The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  Again, Masaru chuckled to himself.

  Kiyomi assumed the sudden end to his silence to be in regard to something she said, a comment his conscious mind had barely registered about one of her classmates who’d suffered the misfortune of his latest project failing in front of the professor. The greatest disgrace came in that the nature of the failure proved he had stolen work from another student, who had laid a trap with purposefully non-working designs.

  He unthreaded his arms from behind the women and reached at open air. A terminal pane unrolled like a window shade with controls for the bath. He ticked the temperature up two degrees and turned on the bubble massage before sliding forward to sink neck deep. The women followed suit. Kiyomi stretched out under the surface in a most ungainly manner for a woman, and let off a moan of relaxation. Sayoko curled up at his left side, giving the other woman a look critical of her too-casual sprawl, like some farm child who had flopped in a pond to cool off.

  The voice of Hideo Kurotai rambled around in the back of Masaru’s mind. His father chided him for his lack of focus on the company, and his having become too ‘lazy and westernized’ during his time in the UCF.

  “I think it is wise of you to put your career first, Kiyomi-chan.” Sayoko traced her fingers over Masaru’s shoulder. “It would be a shame for you to waste your talents.”

  “Mmm.” The spritely woman shrugged underwater. “Oh, I agree. It must be awful to be one of those women who haven’t learned any skills and needs to marry to survive. Wouldn’t you say?”

  A palpable wave of venom washed over him on its way to Kiyomi from Sayoko. He let his head tilt back and closed his eyes, enjoying the continuous massage of bubbles streaming up from below. He intended to tune out the subsequent exchange of sniping, though his companions exercised more restraint than he imagined possible. Since he knew Kiyomi had no aspirations at becoming his wife, he figured she played the game more to annoy Sayoko.

  We’re all playing the game. He focused on the sound of the bubbles to drown out his father’s remembered voice. The man had asked him not to make him regret being ‘lenient’ with him growing up. He had been permitted a relatively normal childhood, including friends beneath his station, games, technology, and even attending university in the west. Of course, he hadn’t much applied himself to his classes… he had gone only to please his parents, attended only enough sessions not to get kicked out, and paid others to take his exams.

  Masaru sighed, unable to shake the disappointed specter of his father’s face hanging against the black of his eyelids. The man trusted him, hoped he would be an asset to the company someday, and he could only claim to be a billionaire’s son. A playboy with a bank account rivaling that of some third-world countries, and no real skills other than kenjutsu―but a katana couldn’t solve every problem. He considered himself decent with a gun too, mostly due to spending hours playing at the prototype range at the office, testing new laser weapons. Fun things he put time into improving. Boring things, not so much… but Kiyomi’s words haunted him.

  He had not prepared himself to survive in the world of his father’s company―except perhaps as an enforcer.

  His eyes opened, and he beheld the two nude forms sharing the gargantuan hot tub with him. All three of them ‘played the game.’ The women he so often brought home cared only for his political power and money.

  Kiyomi thought him cute; he thought her interesting, a driven and gifted engineer with the body of a high school senior. So few women had been so blunt with him. Her offer of ‘we can fuck if you want’ while tossing a maki roll into her mouth had rolled off her tongue so casually she may as well have been talking to some workaday drone rather than a man of his station. She clearly didn’t care one way or the other what he thought of her or if he’d pay any attention to her. Neither one of them expected more than casual sex. He found the honesty refreshing.

  Sayoko, on the other hand, likely hoped this evening would grow into a formal offer of marriage between their parents. Such things occurred with a matter of routine in the more anachronistic prefectures. Kurotai put on a show of appearing ancient, but the gears that turned under the veneer favored practicality over theatrics. Unlike even Matsushita in Tokyo, the samurai caste could not kill ‘peasants.’ No right of kirisute gomen existed within Miyazaki Prefecture, despite every outward appearance suggesting it should based on the décor.

  No―everything about this room, these women, his life, was as artificial as the trappings of feudal Japan laid over the modern world. Is this the life I want, or the life my father wanted for me? What do I want? Masaru sat for some minutes in silent contemplation. Unable to think of anything, his mind drifted to his friend back in the UCF with a surprising twinge of… jealousy.

  Sayoko turned down the heat a touch and whispered at his ear about being too long in the water.

  Masaru murmured and nodded. Sayoko stood first, followed a few seconds later by Kiyomi. They stepped over the tub edge, high enough that they gave him quite a view as they raised their legs. The women padded up to half-cylinders embedded in the wall, where a torrent of hot air surrounded them. He stretched and sat forward, draping his arms over his knees, admiring them in the gale of the auto-dryers.

  Joey had spent years living in the most distasteful slums imaginable, going for months without seeing the inside of an autoshower tube. His friend had even eaten refuse. The very notion of it made Masaru’s skin crawl. He envied the man his freedom and lack of responsibility, but smiled around at his apartment that took up nearly the entire floor of the building. Perhaps for some things, I can sacrifice a little freedom. His eyebrow quirked up with a thought of his friend’s new occupation. Joey is not so free of responsibility now. I wonder how long that will last for him.

  He couldn’t grasp how his friend could be so content in abject poverty, but then again he had upgraded his living accommodations as soon as he had a steady income. Perhaps ‘content’ had not been accurate. Tolerant. Masaru entertained a moment of pity at the thought his friend lived poor out of necessity, but he could have sought honest work at any time. Though, the man had appeared to actually enjoy being amid the detritus of society.

  When the women finished with the driers and walked naked out into the apartment, Masaru stood and swatted water from his body. He climbed out of the tub and crossed over black tile floor to the left chamber. Basking in a whirl of hot air reminded him of a marketing meeting.

  「Hey man,」 said Yoshinori, as a virtual holo-panel opened in his field of vision, showing his university classmate. 「You got a minute?」

  Masaru’s implant created a smiling version of his face for the other end’s terminal, despite his expressionless demeanor in the real world. 「I am presently entertaining company, Oda-san.」

  「I’ll be quick, man. I saw you’re still e-registered for Professor Callo’s biz-three. There’s a midterm coming up next week. Just wondering if you want the usual arrangement.」

  Masaru smile migrated out of VR, mirroring in reality. 「That is kind of you to offer.

  Again, his father’s disapproving countenance regarded him from behind the veil of imagination. An odd idea sprang up, perhaps caused by a ripple of Kiyomi’s laughter from the next room. 「I think perhaps this time, I shall attend to the examination myself.」

  The hot-air stream shut down.

  「Whoa, man. Are you sure? Callo’s a perfectionist. You’ve zoned through about a third of the classes.」

  Masaru laughed over the vid call. 「Are you as concerned for my academic success as you are for my usual fee?」

  Yoshinori made a finger-gun to his temple and a pssh sound. 「Creds are nice, but it’s going to set off a shitstorm if you fail. I don’t want to get caught in the fallout. Even over here, I’ll get some on me.」

  Masaru’s avatar gave a placating nod. He stepped out of the chamber as the wind shut down, his body dry. He leaned to the side, staring past Yoshinori’s floating head at a mirror, and ruffled at his hair. The dryer alway
s left it puffed up like a cat standing too close to a Van-de-Graf. 「I appreciate your concern, Oda-san. I will send along my usual fee as a gesture of thanks.」

  「Your funeral, man. I’m here if you need me.」 Yoshinori saluted, and hung up.

  The small rectangle collapsed in on itself, leaving Masaru an unobstructed view of his hair as he tried to smooth it down.

  “Are you going to join us, Kurotai-sama?” asked Sayoko.

  He peered around the doorjamb at the two of them lounging nude on his queen-sized Comforgel pad. The mattress glowed beneath dark violet silk, making their paleness seem luminous. Kiyomi had evidently ordered snacks and plucked wasabi peas from her hand one at a time. The cattiness had evaporated, leaving them both seeming eager for him to join them.

  Sayoko sipped from a drink while holding up a cup she’d poured for him. Sake, unfiltered.

  “One moment.” Masaru opened a GlobeNet browser in his headware, leapt to the university’s store page, and purchased a Ͼ3300 ‘Modern Business Strategies II’ e-learn. Essentially, the cheap version of the instructor-led course he’d been dodging. A few solid days applying himself should let him catch up. The time compression effect of VR would let him cover a standard semester course in about twelve hours. Three months’ worth of hour-and-a-half long classes, five days a week, worked out to about eleven and a quarter hours of VR instruction time. Factoring in coursework, simulation scenarios, and needing to log out for breaks, he figured he could process the course several times over in the week he had left.

  Masaru leaned both hands on the black marble countertop and stared at himself. “I shall not disappoint my father.”

  “We’re waiting, Masaru,” cooed Kiyomi.

  “I shall master this knowledge as I have mastered my sword.”

  The women giggled.

  He smiled. “Tomorrow.”

  oey deflated into the long beige sofa, letting the smart cushions lift him away with a sense of reclining on a cloud. It took mere seconds for the material to soften or firm up in response to his motion. If he closed his eyes, he could almost dream of flying. When Nina bought it, he’d given her a little attitude about dumping twenty grand on a couch, but in less than five minutes, he’d become a believer.

  He glanced down at two paths of long, black hair over his equally black t-shirt. Somehow, months of steady income providing access to real food plus a job where he spent all day sitting hadn’t done a thing to his shape. Still, he had the body of a zoom-head holovid star, the kind of guy who never ate because he spent his life too high to remember food existed.

  Hands at his hips, he daydreamed about a cowboy style shootout and tossed around ideas for a game. Can’t be all that hard to write one. Vistas of Old West towns, sunsets behind mesas, and the requisite tumbleweed rolling between two men about to throw down played across the canvas of his mind.

  A loud clank came from the back hallway, followed a split second later by a child’s shrill scream.

  “Liz? You okay?” yelled Joey.

  Silence.

  Seconds before he could find the willpower to get up, the willowy form of Elizaveta appeared at the mouth of the corridor, wearing only a blindingly white pair of brand new underpants. Head bowed, hands clasped in front of her, she peered up at him, fear of getting in trouble plain on her face. She gasped for breath, trembling from whatever had frightened her.

  “What happened, kiddo?”

  “1 Ya ne znayu, chto Vy skazali,” said the child, in a voice barely past a whisper. “2 Ya uronila siden’ye dlya unitaza.”

  Joey sat up with a faint moan and scratched his head. Cushions morphed under him. “Ugh… The least you could do is speak English.”

  Elizaveta looked down. “3 Prostite pozhaluista za shum.”

  “Hey… Hey…” He smiled. “What’s wrong?”

  She covered her face with her hands and sniffled.

  “Aww, dammit.”

  “4 Ya ne khotel!” Elizaveta’s wide blue eyes and apologetic tone made him feel like an ogre and he hadn’t even done anything. “5 Prosto aekisdent. Ya ne budu bolshe!”

  Accident? Joey fished out his NetMini. A few finger taps brought up the translator app. “I’m not angry with you. What happened?”

  Elizaveta stared at the device while it repeated his words in Russian. Her worried expression gave way to a faint smile, and she spoke a little louder than whispering. “Trachnula vot sidenyem – I shumno poluchilos’.”

  “I dropped the toilet seat hard and it made a loud noise,” said the NetMini, in an attempt to copy her voice.

  “Oh.” Joey chuckled, and melted into the sofa with relief. She hadn’t done anything wrong or dangerous. “It’s okay. I thought you’d hurt yourself or something.” As the device repeated his words in Russian, the girl smiled. “My fault for leaving it up. You’re okay?”

  She glanced from him to the NetMini while it spoke in his voice. “Da. Shum menya udivil.” Elizaveta put her hands over her ears. After the NetMini translated, “Yes. The noise surprised me,” she whispered “noise” in English, as if testing the word.

  “Oh, okay. That’s good. You’re not hurt then. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  The child stared at the NetMini until it finished speaking, nodded at him, and walked out of sight.

  He set it down on the sofa next to him and reclined once more. Nina hadn’t been thrilled about a sudden call sending her on duty after hours, but she’d been far less pleased that the other Division 9 lieutenant she went in to cover for had been nearly killed. Internal affairs investigations always got messy, more so when they involved a Division 5 man suspected of selling impounded cyberware to fringers in a grey zone. Lieutenant Woodring had been investigating him for months. The man had an impressive record and skill set―but no augmented limbs. Trusting Sergeant Hickman to surrender peacefully at the mere mention of Division 9 turned out to be a mistake.

  Poor bastard. Those mil-spec arms aren’t gonna help him against Nina. He entertained an idle daydream of her tearing one of his arms off and clubbing him with it, his brain going total cartoon with the scene.

  The toilet flushed.

  He caught a glimpse of a shadow drift across the corridor, but the girl didn’t come out to the living room again. Joey tapped a finger on the corner of the NetMini while going back over the video he’d watched involving her case, mostly security camera footage from inside the Osiris Biotechnic facility. Elizaveta had been subdued and fearful until she’d been carried in to the primate lab. As soon as she’d seen the cages, she’d gone ballistic. Two of the scientists had to hold her down while a third snipped the zip-ties from her wrists and ankles, peeled her fetid clothing away, and wrestled her into the cage. Now that she’d escaped what she had to have believed to be imminent death, she’d gone back to being quiet.

  Hours in the GlobeNet running image match searches had turned up their entry point. A Citycam in Sector 16797 with a view of the ocean captured a small, enclosed boat with angled sides―likely stealth coated―coming in at 2:41 a.m. Within minutes of it touching sand, a hover van landed nearby. A trapezoidal hatch opened on the side of the boat, and three unidentified men carried the zip-tied Russian kids over their shoulders like sacks of concrete to the van. Elizaveta dropped her bear along the way, and much to Joey’s surprise, the man carrying her went back for it.

  They weren’t total assholes, but I still wanna roast them. He tapped the NetMini harder, the repetitious clicking loud in the otherwise silent apartment. They had to be mercs like the ones who tried to feed him a missile outside the Imperial Hotel. Generic-faced, augmented everymen who could be one of any hundred ‘freelancers.’ Not all of them took illegal jobs, some just provided extra security for legitimate operations… a fact that made finding these particular three a royal pain in the ass.

  At the continued quiet, Joey forced himself to get up from the couch of awesomeness, and crept into the back. He paused at the door to the girl’s room and peered in.

&nbs
p; Nina had done the space up in a shade somewhere between lavender and pink. Elizaveta had evidently chosen those colors. Katherine she is not. Joey fought the instinctual urge to hit something at thinking of his sister. At first, he couldn’t find the child, but faint whispering drew his attention to the far side of the Comforgel pad, by the wall. He tapped a knuckle on the door in two light knocks, and stepped in. A few steps later, he peered over the glowing mattress.

  Elizaveta hid in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, sitting in the corner by the head end, arms wrapped around her legs, chin on her knees, and still wearing only her underpants. She didn’t seem to be in a bad, or even fearful, mood, and glanced up at him with a neutral expression.

  “Hey, kiddo. What’s up?”

  “6 Gde tvoy NetMini? Ty zabyl, chto ya ne govoryu po-angliyski?”

  Joey pointed at her and grinned. “I have no idea what you just said, but I think I know.”

  She tilted her head at him.

  He ran back to the living room to grab the NetMini and returned. She hadn’t moved from her spot.

  Joey held up the device and asked, “What’s up?”

  “Spaceships?” said Elizaveta, courtesy of the NetMini.

  “Oh. This thing doesn’t do idioms well.” He thought for a second. “What are you doing?”

  She shifted her gaze from the device to his chest. “Sitting in my room. I have never had a room before. I like it. I feel safe here.”

  He wandered to the small white dresser, which contained two dresses, a few pairs of tights, one skirt, three shirts, and some socks. Joey picked up a folded dress. “You know you’re allowed to wear stuff, right?”