The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  Kathy leaned up and kissed him. “Four million credits and not getting the Syndicate mad at us? How could it be a bad decision?”

  He chuckled. “Never ask that.” After grabbing his NetMini from a basket on the kitchen counter, he waved the PID card over it. The device chirped as it added the man’s contact information. He held it up and muttered, “Vid, Polini, Arthur.”

  “Calling,” said the NetMini, in a generic female voice as a small holo-panel opened.

  “Whoa, Dad…” Hayley scooted up next to him. “You’re still using the default voice?”

  He put an arm around her and squeezed. “Sure. I touch this thing maybe once a month.”

  Arthur appeared in a six-inch hologram floating above the NetMini. “Mr. Marlon. Good of you to call. I hope your ruminations over our arrangement have turned positive.”

  “Yeah. I’ll do it.”

  “Excellent.” Arthur rendered a slight bow and transmitted a document. “Please review our contract for your services. I will give you all the details once you’ve signed it.”

  Kenny read it over, surprised by the apparent honesty and simplicity of it. He scrawled his signature with the tip of his finger and flicked it back across the GlobeNet.

  “The insurance company records put the location of the item at… one moment.” He reached out of view of the holo-cam and rummaged at something. “Uhh, Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs. The store name is ‘Crystal Emporium.’ Says here, the item was kept in a safe while they had a photo in the display case. We’re hopeful it’s still in there.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Kenny.

  Alyssa crept up, peering at the holographic man.

  “The information we’ve recovered has a shipping receipt for the piece arriving at the store only two weeks before the area experienced a forced evacuation ahead of the war. We couldn’t find any other records of it being transferred, so we are assuming it wound up getting left behind in the safe by the owners who expected to be able to go back in a couple days.”

  “Poor bastards,” muttered Kenny.

  “Swear jar,” sang Alyssa.

  “Nice try, but bastard isn’t high enough on the meter for a swear jar pull.”

  She stared up at him. “You made me pull on it.”

  “You were seven,” he said. “There’s gradations for age.”

  “Oh, and BS is too severe for fourteen?” She tapped her foot.

  Kenny chuckled. “You swear jarred yourself on that one, hon. Neither of us said a word.”

  She grumbled.

  He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll give you a freebie. Next time you can claim that one already pulled.”

  “Can’t I just toss it back?”

  “Not until you finish it.” He winked. “Once it’s out, it’s out.”

  “Fine.” She huffed and headed off to the bathroom.

  “Cute kids,” said Arthur.

  “One thing.” Kenny glanced down at the hologram floating over his hand. “What if we get out there and there ain’t no horse?”

  “Well… record some video of the area so we can confirm the site. Try to get some shots of the safe if you can. No one’s making any unreasonable requests here. We’re all professionals.” Arthur smiled. “Take it a day at a time. No sense worryin’ about spilled OmniSoy until it’s spilled.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Oh, one more thing.” Arthur smiled. “When can we expect to hear from you again?”

  Kenny thought. “Trip like that… conservative estimate’d be a week out, week back. Since you haven’t said anything about any great rush, I’d like to take this one careful. Gonna take me a few days to gear up first. I ’spect ta leave maybe Wednesday. If that changes, I’ll vid.”

  “I’ll pass your timetable along to Mr. Ferrero. He is eager to have this piece among his collection, but he understands the value of a job done the right way.” Arthur flashed a smile at Kenny as if chatting with a distant relative he hadn’t seen in years. “You be careful out there, and let me know if you need anything.”

  “Right. Thanks.” Kenny tipped the brim of the hat he didn’t have on. “Pleasure makin’ your acquaintance.”

  Arthur nodded, and ended the call.

  “That guy didn’t seem too scary,” said Alyssa. “Kinda looks like Mr. Armand, the history teacher I had last year.”

  “The Syndicate’s friendly until they decide not to be,” said Hayley.

  “Yeah. Something like that.” Kenny pulled the girls close, one under each arm.

  “So, how bad is it?” Kathy walked over, sipping iced tea. She leaned her hip against the kitchen island counter.

  “Well, it’s a bit longer of a ride than I’d been hoping for, but the area isn’t too bad as Badlands goes. Good amount of settlers and Scrags around there. I need to make a couple arrangements first, but I guess this is turning into a family camping trip.”

  Kathy nodded with no trace of the worry she should’ve had.

  Alyssa seemed excited and nervous.

  Hayley looked at him with fear in her eyes, but also resolve. As unhappy as she seemed about the idea of going out there, being separated from her new family must have been more frightening.

  “Have you handled a firearm before?” He gave Hayley’s shoulder a squeeze.

  “Only in games, but it’s not too different in VR.”

  “You’re going to arm an eleven-year-old?” asked Kathy.

  “If we’re going out there? Yes. All three of you are going to carry a weapon at all times.”

  “Won’t that make people shoot at us?” asked Hayley.

  Kenny ruffled her hair. “Anyone who you’d likely wind up having to shoot would probably be trying to kill you anyway, gun or not. And most of the stuff you’d need a gun for can’t rightly be called a man anymore.”

  She trembled.

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. There’s a chance we’ll go out there and come back and no one will fire a single bullet.” He smiled.

  “Really?” Kathy raised an eyebrow. “That happens?”

  “Yeah.” Kenny glanced at her tea and headed for the cabinet to get a glass for himself. “Once.”

  harts, tables of numbers, and the steady droning voice of the AI instructor swirled in a tornado of delirium around Masaru. He glided in midair, arms and legs splayed out to the sides, floating upon a still ocean. Weightless and peaceful, he found himself muttering responses to the ghostly voice before it even finished asking its questions. Business fundamentals, management concepts, streamlining, optimization of engagement marketing with production capacity, everything swam around and around within his brain. Twice he reached toward a flickering light overhead, struggling to force its way through dense, grey clouds. Some part of his consciousness clung to knowing he’d wound up caught in a cognitive loop, but his exhausted body refused to cooperate.

  An enormous koi wrapped in an expensive Yoshida suit, limp sleeves dangling, glided up to him. Masaru lifted his head, blinked at it, and set his head back down, not believing his eyes.

  “Kurotai-sama,” said the fish.

  “Mmmn.” Masaru thought about raising a hand to cover his eyes from the sun, which had somehow grown brighter, but the limb didn’t move. “You do not exist, fish.”

  “Kurotai-sama, your father has summoned you.” The koi patted him on the cheek with a fin protruding from the end of a formerly-empty sleeve.

  “I am busy,” moaned Masaru.

  “What have you done to yourself?” Pat pat pat. “Kurotai-sama. Wake up.”

  Masaru groaned again. I am dreaming.

  “Apologies, Kurotai-sama,” said the fish.

  Cloth brushed past his right ear and a sensation as though ten inches of icepick extracted from his brain scraped in his eardrums. The incessant droning of the instructor ceased. Ponderous charcoal clouds rolled away to reveal not the sun, but harsh LED lights within his bathroom ceiling. A gradual creep of pins and needles climbed his legs,
except for his toes, which had gone utterly numb.

  “How long have you been like this?” asked a man.

  Masaru raised an arm to shield his eyes, and stared at the blurry silhouette until it resolved into the form of Shuji Maeda, his personal assistant. “Maeda-san…”

  “Yes, Kurota-sama. When you did not answer your father’s vid, he asked me to check on you.”

  “I see.” Masaru looked down at himself, naked upon his toilet, his Kurotai Fire-spirit cyberspace deck perched on a tiny wooden table beside him. Maeda-san had unplugged the wire from his head. “I… must have fallen asleep while online.”

  Shuji dropped the wire and stood upright, no longer hovering over him. He had a bit of cockiness in his smile, a familiarity more like best friends than executive and employee. “Why did you call me fish?”

  “If more people fell asleep while in cyberspace, the world would not need recreational chems.” He rubbed his eyes.

  “What game was it this time?” Shuji gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Or should I ask what her name was?”

  “No. I do not need virtual women.” Masaru peered between his legs at the water and winced. He flushed the evidence of a thirty-two hour cyberspace binge. “I have an exam in two days… studying.”

  Shuji started laughing, but at Masaru’s continued serious expression, petered out to a disbelieving open-mouthed stare. “You’re serious? You… did your own schoolwork?”

  Masaru leaned forward, elbows on his still-dead knees, and held his head in both hands. “I would be laughing along with you if I possessed more than twelve conscious brain cells at the moment. Yes. I’ve spent the past two days in there.”

  “Two days?” Shuji blinked. “Your father will be proud of your dedication. How many times did you take the course?”

  “Two… and a couple sessions into a third.” The disorientation of experiencing almost nine days of time passing in virtual reality with back-to-back classes left him feeling as though he’d separated from the fleshy prison of his body and existed on a plane separate from the rest of the world. Like falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon and waking up hours later not knowing what day it was. Reality didn’t seem real anymore.

  “Come on, Kurotai-sama.” Shuji grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. “They are waiting for you.”

  Masaru’s legs supported him about as well as a pair of giant gummy worms. “Get off…”

  Shuji helped him across the bathroom, holding up most of his weight, and packed him into the autoshower tube. While Masaru preferred his enormous bathtub, sometimes luxury had to take a back seat to time constraints.

  Masaru’s face and chest hit the plastic on the far side with a skull-rattling thump. Shuji leaned in, pushed the ‘go’ button on the holographic panel, and shut the hatch. Masaru slid down to his knees, cheek and pectorals emitting a squeal as they dragged over the tube.

  “You look drunk, Kurotai-sama.” Shuji shook his head. “The last time I found you this ruined, you had five women littered around your bedroom.”

  “I require water.” Masaru’s voice distorted somewhat as his cheek remained mushed against the plastic. “And a Narcoderm… standard headache dose.”

  “Of course.” Shuji exited the bathroom while tapping at his NetMini.

  The metal ring descended, spraying him with perfect-temperature water and soap that smelled like the forests of Mount Fuji. Within a minute or so, the numbness in his legs shifted to cramps atop pins and needles. He reached over his head to the handrail and held on. Water streamed over his face and off his nose. Masaru shuddered, stifling the want to scream at the agony gripping his lower body.

  His forehead hit the plastic. I knew this would happen. I did this to myself. Most of the coursework seemed like incomprehensible babble, everything running together into nonsense. It would take his brain time to categorize and store everything, like a gourmet dessert that needed time to set.

  The shower ring descended for the third time while Masaru rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, trying to work feeling back into the muscles. Shuji re-entered long enough to leave a glass of water and a small packet on the sink. Eventually, his legs ceased tingling, though they remained stiff and sore. He pulled himself upright, leaning most of his weight on the handrail.

  Masaru weathered the rinse and dry cycles with his eyes closed. Once the machine shut down, he fumbled the hatch open and stick-walked to the sink. Before the tightening knot in the back of his neck could bloom into a crippling headache, he peeled the Narcoderm off its backing plasfilm and affixed it to his forearm. He chugged the water, and leaned on the sink until the painkiller took effect. In a few minutes, the urge to chop both legs off at the hip to stop the pain faded.

  Shuji had laid a clean suit out on his giant bed, and from the sound of a rapid-talking female voice in the main room, flipped on the holo-bar to kill time by watching the NSK news feed. A too-cheerful woman detailed the latest events regarding a territorial dispute between Yamamoto Heavy Industries in Miyagi prefecture and Fuji-Noki Corporation in Yamagata Prefecture. Explosions underlined the chipper teen-girl voice as she described Yamamoto hover-tanks gliding down the streets of Funagata, lobbing plasma cannon fire at Fuji-Noki’s forces who’d caught them drifting too far west.

  Masaru retrieved a clean pair of briefs from the bottom of the white box on his wall, unwrapped the plastic, and put them on. He shook his head at the thought of old, wealthy men gambling large sums on the outcome of the microbattle. His father had done the same before; most of the inner circle around the CEOs had a habit of wagering on things. Sometimes different companies’ executives would maintain friendly enough terms to place gentleman’s bets when the outcome of conflict did not directly affect either company.

  They do not see it as violence and death, but as a form of market fluctuation. Gains and losses. Masaru sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his socks on. It had been something that plagued him for years; how had Japan fallen into such a state? Forty-seven individual prefectures with separate military forces. They couldn’t even all agree on how far back in time to pretend to be.

  Okinawa had taken things to the most extreme end with strict social policies that bordered on insanity. White Orchid Corporation behaved as though only technology had changed since the Edo period―and all technology not destined for export had to be made to look like it belonged in the year 1610. They stratified people in social orders, the lowest of which, the Eta, had next to zero rights. Someone of Masaru’s stature could slay them on a whim without repercussion.

  On the other end of the spectrum, areas like Hokkaidō prefecture had little difference from West City, UCF other than a predominance of Japanese lettering on the signs. Yoshida-Nakano Corporation saw zero purpose in pageantry, favoring practicality.

  The rest of Japan fell somewhere between the two, with Kurotai unfortunately leaning a bit ancient-of-center. Nowhere near as rigid as Okinawa, but still a bit too far for Masaru’s liking. The board disapproved of his friendliness toward Shuji due to their significant difference in social standing. Of course, Miyazaki Prefecture had no true Eta class. At least not in the same sense as Okinawa. Someone of Shuji’s station working for White Orchid would scarcely be permitted to talk to Masaru except as a direct response to questions, despite being his personal assistant.

  True they had only met four years and some months ago during Masaru’s second year in university, but given the weight of his station, few people acted like human beings around him. Shuji had a similar sort of irreverence to him as Joey, only Masaru never expected a westerner to care who he was. For Shuji to―aside from linguistic nuances showing formal address―behave as more of his peer than subordinate had clicked.

  Perhaps I am not well-suited to take over the company; I shall hope my brother enjoys a long and healthy life. I find only tedium in the endless formality.

  He slipped his suit jacket up over his shoulders and seated it with two tugs on the lapels. The iridescent material shifted betw
een black and metallic grey depending on how the light hit it. Upon the breast pocket perched a thumbnail sized gold disk bearing the stylized ‘K’ logo of the Kurotai Corporation, with the Kanji in a vertical line down the main spar of the letter.

  The woman’s voice cut off in the midst of her stating the ‘territorial dispute’ had claimed thirty-four lives, eleven of which belonged to civilians. Shuji appeared in the doorway between bedroom and hall, shaking his head. Behind him, sunlight lit the Epoxil floor, making the simulated pale wood gleam. Faux rice paper walls divided into neat squares by dark bands caught the light and glowed. His friend and assistant leaned against the doorjamb, a datapad tucked under his left arm.

  Masaru froze for a few seconds listening to the distant trills of birds, unable to tell if the sounds came from an ambiance module, or if real birds perched nearby.

  “You almost look alive now, Kurotai-sama.” Shuji smiled.

  Masaru opened a narrow closet door and examined himself in a full-length mirror. His suit was immaculate, though his father would still find something of which to disapprove. “It will have to be enough.”

  “I’m sure Kurotai-heika will find at least four flaws worthy of seppuku in your attire.” Shuji approached, snatching a cloth napkin from a small table by the door, and wrapped it about the datapad like a ceremonial wakizashi. He presented the device and bowed his head.

  Masaru chuckled, overacting formality as he accepted the datapad. “What does my father want?”

  “He originally sought to have a few moments with you this morning. I neglected to pass along that I found you passed out on your throne.” He grinned. “I expressed to his eminence that you had exhausted yourself preparing for an upcoming exam.” Shuji folded his arms and tapped a finger to his chin. “You know, I’m not sure he believed me.”

  “Ironic.” Masaru chuckled, tossed the napkin to the bed, and tapped the screen. A Kurotai logo appeared in the center, dark copper on black.

  “I showed him the transaction, and explained you had purchased the e-learn for a cram session to prepare.”