He had been right. The thing at her core. Not even the AI designers knew it. The thing growing at her core had, just for a moment, revealed itself.

  A girl like a small, frail, rabbit.

  With one fierce desire:

  She wanted somebody to kill her.

  The girl pressed Souci’s head to her breast in a perfectly natural gesture.

  At that moment the man remembered himself correctly. He remembered what he had forgotten when he intruded as her father.

  He remembered who he was.

  I didn’t come from outside the Realm. I’ve always been a member of this family.

  The riddle of the younger brother, too, w
as resolved at once.

  He shared her pain. The hot stew, boiled to a viscous consistency, afflicted the palms of his hands.

  One day … Under the gaze of Souci’s empty eye sockets, the man, Jules Tappy, whispered a vow deep in his soul.

  Not a promise—a vow.

  He would leave his scalded palms as they were, to seal his intentions.

  One day …

  One day, I vow …

  “One day …”

  Yes, but what came next?

  Jules tried to remember as he listened to the sound of water in the underground chamber. Fragments of himself that had been scattered about inside him faced each other and began to communicate for the first time.

  Jules.

  Old Jules.

  “The man” who had killed Souci that day.

  They were all him. They just hadn’t shared their memories and information.

  They were finally beginning to merge into one. But they weren’t there yet.

  Knee-deep in the cool, refreshing mineral springs, Jules looked up at his sister Julie, who crouched on the throne.

  “Julie! I finally caught up with you,” he said in a loud voice again. “Let’s go home.”

  Julie, who was in the process of lowering herself into José, paused. His voice was reaching her.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. “Don’t do this. You can’t save José. You can’t.”

  Julie rose to her feet and turned to face him.

  “Jules,” she said. “You came.”

  Something hot caught in Jules’s throat. The smile Julie wore was so sad.

  “Please, let me stay here,” Julie said. “I was just saying a prayer for José.”

  “A prayer?”

  “Well, his body’s so cold. I feel so sorry for him. I tried kissing him, and a few scraps came through to me. Enough to understand what they’re making him do. He’s the keystone. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yeah.”

  When building an arch of stone or brick, the keystone was the last piece to be added, right at the apex of the arch. The pivotal stone that accepts and supports all the weight and force in the structure.

  “So …” Jules scolded himself internally before continuing. “How long will you be?”

  “Hmm … I suppose until things get a little easier for José. Until he can sleep, perhaps.”

  She spoke as if she were sitting at the bedside of an unwell lover.

  In a way, she was. José had been minutely partitioned, but he was still alive. And the suffering he was undergoing was more terrible than that of any other AI.

  Jules began to wade forward through the water, parting it with his knees. Slowly.

  “Come on, you can’t stay there forever. Let’s go home. Together.”

  “Go home? To where?”

  “To me.”

  “Oh … I see.” Julie laughed through her tears. “Thank you, cousin.”

  Jules shook his head.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said.

  It had been after the Grand Down, after she had left home and taken the name “Printemps,” that Julie had started calling him her cousin. Partly to tease him, and partly as an accusation. And Jules had never done anything but shrug it off, with a “Stop that” or a “Give it a rest” or a “That’s mean” or just a rueful smile. Should he have done more?

  “Julie,” he said. My sister.

  “Keep away from me. I want to stay here. I’m fine, Jules.”

  Jules tried to advance. The ripples spread from his knees. Once they had advanced a certain distance, they slowed without losing their shape. That was where time changed. Julie was slowing it down.

  And then another standing screen of time appeared, right before his eyes.

  A boy stood between him and Julie, blocking the line of flow there.

  “Hey there,” the boy said. “I’m Langoni. The commander of these guys.”

  Spiders large and small appeared from the water and spread out in formation, partly to protect Langoni and partly to surround Jules. There were five or six at least, and more underwater.

  “I can’t let you go any farther,” Langoni continued. “The situation hasn’t stabilized yet. You’d disturb things.”

  Jules glanced toward Julie. Was she already completely inside the liquid glass? This boy had said that the situation wasn’t stable. Yes—the fact that the boy felt the need to block the way was hope in itself.

  Langoni waited silently.

  “When the situation stabilizes,” Jules said, choosing his words carefully, “what will happen?”

  “Our work will be complete. At long, long last.”

  The forest of glass, the crown of pain—and Julie the final piece.

  “Julie and José are a pair,” the boy said. “They function as one. Don’t confuse this with two AIs who function the same way. They were originally one function that was split into two on purpose. Jules Tappy, what do you think the essence of that function is?”

  “To ease the suffering of the AIs in the realm. To stabilize their emotions.”

  “That’s what it does. Its effect. I’m asking about its essence. Put it this way: they ease pain, correct? They’re not an antidote but an antipyretic. They treat the symptoms, and temporarily at that. Their essence is this: postponing catastrophe. That’s why they have to be two.

  “It’s a cruel setup, isn’t it? The two people in the Realm with the most empathy for suffering are also the two who support that misery at its foundation. Oh, and you too, of course.”

  Jules nodded. The function of Julie and José was split across the two of them for a reason. That bifurcation into two opposing poles stabilized the AIs’ emotional balance. José, standard-bearer of labor and friendship; Julie, agent of desire and consolation. The two of them were essentially drawn together, but their union had to be prevented. This was where Jules fit in. His role was to pull Julie’s feelings in the opposite direction, rein her in. Julie was drawn to both, but could not be permitted to settle with either. Of course, the same conditions had surely been placed on José. Anne, no doubt.

  Thus was the kingdom of feeling in the AIs’ background managed, with the throne vacant and ruin postponed. Absent a cruel mechanism of this sort, the Realm of Summer could never have withstood the abuse its guests trafficked in. But now the throne had been put to use.

  “But none of that matters anymore. You’ve all been freed from your roles. Jules, it’s your right to call out to Julie, but it makes trouble for us. Without a keystone unifying the function of Jules and Julie, we wouldn’t be able to control this.”

  Langoni looked up at the ceiling. Thousands of AIs were buried alive inside it.

  “And how is this,” asked Jules, “connected to the Angel?”

  “Wow! You saw it?” Langoni sounded genuinely impressed. “You’re a sharp-eyed one. Yes, this construction has to do with the Angel. What we were trying to make? Exactly the same thing as you. A trap.”

  “A trap.”

  “Yes. This roof might not seem to retain much of its original form, but it’s preserving the frame of the hotel security system. We borrowed the TrapNet concept whole.”

  “Who are you setting the trap for?”

  Langoni tilted his head and smiled, looking Jules right in the eye.

  The answer was self-evident.

  This was a trap for the Angel.

  What the Angel was, on the other hand, Jules had no idea.

  That frost-covered statue had been chillingly alien. Its form was humanlike, but it was not even an AI. Jules suspected it was alien to Langoni as well.

  Probably, just as his intuition had taught him, the Angel was monstrously dangerous. So dangerous that it couldn’t be touched with bare hands, or indeed with anything but some sort of TrapNet—just like this o
ne.

  Capturing the Angel.

  Using the fearful voltage of pain that this net was charged with to seize it.

  That was the goal of the trap.

  Everything had been for that purpose… Everything that had happened today had been scripted just for that purpose.

  The Realm of Summer had been chosen to make the trap.

  The entire Realm had been mobilized, requisitioned, and recast into this form.

  Constructed.

  The statue of the Angel must have been loaded into it to help it ensnare its target correctly. To ensure that the trap could function as an antibody.

  One day …

  One day … What was that vow I made to Julie?

  “We don’t need you to understand. I doubt you could in any case. None of you know how terrifying the Angel is. What a menace it poses to AIs like us. It’s a disaster, there’s no other way to put it, and it’s endangered more Realms and spread more fear and confusion than you can possibly know. José wondered if we mightn’t be from the physical, real world …the world of the guests. Ridiculous!” The boy shrugged with a self-deprecating smile. “We’re nothing but AI, same as anywhere else. We’ve just seen a lot of Realms and picked up a few tricks along the way as we learned how to stand up to the Angel. It’s a phenomenon of a completely different dimension to us. We can’t even touch it. We’re no match for it… But the vigilance committee has to fight it all the same.”

  “The vigilance committee.”

  “The vigilance committee formed to deal with the disaster that is the Angel.”

  Jules was thinking. This AI had power far beyond his own. Overwhelmingly so. Was there a way to get the jump on him? This question had occupied him for a while now.

  He wanted to speak to Julie.

  But he doubted Langoni would allow it. Not when he was one step from completing a mission that meant so much to him. The Spiders had adopted a formation that was absolutely airtight, and they were entirely in Langoni’s domain.

  “Now, if you wouldn’t mind stepping back,” Langoni said, turning his palm toward Jules.

  Jules was out of ideas, but he did not intend to step back. Over Langoni’s shoulder he saw the staircase to where Julie was. All he had to do was climb it. There were things he hadn’t been able to say for a thousand years, and Julie was about to slip far, far out of his reach.