The Three: A Novel

by Sarah Lotz

  RYU: I bet that annoyed Pasty-Face.

  CHIYOKO: Yeah. For once I was actually proud to be MC’s daughter.

  RYU: Another difficult question and one you don’t have to answer… did you go to the crash site? I heard that some of the families requested to go the next day.

  CHIYOKO: No. They’d arranged several coaches to take anyone who wanted to go from the Kawachiko station. I wanted to go, but Mother Creature and Father wanted to get back to the city. I’ll go someday, though. Oh! I forgot to tell you. After the service that guy who found Hiro came up to pay his respects.

  RYU: The suicide monitor guy?

  CHIYOKO: Yeah.

  RYU: What was he like?

  CHIYOKO: Um… quiet, but he looked like the sort of person you could trust. Sad, but not depressed, if that makes sense? Real old school though. Hang on. Mother Creature is calling me. Got to go.

  RYU: ()

  Message logged @ 10.30, 22/01/2012

  CHIYOKO: Ryu, you there?

  RYU: Always. What’s up?

  CHIYOKO: Android Uncle has just found out that Pasty-Face has been sending emails to the Shukan Bunshun, trying to sell her story. Mother Creature is furious, Android Uncle is seething. Mother Creature has asked if he wants Hiro to stay here when he goes back to Osaka, to avoid all the attention. She’s offered my services as his minder.

  RYU: What? YOU look after the kid?

  CHIYOKO: Yeah. What, you think I’ll try to corrupt him?

  RYU: Will you? Not corrupt him, I mean, but look after him?

  CHIYOKO: You know the scene here. What else can I do? I’m not cut out for the freeter lifestyle.

  RYU: You could always join my yakuza gang, baby. We need good people.

  CHIYOKO: Cliché. Look, I have to go. MC wants to taaaaaaaalk again.

  RYU: Well, keep me posted.

  CHIYOKO: I will. And thanks for being there.

  RYU: Always.

  Dr Pascal de la Croix, a French robotics professor who is currently based at MIT, was one of the few people Hiro Yanagida’s father, renowned robotics expert Kenji Yanagida, agreed to talk to in the weeks following the crash that took his wife’s life.

  I have known Kenji for years. We met at the 2005 Tokyo World Exposition when he unveiled the Surrabot #1–his first android doppelgänger. I was immediately captivated–what skill! Although the Surrabot #1 was an early model, even then you could barely tell Kenji and it apart. Many people in our field dismissed his work as narcissistic or fanciful, scoffed at the fact that Kenji’s focus was more on human psychology than robotics, but I did not. Others found the Surrabot #1 deeply disturbing, tapping, as it does, into the uncanny valley inside all of us. I have even heard people say that creating machines that look exactly like human beings is unethical. What nonsense! For, if we can understand and unlock human nature, surely that is the highest calling?

  Let me move on. We kept in touch over the years, and in 2008, Kenji, his wife Hiromi and their son came to stay with me in Paris. Hiromi did not speak much English, so communication with her was limited, but my wife was enchanted with Hiro. ‘Japanese babies, so well behaved!’ I think if she could have adopted that child then and there she would have done so!

  I happened to be in Tokyo when I heard the news about the plane crash and Kenji’s wife’s demise. I knew immediately that I must go to see him, that he would need his friends more than ever. I had lost my father, you see, a man to whom I had been very close, to cancer the year before, and Kenji had been very kind with his condolences. But Kenji did not answer his phone, and his assistants at the Osaka University would not reveal to me where he was. In the days that followed there were pictures of him everywhere. There was not the media madness that attended the survival of the American boy and the poor child from Britain–the Japanese are not so intrusive–but there was still much attention. And the crazy rumours! The whole of Tokyo appeared to be fascinated by Hiro. I heard tales from the hotel staff that some believed the boy harboured the spirits of all those who had died in the crash. Such nonsense!

  I thought of going to the memorial service, but did not think it would be my place to do so. Then I heard that Kenji had returned to Osaka. I decided that instead of returning home, I would make one last attempt to see him, and I booked myself on the next available flight to Osaka. By then, air traffic was almost back to normal.

  I am not ashamed to say that I used my reputation to gain entrance into his laboratory at the university. His assistants, many of whom I had met before, were respectful, but told me that he was unavailable.

  And then I saw his android. The Surrabot #3. It was sitting in the corner of the room, and a young assistant appeared to be talking to it. I knew immediately that Kenji was talking through it; I had seen him doing this before on many occasions. In fact, if he was asked to go on the lecture circuit and could not leave the university, he would send his robot instead and talk through it remotely!

  You want that I should explain a little how the mechanism works? In the most simple language I can use, it is controlled remotely, through a computer. Kenji uses a camera to capture his face and head movements and these are transmitted to servos–little micro-motors–embedded inside the android’s face plate. This is how it mirrors his facial movements–even blinking is replicated. A microphone records Kenji’s voice, and this is conveyed via the android’s mouthpiece, right down to the slightest intonation. There is also a mechanism inside its chest–not unlike those used by high-end sex doll manufacturers–which simulates breathing. It can be most disconcerting talking to the android. At first glance it certainly does look like Kenji. He even changes its hair whenever he has a haircut!

  I insisted on speaking to it and said without hesitation, ‘Kenji. I was so sorry to hear about Hiromi. I know what it is you are going through. Please, if there is anything I can do, let me know.’

  There was a pause, and then the android said something in Japanese to the assistant. She said to me, ‘Come,’ and told me to follow her. She led me through a bewildering number of corridors, and down towards a basement area. She politely refused to answer any of my questions about Kenji’s well-being, and I could not help but admire her loyalty to him.

  She knocked on an unmarked door and it was opened by Kenji himself.

  I was shocked when I saw him. After just talking to his android doppelgänger, the fact that he had aged terribly was even more noticeable. His hair was dishevelled and there were dark circles under his eyes. He snapped something at his assistant–which was unlike him, I had never seen him be discourteous before–and she hurried away, leaving us alone.

  I gave him my condolences, but he barely seemed to hear them. He kept his features absolutely still; only his eyes showed any sign of life. He thanked me for coming all this way to see him, but said it was not necessary.

  I asked him why he was working in the basement and not the lab, and he told me that he was tired of being around people. The press hadn’t stopped harassing him since the memorial service. Then he asked me if I wanted to inspect his latest creation and waved me inside the room.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, as soon as I stepped inside. ‘I see that your son is visiting you.’

  But before I finished the sentence I realised my mistake. The child sitting on the small chair next to one of Kenji’s computers was not human. It was another of his replicas. A surrabot version of his son. ‘Is this your latest project?’ I asked, trying to hide my shock.

  For the first time he smiled. ‘No. I made that last year.’ And then he gestured to the far corner of the room where a surrabot dressed in a white kimono was sitting. A female surrabot.

  I walked towards her. She was beautiful; perfect, a slight smile on her lips. Her chest rose and fell as if she was breathing in and exhaling deeply.

  ‘Is that…?’ I could not say it.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is Hiromi, my wife.’ Without taking his eyes off her he said, ‘It is almost as if her soul is still here.’

  I attem
pted to ask why he had felt the need to build a replica of his deceased wife, but the answer is obvious, is it not? He avoided my questions, but he did tell me that Hiro was living in Tokyo with relatives.

  I did not say what I was thinking: ‘Kenji, you have a son who is alive. Who needs you. Do not forget this, my friend.’

  Not only was this not my business, I knew that his grief ran too deep to listen to what I was saying.

  So I did the only thing I could do. I left.

  Outside, not even the city’s beauty could calm me. I felt unsettled, as if something in the world’s axis had shifted.

  And as I stood, looking back at the university building, it started snowing.

  Mandi Solomon is the ghost/co-writer of Paul Craddock’s unfinished memoir, Guarding JESS: My Life With One of The Three.

  My main objective when I meet the subject for the first time is to win their trust. There’s usually a tight deadline on celeb memoirs, so I generally have to work fast. Most of my clients have spent their careers seeing exposés or just plain bullshit written about them (or their PR agencies have collaborated in the bullshit) so they’re practised at keeping their true selves under wraps. But readers aren’t stupid, they can smell fakery a mile off. It’s important to me that we include at least some new material, balance the usual PR buff with some genuine revelations and shockers. I didn’t have that problem with Paul of course. He was up front right from the beginning. My publishers and his agent put the deal together in double-quick time. They wanted the inside story of how Jess was coping; they knew the attention on her would be mega, and they weren’t wrong. The story grew bigger every day.

  Our first meeting was at a coffee bar in Chislehurst, gosh, sometime in early February. Jess was still in hospital and Paul was busy moving his stuff into her house, getting the place ready for her to come home. My first impression of him? He was fairly charming, witty, slightly camp of course, but then he is–or was–an actor. His brother’s death had obviously hit him hard, and when I touched on that, there were a few tears, but he didn’t seem at all embarrassed about showing emotion in front of me. And he was remarkably candid about his past, the fact that in his twenties he drank too much, experimented with drugs, slept around a bit. He didn’t go into detail about his stint in Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital, but he didn’t deny it either. Said his breakdown was stress-related after he had a professional disappointment. I never for one second thought he wouldn’t be capable of looking after a child. If anyone asked me after that first meeting what I thought of him, I would’ve said he was a good guy, maybe a bit self-obsessed, but nothing compared to some I’ve dealt with.

  After I’ve won their trust, I give my clients a Dictaphone–a digital voice recorder actually–and I encourage them to talk into it as often as possible without thinking too much about what they’re saying. I always reassure them that I won’t put in any information they’re uncomfortable with. Most insist on a contract to this effect, which is fine by me. There are always ways to get around that kind of thing, and in any case, most of them like to add an edge to their life story. You’d be amazed at how quickly they get used to the Dictaphone method, some of them using it as their personal therapist. Have you read Fighting for Glory? The tell-all biography of Lennie L, the cage fighter? Came out last year. Gosh, the things he used to say. I could only use half of them. Quite often he’d leave the recorder on while he was having sex, which I eventually began to think was deliberate.

  Paul took to the Dictaphone method like a duck to water. At the beginning, things appeared to be going well. I had the rough draft of the first three chapters down, and I sent him an email detailing what else I thought we might need. The downloads came as regular as clockwork, and then–about a week or so after Jess got home–they stopped. I rationalised that he had his hands full dealing with Jess, the press attention, and the crazies who wouldn’t leave them alone, so I covered for him for a month or so. He kept promising he’d send me more. Out of the blue, he said the book was off. My publishers were furious, threatened to sue. They’d paid the advance, you see.

  It was Mel who found it. Paul had left a flash drive for me in an envelope on the dining-room table, with my name and telephone number on it. I gave it to the police of course, but not before I downloaded it and made a copy. I had some idea of transcribing it, maybe publishing it later, but I couldn’t listen to it after that first time.

  It scared me, Elspeth. It scared the living shit out of me.

  The following is a transcript of Paul Craddock’s voice recording dated 12 February 2012.

  10.15 p.m.

  So here we go again, Mandi. God, every time I say your name that Barry Manilow song pops into my head. ‘Oh Mandy, you came and you gave without’ …something, can’t remember the lyrics. Was it really about his dog? Sorry, this isn’t really the place to be flippant, but you did say to let go and say whatever came into my head, and it takes my mind off, you know, Stephen. The crash. Fucking everything.

  (A sob)

  Sorry. Sorry. I’m fine. It happens sometimes, I think I’m coping and then… So. Day six since Jess came home. It’s still like the slate has been wiped clean–her memories about life before Black Thursday are still spotty, and she has no recollection at all of the accident. She still does her morning ritual, as if she’s disconnected from the real world and needs to remind herself of who she is: ‘I’m Jessica, you’re my Uncle Paul, and Mummy and Daddy and my sister are with the angels.’ I’m still a bit guilty about the angels thing, Stephen and Shelly were atheists, but you try explaining the concept of death to a six-year-old without bringing heaven into it. I keep reminding myself that Dr Kasabian (God, the other day I slipped up and called him Dr Kevorkian–don’t put that in) said that it’s going to take some time to adjust, and changes in her behaviour are normal. There’s no sign of brain damage as you know, but I did some more Internet research and PTSD can do strange things. But on the bright side, she’s far more communicative–more so than she was before the crash, if that makes sense.

  A funny thing happened this evening while I was putting her to bed, but I’m not sure we can use it for the book. You remember I told you we were reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Jess’s choice. Well, out of nowhere, she goes, ‘Uncle Paul, does Mr Tumnus like to kiss men like you do?’

  I was floored, Mandi. Stephen and Shelly had decided that the girls were too young for the birds and the bees conversation, never mind anything more complex, so as far as I know they hadn’t discussed the fact that I’m gay with the twins. And I don’t let her see the papers or go on the Internet, not with all that crap they’re saying in the States about her and the other two kids. Not to mention the bile fucking Marilyn and the Addams family keep spouting to the tabloids about me. I thought about asking who had told her I ‘liked to kiss men’, but decided against making a big deal out of it. It was possible a hack had got to her and the hospital had covered it up.

  She wasn’t going to let it go. ‘Does he, Uncle Paul?’ she kept asking. You know the book, right, Mandi? Mr Tumnus is the first of the talking animals that Lucy bumps into when she goes through the wardrobe into Narnia–a little goateed fellow with deer’s legs, a faun or something. (He actually looks a lot like that trauma counsellor who came over just after I heard the news about Jess.) And to be honest, in the illustration Mr Tumnus does look as camp as fuck with his little scarf tied jauntily around his neck. I suppose it isn’t outside the realms of possibility that he’d just been off cottaging with some centaurs in the forest. God. Don’t put that in either. I think I said something like, ‘Well, if he does, that’s his choice, isn’t it?’ and carried on reading.

  We read quite far, and I was a bit nervous when we came to the bit where Aslan, the talking lion, gives himself up to the evil queen to be slaughtered. Stephen told me that when he read this to the girls last year, they’d sobbed and sobbed and Polly had even had nightmares.

  But this time around, Jess was dry-eyed. ‘Why would Aslan
do that? It’s just stupid, isn’t it, Uncle Paul?’

  I decided not to explain that Aslan’s death is a Christian allegory, Jesus dying for all our sins and all that bollocks, so I said something like, ‘Well, Edmund has betrayed the others, and the evil queen says she’s going to kill him. Aslan says that he will take Edmund’s place because he’s good and kind.’

  ‘It’s still stupid. But I’m glad. I like Edmund.’

  If you remember, Mandi, Edmund is the selfish spoiled lying bastard child. ‘Why?’

  And she said: ‘He’s the only one of the children who isn’t a fucking pussy.’

  Christ, I didn’t know whether to tell her off or laugh. Remember I told you she’d picked up a slew of bad language when she was in hospital? It must’ve been from the porters or cleaners because I can’t imagine Dr K or the nurses effing and blinding around her.

  ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, Jess,’ I said.

  ‘Like what?’ And then she goes: ‘It doesn’t work like that. A fucking wardrobe. As if, Uncle Paul.’ This thought seemed to amuse her, and she fell asleep soon after that.

  I suppose I should be grateful that she’s talking and communicating at all. She doesn’t get visibly upset when I mention Stephen and Shelly and Polly, but it’s early days. Dr K says I should prepare myself for some emotional fallout, but so far so good. We’re still a ways from sending her back to school–the last thing we need is for the kids there to tell her what’s being said about her–but we’re inching towards making a normal life.

  So what else? Oh yeah, tomorrow Darren from Social Services is coming to check ‘that I’m coping’. Did I tell you about him? Darren’s okay, a bit beardy and sandals and granola, but he’s on my side, I can tell. I might need to think about getting an au pair or something like that, although that old busy-body from next door, Mrs Ellington-Burn (how’s that for a name!), keeps nagging me to let her look after Jess. Mel and Geoff say they’re also happy to babysit. What a pair of troopers. Thinking you could say something like: ‘Mel and Geoff continued to be my backbone, while I struggled with my new single father status.’ Too arsey? Well, we can work on it. You did a great job with the first chapters, so I’m sure it will be cool.