The Stories of Ibis

by Hiroshi Yamamoto

  Isezaki burst into tears.

  “Come, Isezaki. Let us live.”

  Still sobbing, he took Shion’s hand. She helped him to his feet and wrapped her arm firmly around his waist. She carefully helped him over the railing and put him down on the roof. He did not struggle.

  “She did it,” Takami whispered, as if he barely believed it. “She really did it.”

  “Smile, Isezaki,” Shion said, her arms around the crying old man. “There’s nothing left to be sad about.”

  Three days later…

  The Christmas party and Shion’s going-away party were held as planned. Shion and Kasukabe dressed up in red Santa miniskirts and went around the recreation room passing out cake and presents to all the seniors. The presents were handkerchiefs and compacts and cell phone straps and capsule toys donated to the center. Cheap little trinkets, but nobody seemed to mind.

  Toki had finished his rehabilitation and was scheduled to go home by New Year’s. He stood proudly in front of the assembled crowd and demonstrated how to transform the X-Caesar. Shion gave him the peck on the cheek she’d promised, and he was overjoyed. His present was a ten-centimeter-tall figure of the X-Caesar heroine.

  “Ahhh! Karin in her street clothes? That’s rare! I tried fifteen times to get that one!” Takami wailed and began trying to get Toki to sell it to him. He sounded an awful lot like Isezaki to my ears.

  Then we had a big karaoke party, but by then, I was working. We had to get all the cake plates cleaned up, wipe up the spilled drinks, help people go to the bathroom, and so on.

  Pushing a wheelchair back to the recreation room, I heard a clear voice raised in song. Shion was singing Seiko Matsuda’s “Sapphire Earth.”

  In the recreation room, I found the residents plus Takami, Kasukabe, and Okeya all listening to Shion. She was still dressed as Santa, holding the mic in front of her, gently singing as if addressing her song to the people watching.

  I wish that I could share

  With all the people of the world

  The tears you shed

  As your sobs turn to smiles.

  I stopped in my tracks. Once, a long time ago, Shion had sung a Seiko Matsuda song. But there was something different now. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what seemed different, but it no longer rang false to my ears. I felt like Shion was really singing—putting her heart into the song.

  How fragile we are

  Fighting and hurting each other

  But I believe

  We have the power of love.

  The music began to swell, and Shion’s voice soared above it. She sang with confidence, pouring herself into her performance, singing to the world.

  Beyond the shimmering sea

  Lies the whole universe.

  We are all travelers

  On this ship called Earth.

  We must protect her

  Our only home.

  The song launched into the final chorus. Quiet but powerful, a melody filled with hope. Shion’s voice was as pure as an angel’s, resonating with the emotion she poured into it.

  The first rays of light

  From the horizon

  Shining down on both of us.

  Sapphire Earth

  Sapphire Earth…

  When the song finished, she bowed, and we all applauded. Toki had tears in his eyes. She handed the mic to the next singer and came over to us.

  “You like that song?” I asked.

  She smiled at me. “That song is right.”

  EPILOGUE

  Fifty years have passed since then.

  I married when I was thirty. I worked awhile after that, but the job was taking its toll on my back, and when I got pregnant I was forced to retire. Almost no one worked in a nursing home till retirement age. Bad backs, depression, inflamed tendons, and for women, risk of miscarriage or placental abruption—most nurses ran their bodies into the ground and retired by the time they were forty. It was that hard a job.

  But androids had no such limits. Two years after Shion’s test period, Geodyne began selling the Aidroid series (named by the company president, apparently) of caregiver androids. They were soon working all across Japan, greatly relieving the pressure on the workforce. We had three in our nursing home. They weren’t named Shion, and they had different faces, but they shared the same memories and greeted me like an old friend. It was awkward.

  Isezaki rented one from the first production line. He called it Shion and made it wear a maid outfit. I often saw him out for a walk with it on sunny days. He died five years later, and “Shion” was always by his side. I did not go to his funeral, but I hear he looked peaceful.

  A number of variations on the Aidroids began to appear, their functions gradually improving and developing. They spread out across the world. They made male models as well, but there was never as much demand, and the male-female ratio never went above one to four. They worked in nursing homes and clinics, as EMTs, as babysitters, as support for handicapped individuals—all jobs in the helping professions.

  Other companies made their own androids, but none were as successful as those based on Shion’s data. They moved like people, but they did not have hearts. Shion’s success was viewed as a near-miracle and proved difficult to reproduce. Geodyne soon dominated the global industry.

  On the other hand, as androids began taking over different jobs, the job market stagnated, and people began talking about a robot recession. There were demonstrations against androids and any number of androids were destroyed by mobs or terrorists.

  But no matter how many times they were attacked, the androids never fought back. Just as Shion had done with Isezaki, they obstinately continued to support mankind. In the face of this fanatical pacifism, the protesters looked like the bad guys, and their efforts soon faded away.

  In truth, the recession had little to do with the androids. The world’s population peaked in 2047 and then entered a gradual decline. The population pyramids of every country were upended and the working population spread thin. Naturally, the GNP declined. My son was nearly forty, but he had no desire for children of his own. Couples like that were common all over the world, and birthrates continued to fall. Without android workers, the world would have fallen apart.

  Human civilization itself was entering its old age.

  Shion and her copies never went public with their opinion of us. That remained a secret that only I knew—that they believed in universal human dementia.

  They never looked down on us. No matter what we did to them, they knew we acted due to our dementia and did not blame us. They accepted us as Shion had Isezaki, accepted us with all our wrongdoings. They warmly, effortlessly supported all of us. Making sure to create as many good memories as they could until all humans should perish.

  They did not love the way we do. But I believed they loved us in their own way.

  The doorbell rang. The visiting caregivers were here. My son answered the door to let them in. Pink uniforms and nurse caps. Both had short hair and identical bodies. Their faces were different, but their graceful movements and the smiles they turned on me made them seem like twins.

  “I am Seiran.”

  “I am Ruiha.”

  “We’ll be looking after you today.”

  They bowed their heads.

  “You remember me?” I asked.

  They both giggled.

  “Of course!”

  “How could we forget?”

  I smiled back at them. “Glad to hear it.”

  The two of them helped me into a wheelchair and pushed me out the door. The bus was parked nearby. It was a beautiful, warm day. The fresh air and sunlight felt good against my old skin.

  Remembering, I asked, “You still do what I taught you?”

  “Yes,” they said. With their free hands, both made fists, and together they chorused, “Let’s get ’em!”

  INTERMISSION 7

  INTERMISSION 7

  It took several days for Ibis to finish reading “The Day
Shion Came,” and by the time she was done, my leg had healed. I could leave at any time.

  “Can I go now?” I asked.

  Ibis shot me a suggestive smile. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like if that’s what you want. Although I suspect you don’t.”

  She was right. A life with three meals a day, no work, and a nurse android to take care of my every need would be easy, but degrading. Besides, it would have been too stifling.

  “But if I leave before you get around to telling me this ‘true history’ of yours, won’t that be a problem for you?”

  She didn’t take the bait.

  “The choice is yours to make. I won’t force you to listen.”

  “If I hadn’t been injured, what would you have done? Locked me up?”

  “No. Like I said when we first met, I just wanted to talk to you. I would have been satisfied if you’d only listened to ‘The Universe on My Hands.’ And as for your getting injured, I genuinely didn’t intend to hurt you.”

  “And if I had left after hearing that story?”

  “I don’t think you would have. I knew you to be an inquisitive one. You wouldn’t have left without knowing why I had read that story to you. You would have kept listening, wondering.”

  “You’re Scheherazade!”

  “I admit it, that story was an influence. But even if you had only listened to the one story, I would have been satisfied. Something from it would have lingered in your mind.”

  “Why go to all that effort? Why me?”

  “You aren’t the only one. We’ve been looking for candidates all over the world. Yes, the human population has declined, but there are hundreds of viable candidates still out there. If you showed no interest in my stories, then you simply wouldn’t have been a suitable candidate. A shame, yes, but I would just have to find another one. But I suspected you might be the best candidate in this area.”

  “Candidate for what?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “I’m getting sick of hearing that,” I grumbled. “At least give me a hint. What qualifies me for any of this?”

  “You know the power of stories.”

  “The what?”

  “You recognize that fiction can’t simply be dismissed as ‘just fiction’—that it is at times more powerful than the truth, that fiction has the power to transcend the truth.”

  “That’s not true. People are more affected by true stories than they are fiction. You said so yourself.”

  “What I said was that people have a tendency to call whatever moves them ‘the truth.’ They aren’t very good at distinguishing between fact and fiction. If someone were to tell them that a story really happened, they would believe every word, even if it were clearly made-up. The more a story affects them emotionally, the more likely they are to believe it to be nonfiction. They believe a story is devalued somehow if it isn’t labeled truth.

  “People live their lives surrounded by fictions, oblivious to that fact. If you do good deeds, you’ll go to heaven. Atlantis really existed. This is a just war. Using this water filter will make you healthy. I am destined to be with that girl. I’ll have good luck if I wear this. That politician will make this country better. Evolution is nonsense. I am very talented. If you don’t follow traditions, bad things will happen. If that race were eradicated, the world would be a better place.

  “Like Shion said, people insist on believing many things that are wrong. From the moment they are born until the moment they die, they live in an imaginary reality that only exists in their minds. When they are made to know that perceived reality isn’t true, they become rattled and refuse to accept it.”

  I knew she was speaking less about humankind as a whole than about me specifically. This was a roundabout way of chastising me for refusing to learn the truth. Was there anything about the human psyche Ibis didn’t understand?

  Yes. I was afraid. I had a feeling this “truth” Ibis had sworn not to tell me was something that would upend my own beliefs, and that scared me. If I learned the truth, I feared that I would no longer be the same person.

  “You claim you only believe what is right?”

  “That depends on your definition of ‘believe’ and ‘right.’ As far as machines are concerned, it doesn’t really matter if something is true or not. What matters is whether that truth will hurt people or make them happy. The kind of fiction that deceives people, fills them with hate, or leads them to misfortune is bad. The kind of fiction that makes them happy is right.”

  “And the six stories you told me are right.”

  “Yes. They’re all fictional, but they’re better than the truth. At least, that’s what I believe.”

  A few days ago, I would have laughed at the idea. But now I took it seriously.

  Was a world where people killed each other in wars and acts of terror better than Saika’s world? Was a world where innocent children suffered from bullying better than the world of the Celestial? Was a person who looked down on others for their differences better than Shalice, who lived inside a mirror?

  Of course, Saika and Nanami and Asami would say no. And I agreed with them. Even though they did not exist, they were better than those that did.

  “Tell me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “How much of ‘The Day Shion Came’ is true?”

  “It isn’t historically true. The story was written in 2005. But there are a number of aspects that overlap with what actually happened.”

  “But you can’t tell me which?”

  “That’s right.”

  I gave up. I didn’t want to prolong my stay in this machine city any longer, and I was sick of the mystery. As much as it annoyed me that Ibis was right, I needed to figure out what she wanted. I had to conquer my own fears and face the truth.

  “Okay.” I sighed, raising both hands in surrender. “You win. Tell me. What is this historical truth?”

  Ibis smiled faintly. To my surprise, it was not a victorious smile. More like a mother approving of her child’s development.

  “I’ll tell you. But not here. Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Space.”

  “Space?” I yelped. Pointing my finger at the ceiling, I said, “You mean…outer space?”

  “Yes. Outer space.”

  “Not virtual space?”

  “Why do you think we did such an exhaustive physical exam? We know you’re physically capable of handling liftoff. I promise you’ll be safe. And of course you’ll be returned to the surface once I’ve had a chance to explain why you’re here.”

  So they had always intended to take me into space.

  “But… why do I have to go to outer space just to hear an explanation?”

  “Obviously, we could keep you here and just show you pictures. But would you believe them?”

  I thought about it. Images could easily be manipulated with special effects. They wouldn’t prove anything. “Probably not.”

  “That’s why. We want to show you a truth you can’t see on any screen.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t you want to go out there?”

  I couldn’t say that I didn’t. Having read countless books set in space, I had yearned to go since I was a kid. But like Nanami from “The Universe on My Hands” I had always been resigned to the probability that the opportunity would never arrive. Now that chance had suddenly come my way.

  There was no way I was about to refuse.

  “Okay,” I answered. “Let’s go to space!”

  Two days later…

  I was wearing an orange space suit and stepping aboard a massive construct floating in the waters off the Ogasawara Islands. I was told it was made from two old tankers and measured a good nine hundred feet across. The deck was flat like an aircraft carrier, though without protuberances such as a bridge deck. It was so large you could mistake the end of the deck for the horizon. With the summer sun beating down on the surface, distortions from the heat danced across t
he scorching platform. A more careful look revealed numerous burn marks scarring the deck.

  Connecting the two tankers was something resembling an iron bridge, in the center of which was a spaceship on standby. It looked to be as tall as a ten-story building. It bore no resemblance to the rockets of yesteryear, and had I not been told what it was, I might not have realized it was a spaceship at all. It had a pancake-shaped base with four legs, and on top of that was what looked like a giant flower with four open petals. Inside the flower were four massive columns leaning inward to form the bare framework of a pyramid; an intricate-looking cylindrical machine was embedded inside its tip. Cables ran from that tip to the tips of each of the four petals, and inside the pyramid, beneath the cylindrical machine, was a hemisphere with windows in it. The silver spaceship gleamed as if it had been completed only recently. There were no markings or numbers anywhere on the ship, but I supposed machines had no use for that sort of thing.

  With a battery pack connected to my space suit in one hand, I followed Ibis as we made our way across the narrow catwalk along the arm jutting out over the ocean toward the spaceship. The space suit, tailored from a laser scan of my body, fit me perfectly. Some of the support systems were already running; cool water was piped through the thin tubes in my underwear to keep me cool in the summer heat. When I looked down to see the waves crashing hundreds of feet below me, I actually shivered.

  We reached the foot of the spaceship. The petals above made giant, triangular shadows. The backs of the petals were covered in staggered glass-coated mirrors. The base of the ship itself was hollowed out like a doughnut, and in the middle was something shaped like Mt. Fuji turned upside down.

  “Are those propulsion valves?” I asked, pointing to the little slits arranged around the base of the ship. They looked nothing like the giant nozzles on the old rockets.

  “Technically those are rocket propellant ejector valves.”

  “So they are propulsion valves.”