Trompe L’Oeil, 2/3
“Not sleeping.”
Jun lies back, staring at the ceiling. Ohno Satoshi doesn’t ask questions. He merely makes statements, waiting for Jun to confirm or deny them. He’s quiet for a shrink, lets Jun do most of the driving during their sessions.
“No,” Jun agrees, “I’m not sleeping.”
“You’re taking the zolpidem I prescribed last time.”
Jun shrugs. “When I remember.”
He listens to Ohno-sensei’s pen scratch across his pad. One session Jun asked him why he went into psychiatry. “Someone once told me I’m a good listener,” was the answer he received, and Ohno’s got such an odd poker face that Jun isn’t sure if he was bullshitting him or not.
He doesn’t hate Ohno, but he hates coming here. A gentle suggestion that blossomed into a mandatory thing, an order from up on high if Jun doesn’t want to be replaced as the head of his own fucking company. If he gives in, cuts open his chest, exposes the innermost workings of his heart, then it’s healthier. He’s considered “justifiably troubled but working through it” rather than unstable. Apparently.
He tells Ohno how much it used to bother him if there was unread email in his inbox. He’d see “Inbox (1)” and he’d have to rush his mouse over to click on it. Even if he didn’t read the contents, the number would bother him and bother him and bother him. It would paralyze him, keep him from focusing. But now the “essential” emails grow like a cancer every day, no matter how much Aiba tries to help him out. When Ohno wants a ballpark estimate, Jun puts it at 500, maybe 550.
“You’ll try working on that soon,” Ohno says. Again it’s not a question. And it’s not an order.
“Probably.”
The scratch of the pen again.
He tells Ohno that he’s finally taken the meeting with the licensing team from upper management. They want an order of 20 Friendlies for the opening of a theme park the conglomerate also owns. They’ll be put in mascot costumes, used to relieve regular workers. Others will pick up trash. The theme park has a futuristic theme, so it’s a good opportunity to show what they can do. Jun’s signed off on it without a fuss because family-targeted pitches rarely seem to make it to his desk these days.
“Good for business,” Ohno states.
“Yeah.”
“The other project is also progressing.”
Jun stares up at the ceiling. He can count on one hand the number of people who know about “the other project.” It’s been a money drain since its inception, but because it’s officially part of Ninomiya’s budget, the corporate overlords can’t touch it. They’re dying to know what it is. Jun’s not inclined to tell them, even if they force Ohno to ask about it. Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?
“That one’s…I’m trying to get it right.”
“You’re working hard,” Ohno says.
“I’m trying to get it right. It’s still not right.”
“You have a distinct goal you’re aiming for with this project.”
Jun hesitates. He’s not mad at Ohno for trying.
“I thought I did,” he admits. He thinks about Sho standing there, arms out, embracing the air. Ohno waits for him to elaborate, but Jun never does. So Ohno pivots smoothly.
“You’re not eating enough vegetables.”
-
It’s 2:00 in the morning when he hears the final chime of the iris scanner. Nino shuffles in, shrugging out of his coat. He doesn’t bother stifling his yawn, since this isn’t the first time Jun’s dragged him back after sending him home.
Nino comes over to the computer, his computer, that Jun’s been using. He stands behind the chair, resting his hands on Jun’s shoulders.
“What’s the good word, boss?”
Jun gestures to the screen. Nino’s barely slept for the last month overseeing the 20 Friendlies order. It’s the first time they’ve had Friendlies working in such an open space. It’s the largest block order they’ve had in over a year. There’s not much to a Friendly’s matrix. It was the first system Sho mastered. He’d mastered it so well he’d even taught Jun how to program one.
But Jun’s not here to monitor the Friendlies, and Nino knows that. Nino sees the readouts on the monitors. Nino knows why Jun is here.
“Narrative?” Nino asks.
Jun nods. Narrative coding isn’t really that complex. There’s a basic outline, a pathway, that can be populated with responses. Reactions. A Friendly’s narrative only has about a thousand paths, given the simplicity of their personality systems. “Thank you and have a nice day.” “Welcome, we appreciate your visit.” “Yes, sir.” “No, I’m sorry, sir.”
The Partners take longer to build since their personalities are more elaborate. They have to be whatever the user wants. Aggressive. Submissive. Needy. Aloof. Because of the more detailed personalities possible, the narrative pathways branch more. Decisions are made in milliseconds, but it’s still a longer journey from cue to response. “I love you.” “I need you to fuck my tight, wet pussy tonight.” “That hurts…that really hurts…stop…please…”
Partners are still the number one seller. It’s the direction the corporate bigwigs wanted them to go in, the reason Sakuramoto’s still in business. They started out as a novelty. They started out programmed to scratch an itch. Now they’re all programmed with daily memory wipes. Sometimes hourly. Jun can barely look them in the eyes when he signs off on a new order. “Current consumer need states” have caused Jun almost as many sleepless nights as…
Well.
He’s just glad Sho isn’t here to see what those sick, perverted corporate fucks have done to the Partners.
He blinks, looking at the screen. This isn’t about the Partners or the Friendlies. He’s dragged Nino out of bed for this.
“I need you to check my coding. I’m rusty.”
Jun’s always been about the little details. He can write narratives in his sleep, but fully coding it, inputting it…that’s what he has employees for.
He gets out of the seat, lets Nino take over. He passes the metal table, remembering how cold the morgue had been. How silent. He sees that Nino’s tech has tied a half-Windsor. Jun rolls his eyes, bending down and redoing it properly. Jun’s always been about the little details.
Tie re-tied, he walks over to the fancy coffee maker, puts in one of the little cups, something strong. It kicks on, a low rumble to go along with the hum of the computers, the monitors and other screens scattered around Nino’s lab.
He can already hear Nino typing. Nino won’t change what Jun’s inputted, he’ll just make the necessary corrections. The coffee pours out into the zombie mug, and Jun brings it over, sets it down, behaving more like the underling than the boss.
Nino’s frowning. “You testing something?”
“Yeah.”
“One step at a time,” Nino warns, gesturing to the screen. “You’re in the red zone here and here…and here. Here too.”
“I know.”
“Three’s pushing it.”
“I know that.”
“It’ll crash on you.”
Jun winces. Nino calls them all “it” - never “he,” never “she,” never “they.”
It.
“No,” Jun assures himself. “No, he won’t.”
Nino has a sip of coffee. “Give me an hour, and I’ll clean this up for you.”
“Thanks Nino.”
-
The stuff the bartender pours in Jun’s glass is just tinted water. Whenever he goes in this late, Nino always switches things out, knowing Jun will try and drive himself home after.
He looks over, knows that whether it’s real alcohol or just water, Sho’s programming tells him it’s liquor. Tonight, Sho’s programming tells him it’s the best he’s ever tasted.
“Do you remember when you broke our toaster oven?” Jun asks.
Sho laughs noisily, longer, reaching over and patting Jun on the back. His hand lingers there, and Jun relishes the warmth. Then Sho notices what he’s done, and there’s the slightest hitch, his eyes blinking, before he takes his hand back, chuckling again quietly.
“I’m still amazed we didn’t kill each other back then,” he says.
Jun looks down at his drink, the boring water. “Me too.”
Before the bar can close, Sho reaches over, his hand resting on top of Jun’s. Even as he does it, Sho seems to know something’s off but he doesn’t move it.
“Pretty bad storm out there,” Sho admits.
Jun looks over, searching Sho’s eyes. He remembers all the red numbers on Nino’s monitor. “Wanna come up?” he asks gently. “Wait it out?”
“Yeah. Yeah, let me come up.”
Sho doesn’t go to the window. Instead, Jun’s barely locked the door, slipped out of his shoes before Sho’s tugging him close. Jun’s always wanted to see what would happen if Sho was the one who started first. He hasn’t been brave enough to find out. Until now.
They skip the script. Well, the scripts. Jun’s had them learn so many, so many beyond the original. Change this line, skip that one. Maybe then…maybe then he’ll…
He gasps when Sho pushes him against the wall, kissing him hard. Jun’s pushed Sho’s cooperation level back in the opposite direction. He’s upped spontaneity four percentage points, made minor adjustments to aggression, to passion…
Sho’s controlling all of it, all of it, his hand on the back of Jun’s head, fingers almost digging in, tongue in Jun’s mouth. Jun allows himself to be undressed. Jun allows Sho to pull him into the bathroom. They make out in the shower, Sho’s hands everywhere, Jun holding on to the shower curtain rod. His gasps of pleasure echo off the shower walls as Sho sucks his cock, makes him stand with his legs spread, water drenching them as Sho fucks him with a few fingers, finds his prostate and strokes until he’s comes, letting it circle the drain and vanish.
He’s almost limp when Sho shuts the water off. The condom box is under the sink, and Sho doesn’t even look at the cartoon character on it. There’s no laughing, there’s nothing to laugh about, only Sho moving him until he’s braced against the sink. Sho pushes in, slips out a few times trying to get an angle he likes because they’re still dripping wet. But they figure it out, and it’s good. It’s good…it’s never felt like this, and he can’t describe it. Like he’s unlocked something in Sho. Something that was always there. A Sho without reservations. A Sho without a script.
Unlike his actual apartment, the copy he’s had constructed here is soundproof. He can be as loud as he’s always wanted to be. He cries Sho’s name. In pleasure, in agony. Always a mixture of both.
Jun reaches up, quickly brushing his hand and fingers across the fogged-up mirror. But what he sees in Sho’s eyes scares him.
He’s confused.
He’s doing what Jun clearly wants, pushing into him with slow, deep strokes. But he’s lost. His eyes are red, and Jun fears that it’s not just drops of water on his face. He’s so frightened that Jun just looks away, gasping in surprise. This isn’t going to work…this isn’t going to work…
He knows Sho is close, feeling Sho’s fingers grip him harder, rocking against him a few more times before he stops. Jun’s shaking, and he doesn’t know what to do. Jun can’t believe what he’s done. He’s always been selfish. All of this is selfish. He’s no better than the people who buy the Partners.
He stays there, hands gripping the sink, droplets of water still falling from his hair and into the basin as Sho moves away, tosses the used condom in the trash.
He doesn’t know how to meet Sho’s eyes after this.
Eventually Sho’s hand finds his, all but prying his fingers off of the countertop. He lets Sho lead him by the hand, and they move to Jun’s bed. Jun lies on his back, exhausted. Sho’s at his side, on his stomach.
Sho’s eyes are back to normal. At least the normal that Jun understands. Jun’s heart is still pounding, an apology on the tip of his tongue. Not that Sho would understand what he’s sorry for.
Sho reaches out, brushes a strand of Jun’s hair out of his eyes. “Starting tomorrow, everything gets harder. We answer to them now. Do you understand that?”
Jun doesn’t react. He’s found that Sho will ask no matter what his response is. He never messes with this part. This is the part of the script that’s never been changed.
Sho’s voice is unsteady. “And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?”
Jun rolls onto his side, taking in every nuance of Sho’s face. Two centimeters less hair. The unruly eyebrows that Jun agonized over for ages, even with pictures to reference. The shape of his eyes, the length of his lashes. His cheekbones, the shape of his nose. He looks further. The dark sideburns, the little indent in Sho’s earlobe from a piercing Sho let close up years ago.
But the look in Sho’s eyes, back in the bathroom. Jun knows he’s never seen that. He didn’t program that. Could a personality or narrative change alone do something like that?
“If I didn’t like complicated, I’d have never…”
“And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?” Sho blinks. “And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?” Sho blinks. “And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?”
Jun backs away, his feet almost tangling in the sheets as he gets out of the bed in fright. Sho doesn’t move. He stays there on his stomach, blinking, repeating the same line.
“No,” Jun whispers. “Oh no. I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”
“And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?”
“H-h-halt program.”
“And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?”
“Halt program!” Jun shouts.
“And you don’t care about how much this will complicate things?”
“Halt program! HALT PROGRAM!”
Sho stops, his lips parted mid-word. Jun’s breathing unsteadily, climbing back onto the bed on his hands and knees. He’s uncertain if he’s angry or sad or petrified.
“I’m sorry,” he says, stroking Sho’s hair. “I’m sorry.”
He stays there for a few minutes, fingers running through Sho’s hair, apologizing for no reason. Nobody can hear him. And then he gets up, blowing his nose, pulling on his clothes. Nino’s tech will tidy up the space in the morning. Jun gets Sho’s underwear back on him, just so the tech doesn’t have to do it. With a grunt, he gets Sho turned over onto his back, deep brown eyes staring up at nothing.
With a shaky hand, Jun closes them, covering him with the blanket.
-
Aside from using the shower from his fake apartment in Nino’s lab, Jun becomes rather neglectful of his hygiene. He doesn’t shave for a week, wears his old glasses. His hair’s greasy, his skin’s dry and flaking. He has to send Aiba to his apartment because he shows up one morning wearing a blue suit jacket with brown slacks from a different suit.
His chin is a disaster zone. He squeezed a pimple that morning, and he can’t stop prodding at the dark scab, knowing if he picks at it that he’s going to bleed. He wants to and he doesn’t want to.
Today’s another waste of time in the offices of Ohno-sensei, and Jun’s chewing on some breath freshening gum because holding his toothbrush wasn’t in the cards that morning either.
“You’ve been taking the sleeping pills.”
“No, I haven’t. Been working late a lot.”
“The assignment. The twenty new robots.”
Jun grins. “We don’t really call them that.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Ohno’s pen scratches across the pad. His voice is even and steady like always, even as he jumps from topic to topic. “Sakurai-san died two years ago…yesterday.”
Jun shuts his eyes. “Yeah.”
“An unfortunate accident.”
Jun makes a fist, keeps it at his side. “You’ve done your homework, Sensei.”
“You miss him.”
Jun just laughs. He supposes that’s one way of putting it. “Like losing a limb” is another, but he doesn’t share that with Ohno.
“We’re two halves of a whole,” Sho had said, years and years ago, drunk and mumbling, curled up beside him in that small apartment after hours of brainstorming and coding.
“I’m the good-looking half,” Jun had teased in return, tickling Sho’s ribs.
“I’m the good-looking half,” Jun mutters in the present, and Ohno doesn’t respond to it. Instead there’s more pen scratches punctuating the silence.
“He was smart and he knew it,” Jun volunteers. “At first I didn’t like that about him. It was intimidating.”
“He made you feel stupid.”
Jun smirks. “I didn’t say that. I just said it was intimidating.”
“Sorry.”
“But he needed me. He had ideas of his own, of course, but he needed my ideas to push forward. It was a good working relationship. We argued a lot…we really argued a lot. He always knew the end result he was aiming for. He always had a goal in mind. Me, I guess it was all about the little shit to me. He was the puzzle all put together, and I was more interested in the pieces when they were still jumbled up in the box…”
He pauses, frowning. Hence his huge fuck-up with the programming. And Nino had warned him, too.
“It was a good working relationship,” he repeats.
“The company today has changed a great deal from when Sakurai-san was alive.”
No shit, Jun thinks. An agency that specializes in high-class escorts wants to meet with Jun. The type of companies Sho always said they’d never work with. The Partners were initially designed for lonely, introverted people. Lonely, introverted people with cash, obviously. Sho had been almost painfully naive about it, spending most of his time working with Nino on personality programming and narrative development. Creating the perfect companion.
Jun had seen it for what it would eventually become. An excuse for depravity without consequences. Sometimes Jun checks in with the Sakuramoto Patch-Up teams when the Partners come in for repairs. At least the ones that the warranties cover. Some are missing teeth, some are scarred. Cigarette burns, clumps of hair torn out and missing. It makes Jun vomit.
He’s told himself all along that what he’s doing isn’t the same.
But maybe…maybe he’s wrong.
-
He has Nino roll back a few weeks’ worth of changes. This isn’t the first time, it’s probably not the last. His focus was clearer when he started. When he emerged from the initial fog of grief, believing what his new bosses told him. Without him, who would carry on Sho’s legacy? So he’d stayed, but his heart wasn’t in the work. Orders for Friendlies plummeted, orders for Partners did the opposite.
Sho had signed the acquisition contracts with such hope. “We’re doing something good, Matsujun,” Sho sincerely believed.
It was three months after the accident that Nino called Jun down to his lab. Ever practical, Sho had already had a will despite his age. Lawyers had contacted Nino, handing him an external hard drive and a password. It wasn’t like Sho had planned to die at thirty-five, so he probably hadn’t actually expected it to ever end up in Nino’s hands.
Sho’s “fun little side project,” something he’d apparently done as a joke. While developing the Partners, as a test he’d coded…himself. He and Nino had worked side by side for years, and yet Nino had never known about it. Sho’s voice, detailed physical characteristics. Every last mole or tiny childhood scar. To top it all off, he’d gleefully translated his own personality and saved himself on a hard drive.
Of course, Sho had always been a bit stuck on himself. His initial narrative, the traits he’d coded, made him come across as a saint. He’d created his ideal self.
“What do you want me to do with this?” Nino had asked Jun, blinking back tears.
In exchange for keeping the new corporate overlords away from his other work, Nino had followed Sho’s instructions. And then Jun’s. He shouldn’t have, but he did.
Jun sits in the lab, but only after Nino’s forced him into the shower, has forced him to shave, has forced him to eat. Nino’s spare t-shirt barely fits him. “Excuse me if I have no upper body mass,” Nino retorts. Jun remembers a time when it was him coming down to the lab, teaming up with Sho to force Nino away from his monitors.
Nino gestures to the screen, shows him all the changes that he’s made. He’s told Nino about the glitch, about Sho repeating himself and not shutting down. He probably should have mentioned the look in Sho’s eyes, but he doesn’t know how to explain that. The person looking at Jun in that mirror had been Sho. But it hadn’t been Sho. A scientific mind like Nino’s needs a bit more information to work with than Jun’s gut feeling of wrongness.
Nino watches him, cautious, always so cautious now. As though any moment Jun might snap. Jun’s not going to snap. The time for those kind of reactions has come and gone.
“The board’s not happy with my progress at therapy.”
Nino’s one of the only people who knows about Jun’s mandatory sessions.
“You could lie,” Nino says. “Tell them you’re fit as a fiddle.”
Ohno-sensei’s created quite the cocktail for Jun now. He’s lowered the dosage on the sleeping pills, upped the dosages on the anxiety meds and the anti-depressants. Jun stands in the toilet room every morning dropping them in, flushing, watching them swirl around and disappear.
“They’re going to force me out,” Jun admits. “They’ve called a meeting for next month.”
Nino’s eyes widen in surprise. “Can they do that?”
Jun nods. “Of course they can. They signed with me and Sho-san. He’s dead, and I won’t do my job. They just need enough votes.”
Nino takes that in, fidgeting in his chair with nervous energy.
“They can’t touch you,” Jun reassures him. “Even if I’m not here. We fought too hard for you.”
Nino grins weakly. “They won’t cut my special projects, but they’ll ensure that I never have time to work on them. I’ll be programming those god damn sexbots 24/7.”
“That’s the way the wind is blowing,” Jun says.
Nino’s hand rests on his shoulder. “We could start over. I would go with you.”
“The company owns our patents. Everything you and Sho came up with.”
“Well, not everything,” Nino interrupts.
Their eyes drift over to the body in the suit, the lucky tie with the Windsor knot. Nino gets to his feet, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
“Don’t stay too late tonight, Jun.”
-
He enters the bar as a clap of thunder booms outside. Shaking droplets of rain off of him, he hangs his coat on the rack, tosses his umbrella in with the one that’s already in the stand. The pouring rain serves as the soundtrack as Jun has a seat beside Sho at the bar.
He looks to his right, watches Sho in profile. His jawline, the proud pout of his full lips. He’s running his thumb around the rim of his glass, filled with his favorite Scotch. There’s a slight smile on his face, cheer barely contained.
“You started without me.”
Sho holds up two fingers. “I’m not that far ahead. I know you’ll catch up.”
“Master, I’ll have what he’s having.”
Sho crinkles his nose in irritation, annoyed at having to share. Jun wonders if Sho even knows he does it. Actually, Jun has the answer to that. Sho didn’t know. Jun’s the one who programmed in that little detail.
The bartender leaves them alone, heads back to the stock room to noisily count bottles. God, what a fucking awful existence, Jun realizes. The bartender is one of the first Friendlies Sho created, re-purposed solely to replace the man from the bar that night two years ago. The specifics of his face and his personality weren’t necessary. He’s just a body in the room to play a role. Pour drinks, count bottles, get annoyed with them for not leaving when he already stayed open later for their special occasion.
He eventually feels Sho’s hand on his shoulder, and he looks over.
“You okay?”
Jun glances down at his watch. He sets it for the same time every time. He always enters the bar at 12:04 AM. It’s 12:36 right now, and he’s been staring at his glass of Scotch for almost half an hour.
He feels Sho’s hand rub his shoulder affectionately, but briefly, before he withdraws it.
“Quite a day, huh?” Sho teases him.
“Yeah.”
Sho lifts his glass. “Come on, I’ve been waiting.”
Without Jun’s prompting to trigger Sho’s responses, there seems to be little Sho can do now that Nino’s rolled him back to older parameters. So Jun simply holds up his glass. Sho knocks them together harder than he has to.
“Congratulations,” he says.
“Congratulations,” Jun replies.
“To our future,” Sho says, puffed up, full of himself. Sho’s confidence always gave Jun confidence.
He says nothing, grinning down at the bar counter. So much history in this building, but then again, this isn’t really it. The bartender sold the place a few months after Sho died. It’s now a small sushi restaurant. Jun’s never tried it, even though it’s one floor below him. He hasn’t been able to go inside since the bar closed. It was Nino he’d sent to take pictures of the interior so it could be recreated.
“You’re not gonna toast to our future?”
Jun freezes. That’s…that’s not…he doesn’t remember Sho ever…
When he gathers the courage to look over, it’s Sakurai Sho looking at him, still holding up his glass expectantly. Jun sways a little on the stool. He hasn’t slept for more than two or three hours in the last forty-eight.
“You’ve never said that,” Jun mutters under his breath. The bar is just a formality, just the set-up for the best and worst night of Jun’s entire life. There’s more flexibility in the narrative once they leave the bar.
Sho leans in, raising an eyebrow. Jun’s pulse quickens. He seems so…real tonight. He always seems real, but Jun always knows it’s a lie. He knows that unless he halts the program first, he has to watch Sho pick up his umbrella and walk out the door. No matter how he’s tweaked it, the path always narrows in the end. It narrows to that, to Sho leaving him.
“Never said what?” Sho asks. He sniffs his glass, laughing. “We’re drinking the same thing, right? Or did Bartender-san sneak something funny into yours?”
It’s something Sho would say. But Jun never told him to say it.
Jun’s stumbling off the stool, still-wet shoes squeaking on the floor as he nearly slips. Sho’s hand is reaching out to grab his arm but Jun’s moving away too fast. He backs away from the bar, exhausted, scared, uncertain. He stands in the middle of the room, isolated, while Sho’s still in his seat at the bar, watching him with concern. Updates and rollbacks, updates and rollbacks. There’s been so many that maybe Jun’s just forgotten.
He takes a breath.
“Halt program.”
Sho cocks his head. “Why so early?”
Jun goes numb, tears forming in his eyes. Sho’s looking at him like he’s out of his mind. And he is. Maybe he is. “H-h-halt program,” he whispers.
“Jun.”
Why is Sho still talking? Why is Sho still moving?
The sound of the bartender in the store room has stopped. Jun can’t hear any bottles clinking. The sound of the rain storm outside has shut off. And yet there’s Sho setting down his Scotch, getting off his stool.
“Halt program,” Jun says again, backing up. There’s not much room left. It was a pretty small bar. Jun collides with a booth hard, the top of the seat hitting his back.
And still Sho’s walking toward him. He’s in that suit with the lucky blue tie. Windsor knot. He had to look so fucking sophisticated to sign the contracts.
“Sho-san, don’t.” He’s barely staying on his feet, blood rushing in his ears. He’s light-headed, he’s confused. Maybe Nino changed the words. “Stop…stop program,” he mutters uselessly. “End. End program.”
Sho’s eyes are wrong, just like they were that other night. In the bathroom. Actually, now Jun realizes that they aren’t wrong. It’s that they’re too right…
“Jun,” Sho whispers. “Maybe we should go upstairs. So you can lie down.”
“It didn’t happen this way,” Jun murmurs. Sho’s so close, he can smell him. The Scotch, the faint notes of his cologne after a long day. “You know it didn’t happen this way.”
Sho finally stops moving closer. He frowns. “You’re not yourself tonight.”
“Neither are you,” Jun answers.
Sho’s eyes are sad. Jun’s almost forgotten such a thing was even programmed. Sho was always so upbeat, happy. Sho never gave into his doubts so easily, like Jun did. Like Jun does.
“I always play along,” Sho admits. “I follow your lead.”
“What?”
The image of Sho before him is starting to blur. Well, everything’s starting to. He just wants to lie down on the floor…
“Jun…”
“Don’t know why I bother. Don’t know why,” he slurs, grasping hold of the seatback behind him. “You’re always gonna walk out the door.”
“Then don’t let me.” Sho’s eyes…they’re his eyes. “Don’t let me.”
This isn’t…this isn’t something Sho says. This isn’t something Sho can say. His eyes are wrong…his eyes are right. He feels Sho’s hand grasp at his sleeve when he falls.
-
Aiba’s sitting in the chair beside his hospital bed when Jun wakes. His pencil is scratching across newsprint. The sound reminds him of Ohno-sensei and his constant scribbling.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Aiba looks up, exhaustion obvious on his face. Jun doesn’t like when Aiba’s exhausted. Aiba shouldn’t be exhausted. He’s just a fucking admin.
“Sudoku,” Aiba says.
Jun narrows his eyes. “Since when do you do Sudoku?”
Aiba tries for a scowl, but it doesn’t work. God programmed Aiba Masaki to not have a mean bone in his body. “It’s good for your brain,” Aiba argues. “Helps you stay sharp.”
“You’re the same age as me, I’m sure your brain is fine,” Jun grumbles, taking in the state of himself. An IV drip, an always fashionable hospital gown. Flowers from some of the higher-ups in the company. “How long have I been here?”
Aiba puts his pencil and the puzzle down on Jun’s bedside table, pours him some water in a styrofoam cup. “Two days. This is the most coherent you’ve been.”
Jun takes the water, downs it in one big gulp. Now his mouth tastes like water and death instead of just death. “Fuck,” he says, and Aiba nods in agreement.
“Ninomiya-san found you on the floor of his lab. You must have passed out there during the night, but nobody was around. They didn’t find you until 8:00 in the morning. You were completely out of it, babbling, but the nice doctors here have pumped you full of vitamins.” Aiba makes a silly muscle man-style pose. “You’ll probably be discharged tomorrow, good as new.”
Aiba’s trying to cheer him up. It’s nice of him, but Jun knows he’s fucked.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What was I babbling about? Did Nino say?”
Aiba shakes his head. “He hasn’t told me anything. Probably for the best, anyhow, since your bosses are breathing down my neck. The less I know, the better, right?”
Jun nods. The last thing Aiba needs to be dragged in on is the thing with Sho. He feels like his heart skips a beat, but no, the monitors hooked up to him don’t change their steady rhythm. He remembers sitting next to him in the simulation bar. He was so fucking tired…
“When they fire me…”
“If they fire you,” Aiba interrupts immediately, wiggling his finger at him. It makes Jun crack a bitter smile.
“When they fire me,” he continues, “I’ll have Nino find a place for you. You’ll be taken care of, Masaki.”
Aiba reddens. Jun never calls him by his first name. He probably hasn’t since Sho’s funeral. “I don’t think it will come to that. Your Ohno-sensei stopped by, too. He was talking to the doctor about the meds you’re on.”
Jun rolls his eyes. “I flush it all down the toilet.”
Aiba doesn’t seem surprised. “That was their conclusion, based on your bloodwork. There was no sign of the drugs in your system. Ohno-sensei didn’t really react though, he’s a weird guy.”
“Good psychiatrist, if you’re ever in the market for that sort of thing.”
“I’m not, but I’ll keep it in mind,” Aiba says.
“What’s my schedule for the day?”
Aiba laughs. “You are completely free today. And tomorrow. Since something obviously came up. I canceled the rest of the week, too.”
“I should collapse more often.”
Aiba doesn’t find that part funny. His expression is serious. “Ninomiya-san wants to see you, but only when you’re feeling better. I told him that talking is okay for you but working is not. You need to rest.”
Jun remembers Sho saying all the wrong things. Sho walking up to him, even when Jun tried to shut the program down.
“I’ll rest,” he says, “I’ll rest.”
Because Aiba rightly doesn’t trust him, Jun discovers that Aiba has his employee ID. It’s not in its usual place inside his wallet. He grins when he realizes it. And Aiba probably has security people waiting for him to try and bust in to Nino’s lab. So he stews in the hospital for another day, feeling stronger. His nurses are well-trained not to take shit from him, even if he’s the CEO of a major subsidiary company and acts like it. The pills Ohno-sensei has prescribed in conjunction with Jun’s doctors at the hospital are administered promptly.
Aiba picks him up in the evening, not even asking if Jun wants to go home. Aiba’s packed him an overnight bag so he can stay in the lab with Nino. Aiba’s ID only gets him through two levels of Ninomiya’s security, and they part ways. Aiba hugs him, rubbing his back.
“If they fire you, I’m coming too.”
“An unemployed man doesn’t need an admin,” Jun mumbles, unable to remember the last time someone’s hugged him. Sho has, a few times, but that’s…that’s different…
“Whatever.”
Aiba leaves him, and Jun makes his way to the inner sanctum. It’s late, but Nino’s tech is usually still here. Instead Jun finds Nino alone in the lab, standing over the work table looking down at Sho.
When Jun approaches, Nino takes off his magnifying lenses. They rest against his threadbare t-shirt, suspended from the Metroid strap around his neck. “Welcome back,” Nino greets him.
“There’s something wrong with him,” Jun says, getting straight to the point. “Isn’t there?”
“Of the two of us, I was always the prankster,” Nino admits. “I did the dumbest shit to get a rise out of him.”
Jun stays quiet as they both look down. Sho’s body is completely still. Still in his suit, not a hair out of place.
“But this time he got me,” Nino says. “Come look at this.”
Nino leads Jun over to the computer. He recognizes the readouts, all the coding that makes Sho…Sho. Mostly.
“I’ve been over this a million times. Or at least I thought I had. But that bastard was awfully clever. He hid it in plain sight. Well, plain for my eyes, but I didn’t look hard enough.”
Nino goes through the code, and he eventually gets to Sho’s narrative areas. The Friendlies and the Partners tread the paths they’ve been given. But the sheer amount of data Sho dumped on the hard drive, based on all the audio recordings he’d done over time and all the narrative pathways he created, meant that Jun and Nino couldn’t have possibly gone through them all. Since it was Sho who created himself, Jun and Nino hadn’t had the heart to erase any of it. They just updated and tweaked as they needed.
Sho had recorded himself making all sorts of sounds, saying all sorts of things with a Kansai-ben spin as an alternate “Sho Voice.” Sho had recorded lines of dialogue from his favorite movies and TV shows. He’d written dozens and dozens of narrative paths, and yet Jun’s had him on only one path out of many all this time. Sho predicted correctly that they’d never bother to read all the stupid shit he saved on the hard drive.
So that’s where he’d hidden the extra code. The extra code Nino had never known to look for, the extra code Jun wouldn’t have known was there even if he was staring right at it.
“In a word,” Nino says, completely in awe, “it’s adaptation. Sho figured out workable adaptation, and of course, like the self-important prick that he was, he tested it on himself first.”
“Adaptation?”
Nino points to the still form on the table. “He’s learning. He’s been learning since we flipped the switch.”
Jun’s mouth drops open. He can’t find words. Nino keeps talking. The Friendlies don’t adapt. The Friendlies only follow the breadcrumbs of their programming. A cue leads to one branch of responses which lead to the next and the next. The Partners do this on a grander scale. None of them learn. None of them get that much “smarter,” really. There’s limits built in on purpose, especially given how most owners treat the Partners.
The last thing they need is a soul.
They never really set “limits” on Sho because Jun only set him up for one simple narrative. The bar and Jun’s apartment. The last hours before Sho died in the crash.
“How is he learning? Can we tell?”
“When I found you, you were lying on the bar floor,” Nino says quietly. “And Sho-san was turned off. He was just sitting on the stool with a glass of alcohol. You were out of it, but you kept saying that what Sho-san was saying was wrong. That he was saying things he never said, which I presume means that he was saying things we haven’t programmed him to.”
“He didn’t shut off when I halted the program.”
Nino’s face goes pale. “Then he’s learning very fast.”
Jun isn’t surprised. Sho was smart, and he always knew it.
“I can delete the code and do a full wipe,” Nino says.
“No,” Jun answers instantly.
“As I thought.”
“I’m going to get a call any day now. They’re going to fire me. They won’t even bother with that formal meeting. And they’ll take a shit on everything we did, take our names off the door and slap theirs up in its place.”
“Jun, we can prove that we’ve got adaptation. They won’t let you go.”
“And give it to them to exploit?” he asks. “So that the Friendlies understand what people say to them if their response doesn’t quite answer their question? So that every Partner we send out will remember the abuse he or she endures? Because that’s all it will become. That’s all this whole fucking company has become. That’s all Sho’s dream has become.”
Nino’s arm comes around him. Suddenly people want to hug him today.
“In the end,” Nino says, “it’s your project.”
Jun’s project, funded with corporate money, created from Sho’s rather high opinion of himself, crafted by Nino’s expertise. All Jun does is relive that night. All Jun does is fuck Sho and watch him leave. What part of this project can he really even claim is his own?
“Logically, I shouldn’t let you see him alone,” Nino tells him. “We can’t predict him anymore.”
Jun nods. “Yeah, I know that.”
“But what part of this has ever been logical?”
Nino lets him go, turns off his desk lamp. “I’m going to perform a surprise inspection of the Friendlies team, see how they’re progressing on the order. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
When Nino’s gone, it’s just him and Sho in the lab. He could activate Sho right here, question him, argue with him. But it doesn’t feel right, doing it here. Not when Sho’s in that suit. Not when Sho’s in the lucky tie. The Sho who worked in this lab always wore button-downs and jeans under his white coat. Where Jun’s had the bar built, his apartment built…that was Sho’s work area. That was where Jun saw the first Friendly wake up, the first Partner wake up. It’s not right, doing it here.
Instead Jun moves to the table, unlocks the wheels, pushes it to the bar. He lifts Sho off of it, settles him in a booth, and pushes the work table back into Nino’s work area. Sho knows to go sit at the bar. The bartender Friendly is seated, frozen, in the stock room. Jun returns and activates him. On cue with the bartender coming around, the rain starts up, water crashing down in the corridor from the sprinklers Nino’s tech rigged up. The lights dim, and he has to change clothes. He enters the corridor, water falling on his umbrella as the sound of a taxi door slamming shut echoes in the distance.
There’s a clap of thunder, and he pushes open the door to the bar.
Part Three