The 2009 Book Expo. Yomiko had heard rumours about how very large and exciting it was, but they didn't do it justice. Just the size of the building, all those trucks and cars and people, it was incredible. They'd flown across from the West Coast, just to get to New York in time. Yomiko had hated being near so many people, having such limited carry-on weight allowance, but it had in retrospect been worth it. Now there was the Book Expo, and after that there was a long tour back across the continent before their flight home. There were stores she wanted to visit on their itinerary, but they were wiped from her mind the second that Nenene signed them in at the front desk. They were directed to the table that Nenene's Japanese publisher was to share with the other translated publishers as part of their US distributor's display. Yomiko couldn't keep still. It took sever discipline not to run to the books, embrace them.
"What's up with you?" Nenene asked casually. Maggie was walking quietly beside her. Did they not have any idea about the gift they'd been given by her publisher?
"The books," Yomiko said plainly.
"Yes, there are books at the Book Expo." Nenene said flatly.
"No," Yomiko "I mean, this is an industry event. Some of these people, they give them away to you."
Nenene laughed. "Gotcha. Off you go, then. Maggie, you'll keep me company right?"
Maggie made a distressed, conflicted sound. Yomiko didn't catch her expression or what happened next. She was free to go, and she went. These weren't simply new books, or new free books. These were advanced reader's copies. Next year's new books. Books she wouldn't get a chance to read for ages otherwise.
She was blushing a little just at the thought of them all. She didn't know where to start, so for a little while she rushed from booth to booth, breathless. There were workshops and talks. Writers signing books, people chatting excitedly about the future of publishing and licensing, ebooks, special limited editions. Too wonderful, too much. To ground herself, Yomiko ran her fingers over the books laid out on the booth before her. Shiny covers, so shiny. Sharp corners. Smelling of new paper. Good new paper, acid-free and built to last.
"Please, open them, have a look. You're with an international publisher?"
"Japanese," Yomiko agreed eagerly.
"Well I don't think our authors have signed distribution rights there. Take them home, and if your company doesn't want them, pass them on. Word of mouth never hurts!"
Yomiko smiled down at them. Young adult, slice of life, science fiction and fantasy. "Oh they look wonderful. Thank you!"
When she finally stepped away from the booth, her arms were full. She wished she'd brought her suitcase, but Nenene hadn't let her. She'd have to go back to their booth to drop them off. As she turned, enjoying the feel of the paperback spines lined up against the palms of her hands, someone clipped against her elbow. She was a paper user, she didn't stand a chance of dropping her armful, but the stranger wasn't to know that. He reached out to steady her books, and when she saw his face, all the colour fell away from the world. It was the man who looked like Donnie Nakajima, and the last time she had seen the real Donnie, she had killed him and earned her position as The Paper. Sharp and warm, that's what it felt like. The paper she'd held had been so sharp she'd cut the inside of her palms on the edges, and her hands had felt warm and wet and slick as she shivered and watched his body slump. He'd been smiling. She had screamed.
"Sorry!" He said, smiling in apology. "Are you okay?"
"Fine!" Yomiko managed to blurt out. She didn't want to ask any questions. She wanted to turn away and march straight back to Nenene and Maggie, but she felt too dizzy and empty inside to risk moving. She'd fall over, she knew it, and then he'd worry and try to help her up. Oh, how had it all gone so wrong? Coming to America had been a mistake. She hadn't ever imagined that she'd feel so hollow and broken inside, meeting him face to face. All she'd though of back in Japan was the responsibility she held towards seeing this business through to the end. She should have stayed there, where it was safe. There was nothing she was doing that Maggie and Nenene and Drake couldn't do in her place.
Beside her, the man who looked like Donnie was smiling in concern. "You're obviously not, you're white as a sheet. Here..."
She managed to step back a little, keep his skin from touching her. "No, thanks. I'm fine."
"Ohhhh." He sighed and raised his hands in a shrug. "Sorry, I forgot I had my badge on. You're not the first person to react badly, if that helps."
"Um, no, it's fine. Really, I don't leave the house very often, and I'm naturally somewhat pale," Yomiko looked at his badge for the first time. In bright colours, it said, Donnie, Library of Congress/Google. "It's nothing to do with who you represent. Promise."
Now that he'd mentioned it though, the thought of the LoC being so publicly, shamelessly integrated with Google was chilling. The Library of Congress Yomiko had known in the past had been independent and strong, establishing and developing cataloguing standards that were used worldwide. Passionately dedicated to free information. How had this moved so fast? What else had she missed, thinking of the book tour and Donnie himself?
"We're not here to step on anyone's toes," he said carefully, "just to try and get to know people. We'd rather work with the industry than against it. Anyway, never mind. But let me help you? You shouldn't carry a pile that heavy too far."
Yomiko swallowed tightly. His voice was so familiar, especially when he mentioned books. She'd been too young when she'd met Donnie – she had to remind herself this wasn't her Donnie – and she'd never noticed it then. She noticed it now, she'd had enough experience in life. She'd had time to look back over her own experiences. This was what somebody in Donnie's body sounded like when they were interested in someone. He was, in his own reserved and awkward way, flirting. Of all the worst emotions to ever experience, the sick feeling of wrongness and longing that boiled in her stomach at that idea was pretty bad.
"I'm not, my friends are right over here."
He smiled. "Well then, you sure I can't help?"
Yomiko shook her head. She smiled politely. "All good. I'm a professional, I know what I'm doing."
She walked slowly away from him, until she felt steady on her feet again. She felt numb, cold inside, apart from that sick taste of bile at the back of her throat. Shock, she knew. She made it back though, slid her pile onto the table, and flopped down beside it.
"Only one booth?" Nenene asked wryly, "You're letting the team down."
"I... Google's here. Well, the Library of Congress and Google, holding hands." Yomiko managed. "He's here. You know the last time someone looked like him, I..."
Nenene's eyes widened. She remembered of course, Yomiko could see it in her eyes. Once upon a time, a man called Ridley Wan had worn Donnie's face to trick Yomiko, and she'd been so overcome with hope and joy, she had slept with him. Yomiko's weakness had nearly killed Nenene and the kids who they'd been taking care of. She hadn't been able to live with herself and the horror of it. It wasn't a time she liked to think about.
"Yeah, well, you know better this time. You know it's not him." Nenene frowned sympathetically.
"No, it's different. You're right. But he doesn't know. I don't have any defences against that." Yomiko looked down at her hands. There it was, out there honestly. Yomiko weak, rendered useless now. Vulnerable. Broken.
Maggie was the one who knew what to say. "You don't have to, we've worked around worse in the past. Nancy, Junior, my sisters, Gentlemen. Joker. You're not alone today."
Yomiko closed her eyes and reached down in herself, to the deepest truth of her self. She loved paper, paper loved her, and once upon a time she had been able to make that choice. She'd been tricked and lied to, but she'd always had the strength to stand up against those that she loved and do what she felt was right in the name of literature and the published word. She just had to remind herself of that, and that the mistakes of her youth had all come from the lies the British Library told, not from her choice to champion the cause of knowledge and enlightenment.
"You're right. I'll be okay. I'll be fine. It was just a surprise."
"Yeah," Maggie said.
"A dirty, unpleasant surprise," Nenene said. "Look, you won't have any fun here. Why don't you sit behind the table and read something. We can send Maggie out to do the rounds."
"We can?!" Maggie blushed, excited.
"I..." Yomiko thought about it. "Yes. I'll get ready for tomorrow, I'll need to be prepared."
"Hey," Nenene poked a finger into Yomiko's side. "Don't go thinking, 'I should exploit this connection', or anything like that. Don't think you have to deal with him at all if you don't want to."
"No," Yomiko said, "I know. But I'd like to see if I can try, if I'm ready for it."
"Yeah, well. Whatever. They're in the business of information control, not spycraft, anyway. Not like they'd try and kill us if we just left them to it for a while."
Yomiko caught herself before she said anything about how access to literature was life and death for a lot of people, literally in the case of some industries, and bit her lip. She was still shaky, and if she sat down to read, only people actually standing at the table and looking down behind it would see her. Peace and quiet, and a book. Thinking could wait until later. She lost herself in the new-glue smell and the rough paper of a cheap advance reader's copy.
In the hotel room, alone while the others went out to get food, Yomiko looked down at her suitcase. She'd brought some books for a purpose other than reading, and had no idea what to do with them. She'd planned to give them to Donnie, but could she? How do you approach somebody and say, hi, how are you, here are some novels that used to be owned by someone with your name. By the way, I just happened to care enough about you to give you these. Don't ask how I knew you'd be here. Enjoy!
But the alternative, not giving them to him at all... there was something deep inside her chest that wanted to pass them on to him. Give him back something of the Donnie she'd known. They shared genetics, if not a soul. Surely someone with the same physical brain would be able to derive pleasure from the same stimulus, even if his life experiences were entirely different.
She flopped back on her hotel bed and closed her eyes. "It's just a selfish dream, like how I kept Nancy from the truth, from recovery, all those years. Acting as if their lives are all about my feelings. I'm a monster."
She felt better having said it aloud. She missed Nancy, and the first Nancy, and Donnie. Her skin felt cold on her arms from the air conditioning. She shivered.
The roar of white noise in the room was interrupted by the others getting back. They were chatting, laughing. Yomiko could smell rice and vegetables and salt sticking to them, they'd bought some more of the hilariously not-Chinese food you could get from cheap restaurants. Deep fried, half of it. More meat than flavour. People added vegetables when you asked for them, though. Maggie settled the bag of cardboard cartons on the small table and set out serviettes and disposable chopsticks. There weren't enough chairs to sit in, but there was space to stand.
"So I was thinking," Nenene said between mouthfuls, "maybe the reason President Cole thinks that the project will succeed over here, is that everyone's in a salt stupor."
"Sugar," Drake said.
"No, Japan uses a lot of sugar in cooking. It has to be the salt."
Maggie smiled, as Drake waved a hand enthusiastically. "What about all your salty foods?"
They'd had the argument before, they were all used to it by then. Yomiko smiled and laughed at the right places, feeling warmth spread in from her skin and out from her tummy until she felt safe and alive again. After eating, when they were sitting around and feeling tired, Yomiko brought it up.
"I've decided I'm going to talk to him, tomorrow. If anything I have to return some books."
Nenene's eyes widened. "Return? You don't think he's actually," she shook her head.
Yomiko shrugged and rubbed a finger on her cheek while she answered, hoping Nenene's common sense wouldn't put a stop to her plans. "No, I don't think he's really the man I knew. But books will be important to him, I know it. Whatever happens, I can't come all this way and let someone in his body live without the books that meant the most to the Donnie I knew."
Maggie sniffled a little. "... Beautiful."
"Pardon?" Yomiko hadn't quite caught everything she had said.
"That feeling is noble and beautiful," Maggie repeated.
"Well it's certainly something," Drake said cynically. "Do I need to be there for your security?"
"I wouldn't expect so, but I don't think I should be the person to make that choice, all things considered."
Nenene swore under her breath and crossed her arms. "No. I am always playing the grown-up, it's not fair. One of you can take responsibility for once."
"B-but," Maggie stammered, "you're the one in charge. It's your book tour."
"Well, shit," Nenene said. "Okay. Why don't we take Drake with us to help with the stall, and then he'll be there just in case. If you try and talk to Donnie in a public area, we can keep an eye on you from a distance."
"Okay,' Yomiko said. She took a deep breath. "Okay, thank you. For helping me."
The sun was warm, though the haze of the city gave it a fuzzy quality. Not as bad as Tokyo's pollution did, but you could not deny that you were experiencing a clear day in a busy industrialised metropolis. The trundle of Yomiko's suitcase along the concrete footpath was reassuring, familiar. With wheels you could feel every bump and learn the shape of the ground beneath you. It was a more intimate way of grounding yourself, in an unfamiliar place. Though maybe that was just the way that you though about the world, when you relied on them to get around comfortably. Even manoeuvring past the crowds, Yomiko felt better. In control.
She had planned on choosing the right moment, but once she was in the hall she changed her mind. She walked straight to the Google Books Project information booth and eyed the people behind it. She didn't recognise any of them, and the only things they had on their table were pamphlets and posters, advertising for Google Books and other services, some Library of Congress publications. A sign for the question and answer panel that afternoon. Yomiko bit her lip and walked away. Perhaps he'd only been there for the first day, and she'd missed what chance she had.
"Hello again there," he said. He was behind her, not touching her. She turned around quickly, to see that he had a shy smile on his face, one hand raised in a cautious greeting.
"Hello," she said, reminding herself to breathe slowly and keep her head clear. "I am sorry again about yesterday, you took me by surprise."
He laughed nervously, looked downwards. "Actually, I'm glad to hear that. I was hoping to talk to you."
Yomiko looked around, not a quiet or empty place in sight. "Should we walk?"
"Lets." He'd barely said anything, but she noticed now that she wasn't panicking, he still had a very crisp and clear British accent to his English. She was glad. The thought of his face, with an American accent, it was too strange.
"So, how are you finding the-" she started uncertainly, at the same time that he said,
"I'm very sorry about the other day. I'm assuming you knew me once."
Yomiko felt panic settling back in. She tried not to stare at him or trip over her own feet.
"Donna told me a lot more than anyone else has. She told me to contact you, but the way you reacted I can only assume you knew me, er, before."
"Before Gentlemen," Yomiko said tentatively.
"Was it? I honestly have no recollection of things. I do know that I am unique amongst the synthetic beings Dokusensha called the I-jin, in that I am a normal human being remade. I even still have my original name. I think the rest of us are simply clones made from a mix of DNA."
"I... yes. I see. But you don't retain any memories at all?"
He smiled sadly. "If I did, from the way you looked at me, I'd remember you, wouldn't I?"
"Maybe not," Yomiko said. She was walking on eggshells, having this conversation. "So, N... Donna told you to contact me? Did she want you to pass anything on?"
"No, of course not. I'm not sure why, actually. I think she simply wanted me to be acquainted with everyone else. You have to admit, a crowded place like this, they wouldn't expect a clandestine meeting."
"Ah, well." Yomiko didn't feel up to all the explanations that would be needed to bring up how very suspicious it looked, or how easy it would be for Cole's people to associate Yomiko's passport with Nenene's, and then Nenene with the Expo and through that... Ah, it was too much. "What has she told you about me? We all assumed you were Cole's man, given our experiences with Dokusensha and the British Library. It's strange to imagine her telling you anything at all."
Donnie scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, all right. Ah, let's see. Hardly anything, but that you were able to save a lot of us from the organisations that manipulated us. That you keep a spare fantasy trilogy in your inner coat pockets, in case you run out of reading material on the train. That you were there, fighting the British Library, during the 451 incident. Just, you've both been there. It's amazing! "
He was gushing, eager, infatuated. He was so very young and naïve, his eyes shone with it. She had to kill it, and she knew she could do it. For the books. It wouldn't do to encourage him, it had only led to suffering and pain in the past.
"Did she tell you how I became involved?"
"Not exactly," he admitted.
"Well," Yomiko modulated her voice, kept it low so as not to attract attention. "Try not to look too surprised, all right?"
He laughed, nodded "Whatever you say."
"I was acting as an agent for the British Library," she said. "The 451 incident was punishment for me, for refusing to follow orders and acting against my superiors. It is a much longer story, but it involves Donna a lot. I can't reveal secrets that aren't mine to keep. It doesn't matter. I set the British Library on fire, and they set my home on fire as revenge of sorts, and to force my hand. It had less to do with the other events than historians like to pretend."
His eyes held wariness and a little less awe in them. He walked slower beside her, did not meet her eyes.
"There is more. You know that you were preserved because you were at the point of death. Somebody damaged the original Donnie Nakajima's body. She ripped your arms from your body, she sliced open your arteries. She severed your spinal cord and disfigured your face. She did it in order to qualify for a position within the British Library. There can only ever be one Agent The Paper, you see."
"You... why...?" He looked at her with barely controlled horror.
"I didn't mean to tell you, but if Nancy wants you to work with us, you have a right to know. It is not fair to exploit your ignorance just because you could be useful to us. I'm so sorry."
They stood still in the crowds for a while. This time, it was Donnie who was struck still in shock, and Yomiko wished she was neither so old nor so pragmatic as she was. Eventually he reached out to gently touch her arm, and they kept going. They looked at some stalls quietly and politely before he spoke again.
"Thank you for telling me. I was getting a bit of a crush on you, that's why it's so devastating. It's hard to go from light and fluffy emotions to abject terror. Did we ever..."
"So," Yomiko said, changing the topic, "you mentioned how I helped some of the I-jin. Do you want your own freedom at the end of this?"
Donnie cocked his head thoughtfully. That one curl of hair stuck out the side like always. "Not quite. I don't think I'll get free in that sense, whether I spend the rest of my days tied to Google and the project or living peacefully by myself. But this idea that one corporation or country has the right to assert monopolistic control over information access, and that it's even being sold up as some kind of universal free access to human knowledge... it makes me sick. It makes me furious."
Yomiko nodded. So he was still Donnie where it counted most then, deep down. "It's this logical fallacy," she agreed, "that absolute control over information will lead to absolute power, when the power of information is only absolute when it is freely shared by all humanity."
"Exactly! Oh, my dear murderer, you cannot imagine how nice it is to have somebody to talk to like this. I think Donna understands, but she doesn't see the injustice in it all."
"Donna is more used to leveraging power against people, to her it's a concept she can't have full faith in. Take for example, say everything is free and digitally distributed. What about the people with no computer access, or limited access? What about the people who learn how to keep better secrets, when most information is openly shared? She sees the inequalities and how to use them. That's what she believes in. It's why she's so good at what she does."
Donnie looked very interested. "You know her very well?"
"As well as anybody can, but that's only because I don't forget things."
Donnie laughed. "I've got a mind like a sieve," he joked. But then he immediately sobered. "No, don't tell me. I literally did."
"Of course not," Yomiko said. "Obviously they wouldn't have been able to reconstruct you so well if you didn't have a complete brain."
He sighed, and in the silence that followed, Yomiko felt guilt and fear and that heavy sick panic rising inside again. She swallowed against it, and tightened her hand around the handle of her suitcase.
"In any case, I didn't know you were going to approach me for this. It's a bit unexpected. What I really wanted to do today was give you some books. They were all yours, back when... back then."
He leaned to look at her suitcase. "Really? Wow."
She crouched down beside it. "Actually, do you have a bag? There are a few."
He winked at her. "I can still handle paper, you know."
"Oh." her heart fluttered in her chest. "Silly me, did not think of that. Here we go, then."
She pulled them out without looking at them, piling them in his waiting arms. "So you know my face now. I'm with three others, but it's better you don't know them all on sight, I think. I can get in contact with you?"
He surreptitiously used his powers to coax a business card out of his shirt pocket and into her fingers. She put it in her vest pocket without looking at it. "Good. Well, then."
Four more books and she was done. "It's not as many of yours as I have at home, but I thought a gesture was better than nothing. I can send the rest on to you, one day."
"I'd like that," he said, and neither of them said, if we survive this.
"I'm glad you don't hate me, for killing you," she said. Donnie hadn't hated her back then, but he'd understood why at the time. This version of Donnie had no context, and it had to be terrifying, being told to trust a person that you knew had murdered you and put you in a powerless situation.
Donnie had opened the front cover of the book on top of the stack. "But this one, it's too recent." It was a copy of Un Lun Dun. China Mieville.
"Oh, yes, well. We're both half British, and before you died, you lived in London once. You should enjoy it. Although now you can't remember that, can you? Don't feel you have to read it. I forgot you wouldn't remember. If you do, I hope you like it anyway."
Yomiko turned to go, when he said "Wait!"
She knew better, but she waited anyway.
"Were we, this is hard to ask. You didn't just inherit my books with the position. Did we know each other outside of that murder incident?"
She couldn't lie to him. "Yes."
He was quiet, his thoughts turned inwards. "I'm glad, then. I always think, it must be nicer to die at the hands of somebody you know and care for, than those of a complete stranger."
"Of course you would think that," she said. She smiled sheepishly. "You're still yourself, even if everything else has changed. Although..."
"Although?"
"You're so young now. You used to be so much older than me, and now I think I'm ahead of you by at least ten years."
He looked startled. It was probably the last thing on his mind.
"I'll get in touch," she promised, "to see if you like the book. Tell Donna that everyone is thinking of her, we miss her."
The second time, Yomiko managed to walk away without looking back. Donnie let her go. It hurt to leave, but it was wrong to stay. She could feel the weight of all that past so heavy on her own shoulders, and knew it must be heavier for someone who could not recall any of it. Who had not been there for a good eighty percent of it. What could you make, of someone like that, who was and was not themselves? She had no idea. Had it been wrong to keep some things from him, and present him with others? Perhaps trying to avoid the mistakes of the past would simply recreate them. Beautiful in literature, depressing in real life. Still, her heart felt lighter. She'd given his books back. His most important and heartfelt feelings. The loves of the original Donnie's life. What a gift, to be able to give that to someone. He was working with Nancy, he was on their side from the sounds of it. It was over, and she'd never have to have that conversation again. She felt floaty and free when she sat down at the booth between Nenene and Drake.
"Hey, you okay?" Nenene asked, looking at her with worried eyes.
"Yes, fine." Yomiko said, and she was. "Not at all like that other time. Maybe it's because I've had my revenge, it's all come out of me. Or it could be that I can let go of the people I love now."
"You're insane," Nenene said, "but I understand what you mean. Still. You've forgotten the most important part. You've got to work for me, so there's no chance of haring off on some wild boy-chase this time."
"Eheheh." Yomiko ducked her head, blushing. "Right. Work."
"Yeah, that's right. Work." Nenene stabbed her finger down onto a pile of pamphlets. "The boring thing that pays our airline and hotel bills. Get to it!"