Gene Mapper

by Fujii, Taiyo

  I had arrived at Narita International at five a.m. to pick up everything I thought I might need for a trip to Vietnam. I couldn’t believe that the “business trip” I lucked into would mean a six a.m. check-in. All I’d had time to do the night before was format the data for analysis and pack the gear I needed to run Gene Analytics. I understood why Kurokawa was in a hurry, but sparing a day for prep—a day, at least—would’ve been great. I was worried I’d get to Vietnam and discover I’d left something critical behind.

  I was mentally checklisting my suitcase as I turned into the corridor that led to passport control. A man in a neatly tailored suit was ahead of me, pushing a huge four-wheeled suitcase. There was no mistaking the clothes and the neatly parted hair.

  “Takashi!”

  Kurokawa swung the bag around skillfully so he could look at me and keep it moving. I felt suddenly dizzy. There seemed to be something wrong with my sense of perspective.

  The round, smooth face, the doll-like hair, and the dark irises peering steadily from behind black-framed glasses were a mirror image of the Kurokawa I knew from years of augmented reality meetings. The deft way he handled his luggage was familiar too. But his body was completely different.

  “Nice to see you in the flesh, Mamoru.”

  The voice and steady gaze were coming from somewhere below the level of my breastbone. The man was tiny: four foot six, seven at the most. His body had the proportions of a full-grown adult, with perfectly formed feet and hands. He reminded me of those artifacts you see on low-quality stages where the scaling is screwed up.

  “I’ll be joining you on this trip to Ho Chi Minh City. Thanks for having me along.”

  Kurokawa placed his arms at his sides and executed a picture-perfect bow. He looked like a salaryman in an old movie. Actors don’t know how to bow like that anymore. With hardly any chances to meet face to face in work settings, I wondered where he’d learned to bow so smoothly.

  “The pleasure is mine.” Caught up in the moment, I did my version of a bow. Naturally my shoulder strap slipped off, almost dumping a load of delicate gear on the floor. I made a grab for the strap and hoisted it back on my shoulder. My bow left me looking down on Kurokawa from directly above, which felt even more unsettling.

  Maybe it would be better to shake? By the time my hand was extended, Kurokawa was holding out a small paper rectangle with both hands. It was printed with his name, contact number, and network account. I turned the rectangle over. The other side displayed the same information in English.

  “Takashi, what is this?”

  “It’s called a business card. Please keep it on file.”

  Since we weren’t in AR, I didn’t have AutoGlossary to help me out, but then I remembered. Business cards were a kind of physical media used to exchange personal data. I’d only seen them in movies.

  “Interesting.” While I was wondering what the polite thing would be to do with it, someone behind me yelled in English.

  “Hey, you!”

  I spun around and saw a cart stopped in the corridor, piled high with luggage. The suitcases were plastered all over with red fragile stickers. A skinheaded woman stuck her head around the luggage mountain and glared at me.

  “Out of the way. Your ass is blocking the corridor.” Yet more English.

  I wasn’t exactly in her way, but it must’ve been hard for her to see. I gave her some space. As she pushed past us, she stared at Kurokawa from behind dark sunglasses.

  “Sorry, kid. Didn’t see you.”

  I was still processing this statement in English as she walked away. Then she laughed derisively, and the nickel dropped.

  “You—!”

  “Mamoru!”

  Kurokawa was on tiptoe with his hands raised to block my line of sight. The woman turned, glared again, and flipped me off before striding away.

  “I appreciate your support, but I’m used to this kind of thing. You don’t need to feel bad about it.”

  “Okay, but …”

  “At least I don’t look my age.” He smiled and looked down at his knit tie, carefully tucking it into place behind his jacket button. He took his time with it. Maybe this was how he absorbed the pain. Even if he was used to being singled out, it still had to hurt.

  “Aren’t you going to be hot? The tie, I mean.”

  “Not at all. I’m dressed for the heat.”

  With a smooth motion, he undid the button and opened his jacket. The light behind him showed through the single unlined layer of cloth.

  “But didn’t you hear the announcement? It’s thirty-five degrees outside.”

  “Don’t you know it’s cooler to wear a coat when it’s hot? I bet you’re the one who sweats when we get out there.” He glanced at my T-shirt and jeans.

  * * *

  I waited next to the baggage carousel while Kurokawa dealt with the telecom services agent. He was arranging a local flat-rate stage. He would need it. He had to be ready for L&B anytime day or night.

  Kurokawa was on tiptoe, clutching the edge of the VIET ARV counter with one hand and gesturing animatedly with the other. He was a veteran international traveler, but from where I stood he looked like a child trying to keep his balance.

  Why was he so small? He always had a healthy glow. Even after meetings that ran far past midnight, he was at work the next day with as much energy as anyone. He certainly wasn’t weak. His precise movements and gestures in our meetings—I’d never seen him use an avatar—proved that his motor coordination was above average. Maybe he’d had some major illness as a child? I was curious, but I couldn’t see asking him straight out.

  As I was mulling this over, Kurokawa came back with an actual paper receipt in his hand.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. I can’t believe how cheap their stage is. Five dollars a day for unlimited use. Why don’t you get one while you’re here? I’ll bill L&B for it.”

  “I’m covered. I have roaming.”

  “Isn’t that expensive? By the day, it must be—”

  “Twenty dollars if I max out. Remember, I’ll be stuck in Yagodo’s office almost the whole the time.”

  “Yes, I forgot.”

  Before I hit the sack the night before, Kurokawa had confirmed that Mother Mekong was already collecting the second round of samples from the intruder and SR06 at multiple locations across the site. He was expecting the new data today.

  Yagodo wouldn’t be on the case until tomorrow at the earliest, but once he started salvaging I’d have my hands full looking for matches. Since Yagodo was an excellent salvager, I might have to comb through dozens of genomes a day. It didn’t look like I’d have much time to get out.

  But I wasn’t in Vietnam just to sift through suspect genomes. We still had no idea why the mutation—or intrusion—happened and only a month to figure out how to stop it from happening again. If Yagodo’s advice didn’t turn out to be helpful, I’d have to head back to Tokyo as soon as the salvaging was done.

  “I guess all we have today is our meet and greet with Yagodo?”

  “Yes, and I’m looking forward to it. I watched that video closely. Yagodo is a real find. Even L&B doesn’t have many people with that much talent.”

  “Yeah. That dog avatar took me by surprise though. Hey, it’s about time.”

  My suitcase was finally coming along the carousel.

  * * *

  “This person who’s meeting us. How do you pronounce that?”

  Yagodo had texted that a “Miss Nguyen” would be waiting at the airport. The gender was clear, but the name was a mystery. How did you say it?

  “It must be something like ‘Gwen,’ ” said Kurokawa over his shoulder. I was pushing a cart loaded with our luggage while Kurokawa walked ahead. We emerged from the baggage claim area into the lobby and a sea of faces, all yelling at once.

  “Hey mister! Over here!” �
�Taxi, very cheap!”

  A waist-high fence ran the length of the lobby, separating us from the taxi and hotel touts, people holding boards with passenger names, and throngs of waiting people. The touts shouted in Japanese, probably because of Kurokawa’s suit.

  I stopped in my tracks, stunned by the noise. In a few seconds the T-shirt under my shoulder strap was damp. The low-ceilinged lobby must have had air conditioning, but it felt five degrees hotter than back by the carousel. The aroma of chicken broth and cilantro filled my nostrils, reminding me that I’d missed lunch on the plane.

  The crowd behind the railings seemed incredibly diverse. I kept noticing a man in a short-sleeved Mao jacket and black slacks with a bored smirk on his face. He was holding a sign at chest level that said “Gorph Robertson” in fancy calligraphy. I walked the length of the railing slowly, but no one was holding a board with our names on it.

  I reached the far end of the lobby and headed back. The skinhead who had called Kurokawa “kid” was walking toward the central exit, followed by a straw-haired guy pushing her luggage cart. The cart was now piled even higher with luggage that she must have checked. The mound looked like it was about to topple. The pair passed through the exit and out of sight.

  “They must be journalists. That’s quite a load.”

  I heard Kurokawa, but my attention was nailed to the exit. A young woman with long black hair was standing just inside, next to the automatic door.

  The lobby was crowded with people reuniting with loved ones, hugging and chatting happily. Others crisscrossed the lobby, turning their heads constantly, searching for someone. In the middle of all this the woman stood motionless, holding a board with something on it, staring intently at the baggage claim exit.

  She was wearing a close-fitting white silk tunic with trailing flaps front and back over pants of the same material. The sunlight glowed through the loose cuffs of her sleeves and the fabric of her pants, gently suggesting the outlines of her body. Whenever the door slid open, a puff of air stirred the flaps of her tunic, which reached almost to the floor. Her long limbs and petite head were a contrast with the women around her. She stood with her weight on her right leg, upper body turned slightly like a model. The pose reminded me of an avatar.

  “I think that’s her.” Kurokawa pointed. Now I saw that the board she was holding had our names in ink-brushed characters. It was upside down, which was why I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Excuse me, are you Miss Nguyen?”

  She turned and stared. After a beat, her face blossomed into a smile.

  “Sure, I’m Nguyen. Assistant of Yagodo-san. You are Hayashida-san and Kurokawa-san, right? Welcome Ho Chi Minh City!” She slipped the board under her arm, held it against her slender torso, and stood at attention to welcome us, head slightly cocked. I liked the rhythm of her English and her ever-changing expression.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said in English. “Um, your board is upside down.”

  “Really? I apology to rotate your name. I’m not familiar for Japanese.” She snatched the board from under her arm, hurriedly turned it the right way, and held it out to show us. “Is it okay? I’m so sorry.”

  Kurokawa smiled and shook his head. “Ok-kay, u-ee doan u-orry bauts. Dikkimura u-raitto itsu?”

  “Yes, Yagodo-san write this.”

  I couldn’t believe it. She understood him. Is this how he spoke English outside augmented reality? At least they were communicating. I just wasn’t sure how.

  The pleasing rhythm of Nguyen’s English totally belied the impression of coldness she’d given when I first noticed her. If she was going to be around the office, this visit—business trip—was shaping up to be more fun than I’d expected.

  Kurokawa nudged me in the hip.

  “What?”

  “Oh … nothing. I’ll tell you later.” He pointed to his glasses.

  “We’ll go to your hotel by taxi. Are those all your baggages? Okay, follow m—”

  Nguyen spun around, spinning the flaps of her tunic in opposite directions, and thrust an index finger toward the automatic door, but it didn’t open fast enough. She jammed her finger against the glass.

  “Đau!

  Charming, but a bit ditzy.

  * * *

  We hit the traffic jam as soon as we got onto the main artery heading downtown, after the soccer stadium. The four-lane road was a sea of immobilized electric vehicles with just enough space for electric motorbikes with two (or three) riders and throngs of jaywalkers to weave between. Children pinned flyers behind windshield wipers. Beggars followed, plucking the ads off and wiping down the windshields before motioning for tips. There were a lot of missing limbs and people on crutches. Nguyen dismissed them all with a wave from the front seat, but everyone was smiling, no one seemed stressed out. It made the whole scene easier to take.

  Kurokawa and I sat in the back. I felt cramped, but Kurokawa had plenty of space to cross his legs. He leaned toward me and smiled. “Don’t you envy me? I’m always in business class.”

  I got the joke, but it was hard to think of a response. I wondered how my avatar would’ve handled it in augmented reality.

  Kurokawa chuckled at my dilemma and pressed his palms against his cheeks. “Don’t feel uncomfortable. There’s nothing I can do about it. In AR, I can put myself across as normal size, so it’s not that inconvenient.”

  Maybe his tiny size was why he used RealVu. No, it would make even more sense for him to use an avatar. It’s easier to relax around people when Behavior Correction has your back.

  “While we’re on this trip, I might have to ask you to help me reach things now and then. I hope you won’t mind. Oh, and also—”

  Kurokawa pointed a finger toward Nguyen’s back and made the invitation gesture, lifting his glasses slightly off his nose.

  I blinked twice to enter his stage. Kurokawa was suddenly “normal” size. Now the back seat really felt crowded. He put a finger to his lips to indicate Private Mode.

  I accepted the invitation. Everything outside the back seat turned murky. Nguyen and the driver became gray avatars. This was about the best you could expect from a portable AR stage.

  I felt the subtle pressure shift in my ears and throat signaling the switch to physio-feedback mode. Now our bodies would give no indication of our conversation and gestures to outsiders.

  Kurokawa pointed to a sticker on the window. It said in Japanese, let our beautiful interpreters assist you at no charge!

  “I was going to mention this at the airport, but Chinese characters and Japanese signage are all over the place here. Why didn’t she know her sign was upside down? She must’ve known what she was doing.”

  “Maybe she just goofed. Yagodo used calligraphy. You saw her jam her finger. She’s a bit of a space case.”

  “I don’t know … Oh, I guess you’re right. Sorry. Please forget it.”

  Kurokawa managed a bow in the cramped space and deactivated the stage. We had only been in Private Mode for a few moments, but I was hoping I would see slightly different scenery when we came back out. No luck. At this rate we wouldn’t get to the hotel until after dark. It was getting ridiculous.

  I leaned toward Nguyen. “How long to drive?”

  “I guess forty-five minutes since now.”

  “Nosso long,” said Kurokawa. “Itsu bam to bump. Iz itsu yujual?” He pointed at the traffic. I liked his attempt at “bumper to bumper.”

  “Not so usual. It’s second of three heavy traffic time in a day. It will finish soon.”

  How did these two manage to communicate? Maybe they just had the timing down.

  We chatted with Nguyen about her job, starting with her hiring a few months earlier and moving on to the purpose of our visit. I was hoping she’d have some information about what Yagodo had accomplished so far, but she had nothing to offer.

  When we asked
about Yagodo himself, she became very talkative. Yagodo was a “wizard” with technology. He knew just about everything, and when it came to computers he could do anything. He was based in Vietnam because of its easy access to the Internet, particularly to old Google cache servers.

  When I ventured a bit of skepticism about the existence of such servers, Nguyen told me something “special” she’d heard from Yagodo. Just a rumor, of course, but just after the Lockout, a group of hackers had commandeered a container ship moored off Singapore that was serving as a backup server farm for Google. After a few years the ship showed up at Saigon Port. It sounded preposterous, but I had to admit that it was also a bit more plausible than some of the rumors I’d heard about the fate of the vast pools of data from the Internet era.

  As we were chatting, the traffic finally started moving again. I spotted women walking along the road who were dressed in the same style as Nguyen. I asked her if it was some kind of fashion trend.

  “No, we call it ao dai,” she said proudly. “National dress of Vietnam.”

  As we continued chatting about nothing in particular, the taxi emerged from a district of shops and food stands and arrived at a huge traffic circle.

  “Here we arrived. Thanks for your patient for long driving. We hope you to prefer this hotel, Ambassador.” She pointed to the colonial-style entrance of a hotel facing the circle.

  * * *

  I tossed my bags in the room, changed my T-shirt, and headed for the lobby. Kurokawa hadn’t even gone up. He was sitting on a sofa next to the luggage trolley with his briefcase on his lap. Nguyen was across from him. The beautiful girl in her ao dai and the tiny salaryman were a conspicuous pair.

  We followed her out the revolving door into a sunlit furnace heavy with the scent of coriander. The heat and glare made me dizzy even in the shade of the awning. The sun seemed to hang just a few yards above the sidewalk. The light bounced off the concrete and hurt my eyes. Activating my stage would have cut the glare, but it was a waste of roaming fees. My contact lenses didn’t have UV filtering anyway. I needed sunglasses.