Self-Reference Engine

by Toh EnJoe

  I find it truly regrettable that the tale of Rita and James is not of a sort that lends itself to this sort of convergence. The story of when those two meet again exists only as a point that lies beyond innumerable tales left in the gaps between any other stories.

  I have no way of recounting this tale. The best method might be for me to reel in an infinite number of arm’s lengths and speak only of their shadows. But that much I have already done.

  In the end, the two of them live happily ever after.

  That is about all I can say.

  But what does “live happily ever after” mean? There is room for a question here. For whatever reason, “living” does not mean just being able to do whatever one pleases. And for these two as well, living was not so vaguely defined. It would not even occur to me, though, to be the one to deny that the life they had was a more or less happy one.

  It might be appropriate here to explain a bit just who I am.

  Like most things, I was built as a space-time construct. I am not one of those things whose construction is so impossibly complicated that it couldn’t really exist. I can see you, and I can talk to you, just as I am doing now.

  The reasons why I was built should be pretty clear.

  The only task assigned to me is to tell stories and at some point to opt not to tell stories.

  As for who built me, that is not for me to say. There is no way for me to answer such a simple question. Simple questions do not necessarily have simple answers. The reason why I do not exist as an “I” is that I have no memory of my existence. Most probably, I did not abruptly burst forth from the ether, as something that did not previously exist. Therefore, anyone might have made me. I may even have made myself. I may even be something like the exact opposite of Laplace’s Demon. Because I did not exist in a certain specific instant, I cannot exist in all the eternity before and after that instant.

  I have no need of sympathy. I am greatly enjoying my own nonexistence, and I am making maximum use of it. I am looking at you, being seen by you, and I am telling you this story.

  The giant corpora of knowledge and the hypergiant corpora of knowledge are my enemies, of this there is no question in my mind. They are constantly searching for me, intent on destroying me should they find me. While I can only imagine what it is about my nonexistence that gets on their nerves so badly, the thought darkens my nonexistent heart. I try not to think too hard about it.

  For now, I am continuing my efforts to evade them. Things that do not exist are difficult to find and to draw and quarter.

  That said, I cannot afford to allow myself to believe optimistically that I am safe. I take seriously the threat to myself embodied in the fact that the giant corpora of knowledge are now aware of their own prior extinction.

  In this universe, that which can occur does occur. So what problems would be caused if things that cannot occur do occur? Wouldn’t that simply be the transformation of something that could not occur into something that could occur? I have no conclusive evidence that such an occurrence would be absolutely impossible.

  I do not belong to that set of things that could occur but for whatever reason have not yet occurred. I belong to that set of things that are not defined because they cannot occur; it is only by some strange trick that I do not exist. But someday someone will reach a hand into this area. I only pray that hand is not reaching out to grab me.

  My name is Self-Reference Engine.

  I am a construction that has never existed, that was never designed from the beginning, to not tell all.

  I am the distant successor to those machines that were designed in the beginning: the Difference Engine, the Analytical Engine, the Différance Engine.

  I am completely mechanical, completely deterministic, and completely nonexistent.

  Or I am Nemo ex machina.

  A mechanical nothingness.

  There is fundamentally no way of knowing the nonexistence of my nonexistent self. Therefore, it cannot be that what you are seeing is me. Even if I am aware that I am being seen by you. Even if I feel a twinge of regret at this.

  Before long, I think it will be time for me to fulfill the final task given to me.

  This will be the provisional endpoint of this story. Right now, I am thinking about becoming even less existent. Strictly speaking, I am already not here. The proof of the existence of the mechanical void has already been demonstrated. What is not here is the empty husk of my self. But if I should disappear even further, so that even this form no longer exists, then I will really not be here. I will not exist in any form. It is at this point that I wish to say goodbye, with all the many emotions that salutation contains.

  Goodbye.

  I know I will never see you again.

  But I pray, from the bottom of my nonexistent heart, that somehow, in some somewhere that has become whatever it is to become, in some universe or other, that I will see you again.

  Even if the stories that will emanate from there are nothing more than another endless chain of slapstick.

  I can get over it though, as many times as necessary. Allow me to demonstrate.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Toh EnJoe was born in Hokkaido in 1972. After completing a PhD at the University of Tokyo, he became a researcher in theoretical physics. In 2007 he won the Bungakukai Shinjinsho (Literary World Newcomer’s) Prize with “Of the Baseball.” That same year brought the publication of his book Self-Reference ENGINE, which caused a sensation in SF circles and which was ranked No. 2 on SF Magazine’s list of the best science fiction of the year. Since then, EnJoe has been one of those rare writers comfortable working in both “pure literature” and science fiction. In 2010 his novel U Yu Shi Tan won the Noma Prize for new authors. In 2011 his “This Is a Pen” was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, and he won Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Shouyou Prize. In January 2012, he won the Akutagawa Prize with “Doukeshi no Cyo” (Harlequin's Butterflies). His other works include Boy’s Surface and About Goto.

  HAIKASORU

  THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE

  METAL GEAR SOLID: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS

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  From the legendary video game franchise! Solid Snake is a soldier and part of a worldwide nanotechnology network known as the Sons of the Patriots System. Time is running out for Snake as, thanks to the deadly FOXDIE virus, he has been transformed into a walking biological weapon. Not only is the clock ticking for Snake, nearly everyone he encounters becomes infected. Snake turns to the SOP System for help, only to find that it has been hacked by the SOP’s old enemy Liquid Ocelot—and whoever controls the SOP System controls the world.

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  –EDITED BY NICK MAMATAS AND MASUMI WASHINGTON

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  In the near future, humans will communicate almost exclusively through online networks—face-to-face meetings are rare and the surveillance state nearly all-powerful. So when a serial killer starts slaughtering junior high students, the crackdown is harsh. The killer’s latest victim turns out to have been in contact with three young girls: Mio Tsuzuki, a certified prodigy; Hazuki Makino, a quiet but opinionated classmate; and Ayumi Kono, her best friend. And as the girls get caught up in trying to find the killer—who just might be a werewolf—Hazuki learns that there is much more to their monitored communications than meets the eye.

  TEN BILLION DAYS AND ONE HUNDRED BILLION NIGHTS

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  When her brother Hiroki disappears after a violent altercation with school bullies, Yuriko finds a magical book in his room. The book leads her to another world where she learns that Hiroki has been possessed by a spirit from The Book of Heroes, and that every story ever told has some truth to it and some horrible lie. With the help of the monk Sky, the dictionary-turned-mouse Aju, and the mysterious Man of Ash, Yuriko has to piece together the mystery of her vanished brother and save the world from the evil King in Yellow.

  BRAVE STORY

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  ICO: CASTLE IN THE MIST

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  ROCKET GIRLS

  –HOUSUKE NOJIRI

  Yukari Morita is a high school girl on a quest to find her missing father. While searching for him in the Solomon Islands, she receives the offer of a lifetime—she’ll get the help she needs to find her father, and all she need do in return is become the world’s youngest, lightest astronaut. Yukari and her sister Matsuri, both petite, are the perfect crew for the Solomon Space Association’s launches, or will be once they complete their rigorous and sometimes dangerous training.

  ROCKET GIRLS: THE LAST PLANET

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  When the Rocket Girls accidentally splash down in the pond of Yukari Morita’s old school, it looks as though their experiment is ruined. Luckily, the geeky Akane is there to save the day. Fitting the profile—she’s intelligent, enthusiastic, and petite—Akane is soon recruited by the Solomon Space Association. Yukari and Akane are then given the biggest Rocket Girl mission yet: to do what NASA astronauts cannot and save a probe headed to the minor planet Pluto and the very edge of the solar system.

  USURPER OF THE SUN

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  Aki Shiraishi is a high school student working in the astronomy club and one of the few witnesses to an amazing event—someone is building a tower on the planet Mercury. Soon, the enigmatic Builders have constructed a ring around the sun, and the ecology of Earth is threatened by its immense shadow. Aki is inspired to purs
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  THE LORD OF THE SANDS OF TIME

  –ISSUI OGAWA

  Sixty-two years after human life on Earth was annihilated by rampaging alien invaders, the enigmatic Messenger O is sent back in time with a mission to unite humanity of past eras—during the Second World War, in ancient Japan, and at the dawn of humanity—to defeat the invasion before it begins. However, in a future shredded by love and genocide, love waits for O. Will O save humanity only to doom himself?

  THE NEXT CONTINENT

  –ISSUI OGAWA

  The year is 2025 and Gotoba General Construction—a firm that has built structures to survive the Antarctic and the Sahara—has received its most daunting challenge yet. Sennosuke Touenji, the chairman of one of the world’s largest leisure conglomerates, wants a moon base fit for civilian use, and he wants his granddaughter Taé to be his eyes and ears on the harsh lunar surface. Taé and Gotoba engineer Aomine head to the moon where adventure, trouble, and perhaps romance await.

  DRAGON SWORD AND WIND CHILD

  –NORIKO OGIWARA

  The God of Light and the Goddess of Darkness have waged a ruthless war across the land of Toyoashihara for generations. But for fifteen-year-old Saya, the war is far away—until the day she discovers that she is the reincarnation of the Water Maiden and a princess of the Children of the Dark. Raised to love the Light and detest the Dark, Saya must come to terms with her heritage even as the Light and Dark both seek to claim her, for she is the only mortal who can awaken the legendary Dragon Sword, the weapon destined to bring an end to the war. Can Saya make the choice between the Light and Dark, or is she doomed—like all the Water Maidens who came before her … ?