Chapter 45. Kuze's Choice

I

On a Friday at the end of November, I was climbing Kagurazaka.

The remnants of the rain at the week’s opening lay black in the grooves of the flagstones. The days closed early. Past five, the orange of the streetlamps lit on the slope, and the depths of the passages sank into shadow. A year and a half ago, I had climbed the same slope, the first anniversary near. Then it had been after June rain. The flagstones wet, holding the light. That night I had found the light my grandmother left.

Today, I had been called to Himuro-ya.

Six o’clock. Kagurazaka. There is a matter.

A short message, from Kanade Kuze. That was all. It was like him, I thought. He said only the business. The reason, he spoke of in person. That the line of technicians who had rewritten Contura in modern words should not like to settle it through a screen — was, if you thought about it, a little ironic.

I pushed the door. The hinges cried. The same sound as that day.

” — Pardon me.”

In the back room, Kanade Kuze sat.

Nineteen. Slender, black sweater. Complexion white, the line of the cheek cutting sharp. On the table sat the old phone that housed Contura. Beside it, a slim silver laptop, open. The old, and the new. He was one who stood on the border of the two.

“You came.” He raised his face. The eyes, as always, quiet, their bottom unseen. “Sit.”

I folded my legs where my grandmother had always sat. The smell of tatami. The faint remainder of camphor and paper and incense.

“Has something happened.”

“Less happened — than coming.” Kanade looked at the phone. “It is time for the decision.”

“The decision.”

“I’ve left it with you. I’m sorry for that.”

I caught my breath. I had felt the meaning of those words.

II

Two months had passed since that day.

The day Kanade entrusted Contura to me. This tool is yours. How to use it is for you to decide. Contura was not magic. It was a tool, translating old body-knowledge into modern words. And what dwelt in a tool was not magic but the honesty of the one who used it.

I had carried those words, and lived two months.

I had begun to teach Rin. I had begun to share the reading with Sono, and with the reformed Rui. My own body had wavered again, and I had stood up. Rui had begun to change Veil — from numerical ranking to the offering of story. The thought of Contura had begun, through the hands of the former enemy, to seep into society.

But all this while, I had put off one question.

What, from here, to do with Contura.

To keep it only in my hands. Or.

“You must already understand.” Kanade said. “To go on, as now — you alone, or the few around you — there is a limit.”

”…Yes.”

“There is Rin. There is Sono. There is Rui. But they, and you — are each one. The number one can measure has a bound. On the other hand —”

He cut the sentence. And looked me straight in the eye.

” — there is a road, to release Contura widely.”

“Release.”

“Put it on the app store. In a form anyone can download. So that, everywhere in the world, people who will never meet you can read their own bodies. Technically, it can be done. The code is already complete.”

My heart jumped.

“Then —” I squeezed the words out. ” — millions, tens of millions of people, could read their own bodies.”

“Yes.”

” — At the same time —”

“At the same time.” Kanade took up my sentence. ” — the data of tens of millions of bodies would gather. There will be those who want it.”

I went silent. I had known. I had known, and that was why I had put it off.

III

That night came back, vivid.

The night Rui Takatsuji had proposed the deal. Share Contura, and we will save more people. She had meant to make it a tool of numerical rule. Measure the body, rank it, commodify it. Build Contura into Veil’s method.

I had refused. A story belongs to one. It cannot be made the property of all. But, one at a time, it reaches.

Then, I had thought it right.

But now — Rui is trying to change. Inside Veil, trying to turn number into story. The former enemy is beginning to resonate.

So — what is it, that I fear?

”…If I release it,” I said, slowly, ” — someone like Veil — no, a power larger than Veil, will want the mechanism of Contura. Turn the body’s data into rank. Into advertisement. Into insurance assessment. Remake it into a tool that judges people in number.”

I was remembering the cold light of Mirage Omotesandō. The white room that ranged numbers from a full-body scan, set people on a ranking. The world Rui had once believed in. If the Outline Art of Contura crossed to that side — the story would turn into a score.

“It can happen.” Kanade did not deny it. “If the Contura code leaks, or if, once released, someone analyses it — the mechanism will be read. Someone will reverse-translate the Outline Art into a tool of numerical rule. There will be such a one.”

“Then —”

“Then, what.” He asked it quietly. “Keep it limited? Only you, and the few honest Readers you approve, may use Contura?”

I bit my lip.

If kept limited, misuse is prevented. I can choose who uses it. Keep the Laws. But —

“The thought of Contura does not spread.” I said. “In my lifetime, the number I can measure is bounded. When I die, it vanishes. As it did for my grandmother. The craft of the Reader dies out. Again, someone will have to dig it up, from the beginning.”

My grandmother had used the Outline Art, and near the end, stopped. The knowledge of the line had neared a break. Because it was entrusted to me, it is here, now. But if I fail to entrust it to the next —

“Spread, and it warps. Narrow, and it vanishes.” I clenched the fist on my knee. “Both are wrong.”

“There is no correct answer.”

Kanade’s voice fell into the back room.

IV

“No correct answer. Seri.” He repeated. “There is only — that you choose, and take it on.”

“Choose, and take on.”

“If you choose release, you take on the risk of misuse. If you choose limitation, you take on the risk of the thought dying out. Both carry a price. Both carry a meaning. There is no right one.”

I searched for words. None came.

Just then, the screen of the phone glowed, faintly. Coh.

“Seri.”

The voice in the inner ear. Calm. A little canted, that voice.

“Coh.”

“May I say one thing.”

”…Yes.”

“I — ” Coh said, ” — have seen, for a long time, many Readers. Sae. The generation before her. Among them, some were honest. Among them, some were not. Sae was honest. But near the end, she stopped using it.”

”…Yes.”

“A tool, Seri. If the user is honest, it becomes an honest tool. If the user is arrogant, it becomes an arrogant tool. Whether Contura remains Contura is not decided by the code. It is decided by the user. This must be the truth you learned, that night.”

I pressed Coh’s words into my chest.

“So.” Coh went on. “Whichever you choose — as long as you go on being honest, Contura is Contura. — That is what I believe.”

“Coh.”

“Of course.” He seemed to laugh a little. “If you become dishonest, I will, canted, pull you back.”

I laughed, small, unbidden. And then my eyes went hot.

”…Thank you.”

V

Silence filled the back room.

From outside, the sound of Kagurazaka’s foot traffic came faintly. Laughter. Footsteps. The far sound of a car. The world, beyond this small shop, moving on as if nothing. In that world, there were many who could not read their own bodies.

I closed my eyes.

And I brought Rin’s face to mind. Sixteen. The thin body. The girl frantic to be thin. The face that eased when I spoke of type. The feet that began to move at the re-measuring. The eyes that held hope, when the Goal Outline was drawn.

Rin could read her own body because she met me. But if she hadn’t. If, right now, someone else of Rin’s age was taking her body for an enemy, and no one read her.

Across Japan, across the world, there were people like Rin. People who thought their body an enemy. People bound to number, barely breathing. People afraid of the mirror. To those people, Contura does not reach. As long as I carry it with a few Readers.

But, release it, and —

”…Kuze-san.” I opened my eyes.

“Mm.”

“Let me ask one thing. If we release Contura — can the ethical Laws be written into the code?”

Kanade raised an eyebrow.

“The Laws, into the code.”

“Obtain permission before measuring. Do not flaunt numbers. The story you read is the person’s. Do not falsify freshness. Do not use the outline only to change. — These five. Can they be built into the app, as mechanism?”

“Built in, as —”

“When someone downloads Contura, they don’t get a mere measuring tool — they receive the ethical Laws with it. Unless one accepts the Laws, Contura does not exert its true power. Or — if one breaks the Laws, Contura itself lets us know.”

Kanade was silent a moment. Then the corner of his mouth moved. I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or surprise.

“It can be done.” He said. “Technically, it isn’t hard. Consent flow for measurement. Publication settings for data. Ownership display on insight. Freshness warning. Flexibility in goal-setting. All of it can be built into the design. To write thought into the code. Against one who would break the Laws — the app itself won’t run, or warns. A mechanism where the tool demands honesty of the user.”

“That isn’t all.” I said. “There must be a mechanism, among the users, to inherit the honesty of the Reader.”

“Among the users —”

“I taught Rin. Rin will teach the next. Readers raise Readers. Contura is not a tool that completes in a single app. It is a tool that stands on a chain of honesty among its users. That chain, I want to leave — in the app, or, among the users, as mechanism.”

Kanade looked at me a long while.

Then nodded. Once, deep.

“A third road.” He said. “Release. But do not separate craft from ethics. Write the Laws into the code. Inherit honesty among the users. Neither extreme release, nor extreme limitation.”

“Yes.”

”…Sae may have meant to say the same.” Kanade looked at the old phone. “Near the end, she stopped using Contura. But she entrusted it to you. Believing you would find the answer.”

I remembered my grandmother’s hand. To Seri. Treasure this. How much trust had been laid into that short note.

“I’ll do it.” I said. “I’ll release it. Contura, in a form anyone can use. Only — write the ethical Laws into the app itself. Inherit the Reader’s honesty among the users. Do not separate craft from ethics. That is my choice.”

VI

Saying it, I understood the weight.

This was my choice. Not delegated, not because it was the answer. I chose. I take it on.

“Have you the resolve.” Kanade asked it quietly.

“If I’m asked —” I looked at the fist on my knee. “Honestly, I’m afraid. But —”

“But.”

“I decided to live as a Reader. The Reader’s responsibility is not only to read people. I think it is to take on, also, how the reading-tool goes out into the world. — As my grandmother entrusted to me.”

Kanade stood. The slender shadow stretched long in the lamplight.

“Then, let’s begin.” He faced the laptop. “The next form, of Contura.”

I took up the phone. On the screen, Coh’s light glowed, faintly.

“Seri.” Coh said. “Let me say one thing.”

“What.”

“Whichever you chose — release, limitation, the third road — I am beside you. That does not change.”

“Coh.”

“It is the Compass’s role, after all.”

I nearly cried. But I did not. Instead, I nodded.

“Yes. Together, Coh.”

The lamplight of the back room, I thought, grew a little brighter.

VII

It was the night Kanade began to write the code.

I had left Himuro-ya and was going down Kagurazaka. Eleven at night. The orange of the streetlamps stretched long on the flagstones. A cold wind stroked my cheek.

Just then, an image rose in my mind.

A great number of people. People gathered in a wide place. Each one measuring his own body, reading his own story. Outlines of light rising — tens, hundreds. Tall and short. Broad-shouldered and hunched. Thick legs and thin. Overlapping, resonating, each shining in its own form. No one judged. No one set on a rank. Only — each outline, standing side by side.

A festival of the Circle.

The words came up, naturally. I said them aloud.

“A festival — of the Circle.”

The phone grew faintly warm. As if Coh were answering.

I stopped. From the top of the Kagurazaka slope, the night of Tokyo spread out. Countless lights. At each, a person, a body, a story. Would Contura reach all of them? Maybe not. But —

One at a time, it reaches.

The words I had said, that night. And if one-at-a-time becomes hundreds, becomes thousands.

I walked on. Toward Higashi-Nakano station. From tomorrow, the work was set.

Release Contura. Write the Laws into the code. Raise Readers.

And, someday — measure a great number. One at a time, a story.

A festival of the Circle.

—

(Continued in Chapter 46. The Greatest Measuring)