Chapter V
"...though I admire [royalty] with all the duty possible,
yet the more a man considers and observes them,
the less he finds of difference between them and other men..."
-- The Diary of Samuel Pepys, July 26, 1665
A half-hour later, the crowd began gathering in the atrium. Taro waited until five minutes before the doors were scheduled to open to sneak out and see how many people there were. What he saw was pretty much the same crowd that attended all of the symposia scheduled by the university: tired teachers, brown-nosing students, and retired members of the neighborhood with nothing better to do on a Tuesday night. Of these, less than a handful of people would have any interest in his speech, or would be capable of understanding anything worthwhile in it. There were only two people he was looking for in the crowd: Reika, and the Tachibana representative.
The chairperson found him first. She had a look that mixed equal parts outrage and bewilderment. "Professor Okada! What is the meaning of this?" She shoved the corrected announcement for the presentation into his hands.
This was not the sort of greeting he was hoping for. He looked the sheet over for typos. "It looks alright to me."
"What happened to Williamson?"
He looked her in the eye to see if she was joking. "He couldn't make it," he said slowly, "so I'm taking his place."
"Oh! Well, thank you for putting this together on such short notice, then."
"...this moment is our goodbye, and that you'll be the one to say hello to me, not the other way around. Anyone else is not me."
Taro stopped breathing. His hands clenched tightly on the notice as he gazed searchingly into the eyes of this woman who apparently was not the same woman who had kissed him in the parking lot the day before. With a struggle, he managed to force out a word. "Who...?"
Before she had a chance to answer, Reika was surrounded on both sides by two tall men in black suits. Their eyes were hidden behind state-of-the-art Navishades.
"Chairperson Reika Yamamoto?" the one on the right asked.
She looked up at him. "Yes?"
The man on the left put his hand on her shoulder. "There was a problem with the financial assistance forms you submitted to the Tachibana Funding Committee."
She quickly swiveled her head. "Oh, dear! And the deadline is tonight."
The man on the left put a hand behind her back. "No need to worry, ma'am. The Committee has a room all set up to help you fill them out properly. If you come with us, we can get everything straightened out."
Reika smiled. "How thoughtful! Let's get going then!" She looked back to Taro as she was being led away. "Good luck, Professor! Sorry I couldn't make the presentation."
Taro couldn't move. Dozens of action-movie scenarios raced through his head, but the Cyberia Massacre, and the fact that the puppet government of Japan could openly congratulate Tachibana for doing it, proved you just didn't go up against the Men in Black single-handedly. Most importantly, he was immobilized by the container in his jacket's inside pocket. Reika Yamamoto was too highly placed in the university hierarchy to disappear without a trace. She was also known by too many people for her to be harmed physically. As for mental damage...well that was why he had been entrusted with a stick containing all the memories of her life. That was why he couldn't do anything to attract attention to himself, to make himself look like anything other than a casual acquaintance of his superior. But all those reasons did not stop Taro from feeling like a coward as he watched Reika walk out of the building of her own free will.
Does no one notice? Taro wildly scanned the room. The "uniform" of a Man in Black was unmistakable, especially in an academic milieu. Yet everyone pretended nothing unusual was happening. The lone exception was among the two latest arrivals, Professor Arrieta and Professor Chisa Yomoda. The Western Literature professor was desperately trying to get her taffeta dress loose from the fast-closing door behind her, while the Poetry professor in the slacks and tee-shirt was displaying her strong horror for violence: frozen in place, eyes and mouth open wide, with one arm pulling at Arrieta while the other was pointed at the doors closing on the backs of the Men in Black. The pairing brought to mind a time-lapse version of the story of Cinderella, with one Cinderella making her way to the ball in her gown past her several-hours later version fleeing into the night. Once the abductors were out of sight, Chisa dropped her arms in defeat, then looked at her watch and convinced her best friend that they might as well give up on the play they had planned on and attend the presentation instead.
The doors of the auditorium had opened by this time, and the people were working their way to their seats. Taro turned his eyes reluctantly from the outside door and made his way backstage.
How can I give a speech now? he asked himself. It's hopeless. Tachibana and the Big Eight have been ruling the world for years now. Who am I to think my pathetic little gambit could possibly work?
The professor peeked around the curtains at his audience. At first he noticed the small knots of people standing and talking. Professors Yomoda and Arrieta were closest to where he was standing, and from the occasional overheard word they were evidently discussing the lost poetry of Sappho, or rather, Arrieta was talking with great animation while Chisa stood there glumly. Arrieta was just bringing up Hypatia and the fall of paganism in Alexandria when Professor Yomoda's y-phone went off with a distinctive five-note ring. She answered it, excused herself, and exited by the side door. As the doors were locked precisely at 19:30, it was very unlikely that she would be coming back, but Professor Arrieta didn't know this, so she stood where she was and waited for Chisa to return.
Almost everyone else meanwhile was gathering around a woman in a smart business outfit who had just entered the auditorium. She answered very few of the questions put to her, and seemed a bit disgusted to be around so many people. Most of her attention was on the huge man next to her, his form barely contained in a black tuxedo. The man's hands were adorned with dozens of gadgets allowing him to control any number of devices by the mere flick of a finger. He wore an extra-large pair of Navishades, but these allowed his stern eyes to be seen, unlike those of the Men in Black. In contrast to her companion, the woman was the only person in the entire building entirely devoid of personal electronics, a silent statement of mastery. The glances the two gave each other made it clear to anyone paying attention that she considered him her personal property, while he on the other hand didn't seem to have a problem with this arrangement.
Taro recognized the woman, and shook his head in wonderment. Mika Iwakuwa, the President of Research and Development for Tachibana Networks, is attending my presentation. He simply had to put on the presentation now, if only to tell Masayuki. He took his place, touched the control to open the curtains, and waited for his audience to notice him.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Professor Williamson's talk on the potentials inherent in the upcoming Tenth IP Protocol has been postponed until a later date. In his place, I will be presenting my research into search algorithms on the Wired."
A couple of dedicated IP enthusiasts who had missed the correction got up and left at that point. Taro caught himself unconsciously looking for Reika in the audience. He had figured if anyone could have figured out what he was really up to during his speech, it would be her. He happened to notice that Chisa had managed to get back into the theater somehow and was sitting next to Professor Arrieta in the middle of the second row.
Taro reminded himself to focus. He activated the monitors at the back of everyone's chairs and displayed the first slide. As he did so, he noticed a light on the podium indicating that an anonymous someone was using the MAPU's to watch his speech. He quickly scanned the darkened amphitheater, but failed to spot anyone, real or hologram, that he didn't recognize.
His audience was fidgeting. "Yes! Well, this first slide depicts the current 4-P search algorithm, which has been used by all of the Wired's search engines for the past twenty-three years. The artificial intelligence capabilities of this algorithm has made it the most powerful in history, but it still requires queries to be composed in a specialized subset of the English language, 'four-speak'. The goal of search engine logicians has been to push the algorithm to the fifth, or intuitive level. I believe I have attained that goal."
Iwakura yawned, and Taro broke into a cold sweat. He put on his second slide; the one he had hoped would elicit an appreciative laugh from Reika. "The secret..."
Taro stopped at that point, because he had suddenly noticed that there was someone new in the audience. At the top of the stairway that ran down the center of the auditorium was now a folding chair, and sitting in the chair was a teenage girl, her eyes wide. Taro could swear that he had never seen her before in his life.
Taro was now completely dispirited. He had hoped that his mystery guest would be someone of importance at Tachibana Networks, but instead it turned out to be some unknown hacker, or else a bored young woman playing with the machines at Tachibana while her father was off programming somewhere.
Reluctantly, Taro continued where he left off. "The secret was the personal language profiles collected by every Navi and uploaded to the Central Repository every night. Use of these profiles allow casual enquiries to be precisely interpreted, to within the twelfth degree."
There wasn't really anything to be done by this point, as nearly everyone was looking at their watches. The hologram girl saw this, and suddenly stood with her arm up. She started speaking, but no words came out of her lips. Instead it was Professor Yomoda who spoke: "Professor Okada! May I ask a question?" She was standing with the exact same pose as the girl.
Taro was confused for a brief moment, until he saw that the girl was suddenly wearing a man's suit from the American Nineteenth Century and beside her was a curtain and an elaborate clockwork mechanism. It was a common hacker pose: "I am Oz, the great and powerful! Pay no attention to that person behind the curtain." "Go ahead," he gamely addressed "Chisa".
"Aren't both the 5-P and 4-P algorithms both N-space solutions to the 9-PSQ equation?"
"Yes, that's right." Then he remembered. "And since Tachibana Networks has full legal rights to all derivations of that equation above the fourth level, 5-P will be the only search algorithm allowed on the Wired." Taro wanted to kick himself for almost leaving out 5-P's major selling point.
Now that the prospect for controlling the vast majority of the Wired's advertising revenue had been revealed, Taro once again had Mika Iwakura's full attention. The rest of the presentation was merely to prove that he had in fact succeeded in creating a workable 5-P algorithm.
As soon as it was over, the girl and her chair disappeared, while the holographic puppet of Chisa Yomoda quickly walked to the nearest door and disappeared when it left the line of sight of the MAPU at the back of the auditorium. The real and very frustrated Professor Yomoda then walked in through the same door and collected Professor Arrieta, who was her ride home. The switch was so smooth that Taro was the only one to notice it.
The Tachibana representative and her bodyguard/secretary had meanwhile climbed the stairs to the stage.
"Congratulations, Professor Okada!" Iwakura exclaimed. "That was a masterful presentation you just gave! My name is Mika Iwakura, President of R & D at Tachibana."
Now came the second part of Taro's plan, which is where the wardrobe did most of the work. "Wow!" he exclaimed, "I've seen you on TV!"
Iwakura smiled deviously. "Yes, well I try my best to spread the word about all the good things that Tachibana has been doing for the world. I believe that you would make a welcome addition to our team."
"Golly!" Taro inwardly winced at the word. "I would be honored. But I've got some other projects to finish at the university first. It might be awhile."
"That's too bad. It would be a shame for the world to have to do without your wonderful algorithm, even for a few months." She shook her head sadly as her eyes laughed at him.
"Well, do you think it would help if I lent you my notes?"
The businesswoman practically purred as her estimate of his gullibility shot into the stratosphere. "Oh, could you? Tachibana would be ever so grateful! We promise to hold the perfect spot for you whenever you're ready."
Oh I'm sure you will, he thought to himself.
She gestured towards the door. "Now, if you'd like, we can take my limo to your office, and we can get started on your notes."
He shook his head. "You don't have to go to the trouble. I always carry my notes with me."
Ms. Iwakura's eyes boggled as he pulled out his notes. "Is that a zip disk?"
"Well," he blushed, "I've been working on this for a long, long time." He held it out, nervously. "I've got my life's work on here, Miss Iwakura. You'll get it right back to me, right?"
The disk was ripped out of his fingers so fast it nearly left rug burns on his fingers. "Of course, Professor. We should be able to get everything we need in a few hours. I'll have it personally delivered by Thursday at the latest. And thank you once again, for helping Tachibana make the world a better place." She then turned and practically ran for the door, her companion stumbling after her.
