The Apex Book of World SF 2

Shibuya no Love ^{Hannu Rajaniemi}

They were eating takoyaki by the statue of Hachiko the dog when Norie told her to buy a quantum lovegety.

Riina’s Japanese was not very good in spite of two years of Oriental Studies and three months in Tokyo, and the translation software on her phone did not immediately recognise the term, so she just stared at the small caramel-skinned girl blankly for a few seconds, mouth full of fried dough and octopus. “A what?” she managed finally, wiping crumbs from her lips.

Norie, who sat on the edge of the fountain and dangled her impossibly tanned legs in the air, giggled.

“You don’t have them in Finland? How do you meet boys there? Oh, I forgot, you have the sauna!”

“It’s not a—” Riina stopped. The concept of non-erotic unisex nudity in a steamy room was something only her Canadian friends had grasped so far. “Never mind. Tell me about the lovegety.”

“It’s the most kawaii thing! I keep mine on all the time. Look!” Norie held up her wrist. Her phone was embedded in a Cartier platinum bracelet with a jewel-studded Hello Kitty engraving that her boyfriend Shinichi had given her for her birthday. Riina had admired it several times, but had not paid attention to the little teardrop-shaped plastic thing dangling from it until now. It was hardly bigger than the tip of her index finger, and its pink surface had the characteristic Teflon sheen of a nanovat-grown product. There was a silvery heart-shaped logo on one side.

“They had these already when my mother was a schoolgirl—that’s how she met my father! Then they went out of fashion for several years, but now there is this crazy otak in Akihabara making new and better ones. Quantum versions. Everybody has one!”

“So, what does it do?”

“I can’t tell you—you have to try it! C’mon, let’s go-find you one!” Norie leaped up, took Riina’s hand in her own and tugged her towards the techno beat of Shibuya and District 109 that was its heart. A forest of orange hairdos, brown legs and spidery eyelashes swallowed the girls. There was a crowd around the statue: it was one of the few clear landmarks in the district, and tourists loved the story of the dog who waited for its master for years after his death.

Riina hesitated. Norie tended to assume that she was equally good at assimilating the new memes that boiled up from the teenage paradise of Shibuya as her Japanese friends, who seemed to be able to turn the latest otaku toy into a subculture or a fashion statement in a matter of minutes. She was starting to become desensitised to future shock, but the labyrinths of the new and the old in this country still confused her. She wondered how her father managed: good protocol/etiquette software, probably. It was simply impossible to figure out the right kind of bow, the correct form of address towards a senior or a superior.

Let alone get a date.

She sighed and allowed Norie to tow her deeper into the crowd. The Japanese girl’s neon-rimmed eyes were bright, and her small white teeth were flashing, her canary-yellow backpack bopping up and down.

“Seriously—lovegetys are sooo kawaii!”

The boy looked like a painted little satyr: silver lips and eyelids, orange ash-streaked hair and a heavy gold chain around his neck. He couldn’t have been older than twelve, but then, in Shibuya, a fifteen-year-old was ancient and venerable. The drone of the base beat that seemed to permeate everything in 109 obscured the rapid-fire exchange between Norie and the boy, but it wasn’t long before he smiled hungrily and held his palm out towards Riina, the little pink thing bright against his dark skin like a tiny flower. She took it, and it was still warm from the boy’s hand, a living thing almost. Her MasterCard thumbnail sang an inaudible song to the boy’s account, and suddenly she was the proud owner of a quantum lovegety.

Norie gave her a nymph-like smirk as the satyr-boy vanished into the seething mass of Japan’s young around them.

“Now comes the best part. We go to Starbucks, and you get to try it out!”

Most of Shibuya was like a graffiti: clashing, bright, screaming colours over a drab concrete surface, the clothes shops and holograms and neon signs and rainbow crowds, a stark contrast to the utilitarian 90s architecture. Starbucks was an exception—an intricate, cylindrical two-storey glass monstrosity, a ten-metre hologram of the white-green all-seeing mermaid hovering above it.

The girls sat at a small table on the second floor, sipping cardboard-flavoured cappuccinos. Norie helped Riina to calibrate the lovegety: it talked to her old Nokia toothphone eagerly, a little light blinking in the centre of the silver heart. Menus with swirling Japanese characters danced on her retina, barely comprehensible. “Get2 setting? What is that?”

“Never mind that; you don’t want to set it that high for the first go. We’ll go for “karaoke”. Your VR stuff is a bit old-fashioned, but—there. It’s mining the web and creating your profile now—done!” Norie visibly enjoyed her big-sister role, affecting a firm motherly tone.

“What do I do now?”

“Now? Silly girl, now you go and find a boy you like, and enjoy the show.”

“Just a random guy? But what will I say to him?”

“You don’t have to say anything, that’s the point! Off you go now—just wander around and pretend that you’re looking for the ladies’ room. I’ll call Shinichi, and we’ll go for dinner with him after he gets off work—it’ll be fun!”

Riina swallowed the last of her coffee and got up, feeling awkward. She took her purse, pocketed the lovegety and walked towards the signs pointing to the ladies’ room, trying to look innocent and casting passing glances at the men sitting at the tables she passed. There were a couple of businessmen, a glazed look in their eyes as they imbibed caffeine seasoned with the latest stock fluctuations; a couple of rare daylight otaku wearing ill-fitting jeans, anime T-shirts and subterranean mutant complexions; and trendy neo-jinrui oozing illusory wealth, talking loudly and dressed in pin-striped gangster suits. She felt silly and focused her eyes on the white skirt-wearing pictogram ahead, shaking her head.

The lovegety beeped. A female voice chattered something in her ear like an exotic bird. Flashing icons guided her eyes towards a lone figure sitting by one of the large windows. Riina stopped, felt blood rising to her cheeks and tried to think about lying face down in a snowdrift, cold and dead. Usually, it worked.

Not this time. He had good cheekbones, short-cropped black hair and large brown eyes behind rimless AR glasses; he was scribbling something furiously with a stylus on the screen of an old-fashioned palmtop, forehead furrowed in concentration. Suddenly he stopped and looked up, straight at Riina, a surprised expression on his face. His name was Hiroaki, she suddenly knew: twenty-three, studying communications technology at Keio University, single, four previous relationships, likes old Takeshi Kitano films and Japanese jazz, owns a cat.

The lovegety buzzed again. Riina caught a glimpse of a brief animation: clunky cartoonish figures of a boy and a girl holding lovegetys. The devices sent out little arrows that shook hands in the air. “Karaoke Mode Initiated!” chirped the shrill voice of the gadget through her jawbone.

Riina was suddenly overwhelmed by a nauseatingly powerful sense of deja vu mixed with vertigo. It was as if she were falling, only sideways, weightless. She closed her eyes, and the feeling subsided. When she opened them again, she was looking straight into Hiroaki’s eyes, and she felt his hand touching her cheek gently. A confused tangle of new memories unfolded in her head: a seafood dinner, games at the arcade, strolling through 109’s boutiques of the bizarre, joking about the latest fashionable trinkets. Tension, hands and limbs brushing against another ever so lightly, Hiroaki missing his train to walk Riina home. And then— “The First Kiss!!!” piped the female demon in her ear, and her mouth was suddenly full of Hiroaki’s tongue and taste, his lips moving a bit clumsily, uncertainly. But there was no clanging of teeth, no awkwardness.

It was perfect.

And then it was over.

“To Experience Adult Situations, Upgrade To Get2 Mode!!!” sang the lovegety and plunged Riina into a warm sea of afterglow, into soft jazz tunes sung by a Japanese voice. They lay on Hiroaki’s futon, Riina listening to his heartbeat, her cheek against his smooth chest, as he leant on one elbow and toyed with her hair.

“Pillow Talk!!!” crooned lovegety.

“I’m going back home this fall,” she said, not knowing where the words had come from, head heavy with newly discovered plans and dreams. And the butterflies in her stomach, the fear of losing all this perfection—where did that come from? She looked up at Hiroaki, touching his cheek. “Would you like to come with me?”

“Yes,” he said and smiled, and the lovegety carried them away again.

Finland. Snow. Perfect weekends by the lake in her family’s summer house. Hiroaki learning to ski, nose peeling from mild frostbite. Hiroaki making her tea. A big warm water balloon swelling in her chest as she thought about him. Staccato images punctuated by the voice of the lovegety. Arguments. Hiroaki’s inferiority complex. Her endless need to overanalyse her problems, the desire for a safe male figure to replace her father. The usual things, the pitfalls of pillow psychology. And, finally, Hiroaki’s back receding into the distance on one of the moving walkways at Helsinki Airport, Riina holding back her tears and squeezing the little ivory cat in her pocket that he had given her.

“Karaoke Mode Ends!!!”

The voice was like a guillotine, sharp-edged and unstoppable, cutting through the illusion. She fell back to the mutter of Starbucks, felt her knees buckling under her. Strong warm hands grabbed her by the shoulders and supported her. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. It took only seconds for her head to clear a bit, and she found herself looking into Hiroaki’s eyes again. She almost cried from relief and covered his face with kisses, but the lovegety world was already fading away, the memories attaining a dreamlike quality.

“Are you all right?” asked Hiroaki, a concerned look on his face.

“Yes, fine,” she stammered. “I was just—”

“Oh dear. That was your first time, wasn’t it? Come, sit down and we’ll get you some coffee.”

“No…no, I’m all right now.”

“No, really, it’s no bother. I owe you that much at least.” He winked. “Although I did hope that you’d have set it all the way up to get2.” He saw Riina’s expression and laughed. “Only joking. C’mon. It’s safe, I promise.”

Riina felt a bit better after a steaming cup of mocha. Hiroaki watched her intently as she sipped the frothy liquid. She heard a short buzz from somewhere far away, and jumped in her seat, but nothing happened.

“Look, I’m sorry you got so shaken up,” Hiroaki said finally. “Your friend should have explained to you how it works. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He touched Riina’s arm gently, his fingertips little points of electricity on her skin.

“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

“Anytime.”

Norie waved at them from the other side of the room and walked over, her pink Hello Kitty handbag swinging in the air. Riina glared at her angrily, but her irritation turned to astonishment as her friend bent over Hiroaki and kissed him on the lips, full and hard. He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. While you were drinking your mocha, we went to Get2. Kind of accidentally.”

Norie pursed her lips. “Well, it didn’t seem to work out between you two, and he is cute! You don’t mind, right?”

“What about Shinichi?”

“What about him? He’s not really a boyfriend anyway; it’s more of an enjo-kosai thing, you know. We do stuff, and he buys me things. Very practical. He doesn’t mind, really—and we’re still meeting him for dinner! Hiroaki can come along.”

Riina stood up.

“No, you guys go ahead. I… I think I need some fresh air.”

“Really? Are you sure? Look, I’m sorry; these things happen quickly. Try some other setting sometime, it’s really fun!” Norie gave her a tight little hug. “I’ll see you soon, Okay? Call me.”

As Riina started walking away, Hiroaki called after her. “Riina! You are invited to our wedding, of course! Next week! Try to make it!”

She ran then, tears in her eyes, towards the endless heavy beat of Shibuya, trying to find an ivory cat in her pocket, and her heart jumped when her fingers closed around something small and warm. But it was only the lovegety.

She threw it into the fountain by the statue of Hachiko the dog, and watched it sink. The statue seemed to be looking at her sadly with its bronze dog-eyes, and she knew that it, too, was still waiting, waiting for love in Shibuya.