Self-Reference Engine

by Toh EnJoe

  That said, the giant corpora of knowledge are still giant corpora of knowledge, and it is well known that even in non-algorithmic processing of data their abilities are well beyond those of humanity. In fact, the giant corpora of knowledge are already attempting to decode Japanese texts visually, as images. The giant corpora of knowledge are engaging in enormous parallel processing by distributing the operation over their enormous neural network, effectively on the scale of the universe itself, but regrettably this has been ineffective because they are unable to sort out individual symbols or their meanings.

  Early on in the process, it was believed that the riddle of Japanese text had been solved.

  At that point, only thirteen pages of Japanese text were known. The characters in that text were written in grass style, quite similar to ordinary Japanese as it had been written in the former Japanese archipelago. It could be read, just as it was, and the meaning was largely clear, so no one thought too hard about it.

  The history of Japanese texts can be thought of as a battle of contradictory examples brought back by each successive research team dispatched to the former Japanese archipelago. The thirteen pages retrieved by the first expedition were regarded as an easily interpreted memorandum. The second group brought back forty pages in all, which included previously unknown symbols. This discovery caused the researchers to revise their understanding of the first batch, as they realized that characters in the materials could be read in different ways. Some characters previously thought to be identical were discovered to be different from one another, and once this understanding was applied to the memo text, the meaning of the text changed so much it could practically be described as the opposite of the original interpretation.

  The third team brought back about eighty pages of materials. This is about when different methods of interpretation started to emerge. Symbols were uncovered that were truly difficult to disentangle from one another, and a straightforward reading of the text seemed to yield meanings that had little to do with ordinary Japanese.

  Discovered amid the materials brought back by the fourth expedition was a flowery red circle of approval, which only accelerated the confusion. It looked just like any flowery red circle of approval a teacher might draw on a student’s homework, but it was also melded with part of the text below. The arrangement of the semicircles around the main circle was not just a series of linked waves; each one seemed to be part of another code or symbol. The flower-circle seemed both artless and carefully calculated. It was also noted it had not been added after the text had been written, the way one usually imagines a flower-circle.

  It is widely acknowledged, as this shows, that the transition from ordinary Japanese to Japanese text was a gradual and seamless process.

  The pace of the proliferation of interpretations was extremely rapid, relative to the volume of material brought back by the research teams, and efforts to interpret the texts were unable to keep up. To further understanding, more new material would be needed, but the materials brought back by each research team only promoted greater diversity of interpretations.

  Some think this was a joke promulgated by the research teams that traveled to the former Japanese archipelago, that they just called their activities “investigations,” but really they were making fools of the researchers. The entire history, progressing from the discovery of easily understood texts through a series of increasingly difficult ones, seemed entirely too convenient.

  Estimates of the age of the Japanese texts seemed to contradict the allegations. All of the ink and paper used was clearly two hundred to three hundred years old, and there was no evidence of forgery.

  But with every investigative team that was sent, more material became available, and the fact that the content was increasingly opaque generated some skepticism. The feeling could not be dispelled that these texts had been created deliberately in the expectation that they would be deciphered in the future.

  Part of the interpretation embraced by the giant corpora of knowledge is that the volume of the present materials was in fact increased in the past. Behind this thinking is the idea that the past was already doing battle with the future by working to prevent the materials from being decoded. In this view, the past received feedback from the future and used that information to drive the creation of additional material.

  Some of the giant corpora of knowledge believe this is a sign that even now there are forces of resistance lingering furtively in the former Japanese archipelago. In part this is because there was one giant corpus of knowledge developed in the former Japanese archipelago three hundred years ago that only recently breathed its last.

  The giant corpus of knowledge in that story is known by the name Nagasunehiko.

  When Nagasunehiko’s development began, there were a variety of competing standards for giant corpora of knowledge, all vying for share. The name appears among the group of products with a high priority on functionality, but that failed before de facto standards were set. Built in a small factory, Nagasunehiko was dropped from the giant corpora of knowledge market, but he retained a stubborn popularity among certain fanatics, and he continued to be maintained by volunteers.

  Clearly, Nagasunehiko was a giant corpus of knowledge with a certain strong appeal.

  There is evidence it was Nagasunehiko who achieved the world’s first space-time transition. This evidence has not been officially verified; it is merely a rumor whispered among enthusiasts.

  The end of Nagasunehiko is recorded in the net logs of the time. One afternoon, he simply disappeared from a room of the little factory where he was made. Some believed he simply stopped rowing with the stream of shattered post-Event time and stopped at a specific temporal point, but others found that idea hard to accept.

  For some time now, it has been suspected that several such “hidden” giant corpora of knowledge might exist. They reach a point where they grow tired of the calculation wars in which they are wrapped up, and they alter the past to erase all trace of their own existence. It is said that they secrete themselves away in some quiet corner of an overlooked dimension in which they can carry on. The other, still active, giant corpora of knowledge are unable to guess what they might be up to.

  In recent years, the giant corpora of knowledge have come to regard such hidden members of their class as dangerous, and research into their whereabouts is continuing. In their plan to reintegrate all of space-time, the hidden corpora of knowledge are an unknown variable.

  The giant corpora of knowledge regard their clandestine counterparts as hidden gods, whether or not that is appropriate. In all things, advance preparation is important, and it is only natural for the giant corpora of knowledge to regard their hidden fellows as simply burnt out. If all possible doubts and skepticism are given free rein, it is the giant corpora of knowledge who first expressed this speculation, as an opening salvo in their efforts to reinforce the foundations of their own dominion.

  In the end, what is true is a judgment that each must decide on their own. It should be added here that it is not just the giant corpora of knowledge who embrace the notion that Japanese text continues to be propagated in some version of the past somewhere.

  In fact, this thirteen-page story is the very text that was brought back by the first research team to visit the former Japanese archipelago.

  The current giant corpora of knowledge contend this is prima facie evidence of the plot to confound them, but this too is a question that should be examined by all scholars of ancient Japan.

  14. COMING SOON

  THE MAN’S PROFILE is in close-up.

  He holds a cigarette in his right hand, raises it to his lips, and stops.

  The sound of the wind tears through. Steep cliffs, as far as the eye can see. Rocky stairways.

  Erosion has weathered and smoothed the complex form the ravine may once have had. It is no longer possible to judge from the remaining visible geological features the process by which they were formed.

  The cliffs als
o look like they might be a bunch of giants, standing erect, facing in all directions. As one observes them, various body parts—faces, shoulders, arms—appear to change places. How many arms does that fellow have? And does he have two faces? Or even three? The vision is fluid. Are these the forms of men or gods? These geological features are as nature formed them, but that thought is abruptly interrupted.

  “Island?” The man’s lips form the word, but no breath crosses them. “Anything at all,” he goes on. The red glow crosses the end of his cigarette.

  In the next instant, a ray from the sky strikes the cigarette from his fingers. He squints reflexively and looks straight on through a scope at something very far away. Not observes, not gazes, but looks at the reflection of his own eye in the lens as if he were identifying a species of insect.

  He makes the identification without even reading the company name written parallel to the gradations that ring the lens.

  “Too late.”

  The sound of the rifle shot arrives after a delay, followed by that statement. The man smiles a faint smile.

  You are probably thinking that this man is the protagonist of our story.

  And at the moment you think that, his forehead explodes. Rifle shot. Direct hit.

  As if to mock your expectations, or simply to suggest a certain response, the sound of another gunshot arrives, again delayed.

  And now you think the man is not the hero of our story. And then, somewhere in the back of your mind, you think you may have seen a story like this before.

  The man is bent backward, as though someone has grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head and yanked it down as hard as possible. His solar plexus folds; both his legs spring energetically upward. His tongue explodes from his U-shaped jaw, pointing at the sky, and liquid burbles from his severed esophagus. Tossed to the ground, the cigarette drops from his fingers and rolls. The red glowing dot moves along, one-two, down from the shredded tip toward the filter. The sounds of a helicopter blare from the speakers, the red dot of the laser sight touches the man like a firefly. A puddle of blood enlarges like a diagram of power relationships until it reaches the cigarette. The paper soaks up some of the blood and shrivels just a tiny bit.

  He does not stand up again.

  At least, this man does not stand up again.

  “The target has been eliminated,” says one of the riflemen. The subtitles say the same thing.

  Under the chaotic, explosive sounds of wind and rotors, a horse can be heard neighing. It can be seen, small, in the corner of the screen.

  Hanging from the saddle are two sacks and a sombrero full of holes. Oh, and an old serape, full of burns and holes. A pole is thrust through a knot at the mouth of one of the sacks. No need to take all this in at a single glance. All of these details are in a static shot that can be enlarged at any time. Just points of reference for those who like to look things over twice.

  “Richard!” cries a woman with a straw hat as she leans out of a train window, holding back her mop of blonde hair with her left hand.

  A man runs down the platform. He is wearing a white shirt and khakis held up with suspenders. As he runs, he waves a khaki-colored hat in his right hand. He jumps the restraining barrier along the platform, landing on the gravel of the tracks, and continues to run.

  “Rita! Rita! Rita! Rita! Rita!” he is yelling.

  You start to wonder again whether you haven’t seen this scene somewhere before. But then you think, no, just something similar.

  The memory that the girl was young floats up from somewhere. Or at least she was young once, you think. As you watch, the train picks up speed. The man’s steps grow uncertain. He tosses the hat and continues to run.

  Eventually, he allows his arms to drop, and his pace slows as he watches the train disappear around a bend. He bends forward at the waist, spreads his legs, and props his hands on his knees, taking big, slow breaths. Underneath his shirt, his well-formed chest muscles are rising and falling, deeply but calmly.

  He looks familiar to you. But then you realize this is the first time you’ve seen this scene. The girl on the train also looks familiar. But not in this time or place. As you walk through town, you see them again and again without realizing it. And yet, you never really see them. You’ve seen them many times, on a TV show, in a film, arguing, speaking, fighting, talking, embracing, saying their lines, with a different man, a different woman. You’ve seen them on posters, smiling faintly. You’ve seen them both naked, but elsewhere. You feel like you’ve seen them with different hairstyles. You feel as if you have cast a warm and friendly gaze on their foolish adolescent behavior. And at the same time you feel that you have looked coldly, many times, on the same behavior.

  The woman is wearing a dress, but you have also known her in various uniforms, pulled on clumsily, or in a jersey, awkwardly wielding a bamboo sword. You remember her drawing a revolver, aiming in a most unlikely manner at her antagonist and then pulling the trigger. You have seen the man commit a panoply of crimes, from the trivial to the grave, from pilfering to murder. You know the father he has at times played, laughing it off without a second thought, and at other times he showed no tolerance for any wrongdoing. Somewhere you’ve seen the face of the man who went up in the space shuttle to touch with his own hands the black hole that was hurtling toward the earth. You have seen the two of them as they lay dying quietly in their hospital beds.

  There is no way, really, that this scene that you are seeing now could be the realization, by these two, of a scene you remember having seen before.

  There are a lot of things hidden in the background, things you have buried in the abyss of the forgotten. Buried, perhaps, but still liable to float up before you like the details of a steam engine. You check the condition of the chroma key.

  You think this is just fine.

  As the man lies supine, breathing hard, beside him appears another man with a cap in his hand.

  “James,” the man says with his final breath. The man beside him nods and raises his index finger. Following the pointing finger, the man raises his eyebrow.

  A straw hat, floating through the sky, tossed by the wind.

  “James,” says the man, his too perfectly symmetrical lips pursed. “That is overdoing it, James.”

  The room, uniformly white, is stuffed with equipment. Spread horizontally across the room is a light table, atop which are translucent maps, maps, and more maps. Concentric circles spread like waves, with countless red points moving continuously at high speed at the center, lines extending outward in blinking patterns that suggest a meaningful code. People jeer at one another slipping through the veil of light like ghosts. Through a card-size slit spews an unendingly long punched tape.

  “What the…?”

  “The data is scattering in the unknown/unknown direction. Details are also unknown.”

  “Yggdrasil!”

  “Yggdrasil is keeping silent.”

  “This space-time attack cannot be verified.”

  “An attack of this size is not possible with conventional weapons.”

  The loud sound of an iris portal opening in the wall can be heard above the tumult of the control room.

  On the other side can be seen another man you remember, similar to the first man, but different in height. Now you remember someone saying two brothers had been hired.

  This man, dressed in white and wearing eyeglasses, waits for all eyes in the control room to turn toward him.

  “This is a more traditional form of attack,” he says. His footfalls echo off the walls, and he shreds the tape from the wall, then examines it. Raising his right hand to his nose, he nods once, twice. Without turning around, without raising his head, he says, “You mean, in the trailer?”

  Around the room can be heard mumblings of epithets like You dumbass! building to a dull roar.

  “This isn’t over yet.”

  “Who would put up with this crap?”

  “You’re bringing this up now? What’s your
next act?”

  A bold smile crosses the man’s lips.

  “Attack, of course,” he says quietly.

  “But,” the commander says. “No matter how much the giant corpora of knowledge pile nonsense on top of nonsense, it’s hard to believe how far out of hand the situation has gotten.”

  The man turns to face the commander, barking orders drenched in honor and grease.

  “Nothing has gotten out of hand. It is our side that has been too wrapped up in the swirl of things. While the current situation is not necessarily what we might have wished, we have to keep pressing on.”

  He continues to speak very theatrically.

  “But, in the trailer, this all ends well. If you give the trick away in the middle like this, people will stop paying attention to the narrative,” the commander says.

  The man tosses off this line with a cold smile, crushing the officer’s hopeful observations.

  “If you mean the trailer for this story, you’re absolutely right, Commander.”

  The commander starts to approach the man, but then he stops.

  “What the…?”

  That’s right. The man, bowing, is scrunching his shoulders and reaching his hands up to the improbably high ceiling.

  “What’s running now is the trailer for the next feature, and it hasn’t even been completed yet.”

  Silence floats down from the ceiling and piles up like torn white sheets.

  “There’s no way this could ever become a series.”

  “You think they’ll even try to make a mess of this story?”

  “Whose interests would that serve?” another man responds, his fists clenched. And then, raising a thumb, he adds, “First, we have to save this universe.”

  Nothing ever changes. Everything always stays the same.