White Matter

Time to Go

When I pull off the headset, I find Graeme sitting in the chair next to me.

"Time to go, Kurt."

My room is in an apartment, smaller even than Shigeru's. Graeme leads me out through the front door to the balcony. We must be ten stories up, looking out over a small fraction of Tokyo. It's midday and the city is bathed in light from a hazy sky, its thinness of illumination out of proportion to the intensity of the heat. The rain, it appears, went into remission sometime during my long sleep.

"We've got another place, one floor down," he explains as he sets off toward the stairs.

"Why me, Graeme? Of all the brains you could have scanned, what on earth induced you to choose a defunct artist who was down on his luck?"

Graeme is a step ahead of me. His reply comes without his turning around.

"Because you were there." His tone makes the words sound almost like a question. "On one level any brain would have done."

We enter the wire cage of the stairwell.

"So why yours? I told you before, remember? Back when we were locked up together." I cast my mind back, failing to make any connection.

"We were impressed by the way you had so comprehensively abandoned your old life as an artist. How you had started afresh."

"Abandoned? You make it sound a more voluntary choice than it was."

Graeme shrugged, turning his head a quarter turn as he spoke, though not enough for me to see his face. "The final decision was left to Lance Coriolis. He decided you were the ideal candidate. The closest to a blank slate we could hope to find in an adult human being."

"A blank slate? That doesn't sound very flattering."

We had reached the downstairs apartment.

"Well Lance was impressed."

He opens the door. "Come on in, everyone's waiting for you."

He is right. The first thing I see as I walk through the door is Kohei in a bright yellow shirt. Once my eyesight regains its contrast, I also note Karen, James, Miranda, Shigeru, and a Japanese woman who can be none other than the much discussed Junko. The apartment has the same layout as the one I woke up in, upstairs, but has been refitted as an office. They are seated around a meeting table, at the head of which stand two video screens, one showing my mates Laurel and Hardy from back at the airport. The second holds Tane and Elovi'i.

"Hi Kurt," says Tane. Elovi'i waves.

"Tane? You're in on this as well?"

He appears to catch the incredulity in my tone and grins back with the complicity of shared ignorance. "Travis and Alex said you were about to become famous. Said we ought to tune in, share the moment 'n all. But they wouldn't tell me any more than that."

"Hi Kurt. We heard about your bump on the head. Glad to see you're okay," says Hardy – or Alex rather. I need to remember they have real names. Next to him Travis smiles like an emaciated Buddha, looking just like he did last time we met.

Graeme directs me to an empty seat before taking his own next to Miranda.

Without saying anything, Graeme passes over a sheaf of papers. They appear to contain some sort of legal contract.

"You're going to have to sign that," he says.

I look at it again. The words are a blur on the page. Full of 'parties of the first part' and other legal incantations. "Why do I get the feeling I'm about to sell my soul," I say. "All over again." I look up. The table is a ring of expectant faces.