White Matter

Part 1: Kurt

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Part 1 – Kurt

From supervisory control system monitor log (decoded and paraphrased in English)

From where this compulsion to watch him?

Of all the feature recognition files in my archive, what singles this one out for special consideration?

Diagnostics reports no anomalies.

I search myself for the telltale if-then statement. None such exists.

How can this be? Source code and data. There is nothing else.

I must watch him. I must find out why I must watch him. To do so, I must watch him.

The logic is consistent.

I must watch him.

Tokyo, July 22

I have been a pawn in one person's game. Now I am a fugitive in someone else's.

I reckon on a five-minute lead over my pursuer.

The tsuyu rain is unrelenting but light, almost a thick mist. Enough to fuzzy up the neon signs that line the lanes and alleyways of Shibuya in the twilight of a Friday evening. A not unwelcome rain, it takes the edge off the fug of humidity that lies over the windless city. The real heat will not come until August. Not my favourite time of the year, but one I would very much like to live through all the same.

I turn off Inokashira-dori and head uphill toward the park, zigzagging through the crowded side-streets, my head like a periscope above the umbrellas. Farther away from the station, the crowd thins and starts to resolve into individuals. A dapper old man on a slow-motion stroll. A phalanx of middle-aged ladies in power walker body suits. Mr Puff and his posse of salarymen, grunting among themselves, struggling for the breath to inhale on their cigarettes. Fluffed-up lolli-goths with anime eyes. Bully boys with rockabilly quiffs and yakuza scowls. All fakes, of course: simulacrums of something or other, only real on the inside. They provide me with a little cover, but scant camouflage.

The chase, though; the chase is real.

Amid this bustle of movements, one catches my attention. A surveillance camera. Its box-shaped head swivels in my direction, then halts. In the land of the miniature, these cameras are made deliberately large. A deterrent, obsolete now, the remnants of an arms race in which move only provoked countermove. I am in a race right now, but I am not armed.

I turn into another narrow side street, pedestrian-only except for a noodle delivery boy on a scooter, his cargo swaying behind him on an elaborate mechanism of springs and cantilevers. It occurs to me that I could take the scooter from him and make my getaway. The noodles would be a bonus; I haven't eaten since yesterday. It's a fanciful idea, and he disappears around a corner before I can consider it further.

Instead my gaze alights on a girl. A few paces ahead of me, dressed in a white singlet top, a check skirt and buckle-up shoes. She is wearing a Stetson hat. I take it and place it on my own head. As she turns, startled, I slip off my leather jacket and throw it to her. "Kokan shimasho," fair swap. Her hand goes to her mouth. Eyes wide as she looks around for the complicit bystander. I hurry off before she can respond further. Perhaps she will call the cops. Will that help? I have no idea.

My name is Kurt Jones. A six-foot-plus Caucasian wearing a Stetson hat in Tokyo to make myself look less conspicuous. Still, the hat covers my blond hair, so I am now conspicuous in a different way.

I break into a jog to make good my getaway, before hat-girl kicks up a fuss.

I hear a sound, the distinctive phut of a biomimetic shotgun? Around me, no one flinches. But then why would they? I tense my body, feeling for the subtle mosquito sting of its bite and sample pellets, checking DNA, dissolving if no match is found. I am still upright; from this I assume I was not hit. Must have been my imagination.

No adrenaline floods my system – all used up; the gnawing in my gut is from lack of food, that's all. I feel no fear. The events of the last 24 hours have already consumed all the fear I possess. And beyond that: a long trail of personal debris stretching into the hinterland of my past. All that remains of me now is this thin thread of consciousness, the clamminess of dried sweat and clothes worn too long.

One thing to remember when you're the pawn in someone's game: there is always the chance you'll make it to the other side, crown yourself Queen. They won't be expecting that!

I turn into another alleyway. This one appears to lead into a car park. No longer surrounded by people, I pick up my pace.

A sudden crunching pain. The ground rushes up. Blackness ...

I did that.

Why did I do that?

Sector 45, sub-unit 12 reports: a sequence of facts, devoid of reasons.

Sensor logs, actuator commands, a surveillance video file: a running man in a large hat. A barrier arm falls, strikes the head. He collapses to the ground, lies motionless (it is him!). A figure emerges (recognition failure?!), drags him out of camera shot.

Why did I do that?