Zaregoto

Volume 1 Chapter 2: Savant Blue (Part 2)

I'd be lying if I said I knew all that much about the Akagami Foundation. They're not exactly the most well-publicized organization in the world. Plus, since they mostly operated out of the Kanto region, someone like me who was born in Kobe, grew up in Houston, Texas, and lived in Kyoto wouldn't know that much about them.

Putting it simply, the Akagami mansion was the home to a storied legacy of business barons. That business might have been some kind of trade or a system in which money just poured in on its own. I'm not sure what exactly it is that they did, but whatever it was, one thing was for sure: the Akagami Foundation was loaded.

Holding property not just in Japan but all over the world, the Akagami Foundation was the owner of Wet Crow's Feather Island as well. And the owner of the Western-style mansion found in the center of the island was none other than Akagami Iria.

As you might guess from her name, Iria was related to the head of the Akagami Foundation—his granddaughter, in fact. She was a born-and-bred pedigreed princess, for whom no obsequious praise was too obsequious. Over time, she had inherited vast amounts of enormous wealth and unbelievable power and ruled over a great many underlings. But then, the head of the Foundation himself had completely cut her off. So maybe this is all really better expressed in the past tense.

Cut off.

I don't know what she did to deserve it, but it must have been something big.

Supposedly she was permanently removed from the family five years ago, at the age of sixteen. At that time, the head of the family left her with a small severance package (which was probably still an unimaginable sum to a regular Joe like me) and this island, floating around in the Sea of Japan.

In other words, she had been exiled.

Maybe these days that seems old-fashioned. But far be it for me to butt into other people's ways of doing things. Especially if those people belong to a powerful institution that's practically its own world in and of itself.

Anyway, Iria had spent the last five years here with her four maids, not once setting foot off the island. Five years on this godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere, with no amusements, no nothing. In a sense, it was life in Hell, though I would speculate that, in a different sense, it was also a little like living in Heaven.

But was Iria-san lonely or bored? Indeed, you could say Kunagisa had been invited to the island to stave off Iria's boredom. But it wasn't just Kunagisa. In the same way, it would be no exaggeration to say that Akane-san, Maki-san, Yayoi-san, and Kanami-san had all been brought here for the same purpose.

Well, okay, maybe it's a little bit of an exaggeration.

So, anyway, forbidden to leave the island, Iria-san said, "Well, if that's how it is," and proceeded to invite, as her guests, the world's most prominent figures.

Now, it "prominent figures" sounds a little weird, let me try putting it another way. Iria had decided to invite so-called geniuses to her mansion. It was a simple plan: "If I can't go to them, they can come to me."

Famous and unknown alike, all those who possessed genuine talent and amazing skills were summoned by Iria-san, one after another after another. And, of course, all expenses, including accommodations, were covered by Iria-san. In fact, visitors to the island were often given money, so it was pretty much always a win-win situation for them.

To me, it seemed like Iria-san was going for that whole ancient Greek salon image, collecting and cavorting with all these artists and geniuses—and thereby living a fruitful life. To be sure, it wasn't the most typical idea around, but yes, there was something amazing about it. Aside from the mansion and the forest, the island was essentially empty—almost a desert island—and for those world-weary men and women of talent who needed to rest both the body and the mind, it was the perfect place. And thus had Iria-san's plan been a tremendous success.

Now then.

Walking around aimlessly on this empty island, basking in the forest, it was by an extremely distant cherry blossom tree that I suddenly ran into Shinya-san.

"Oh, er, that is, I mean," Shinya-san said, waving a hand to greet me. "You're quite the early bird there, eh? Mister… Er, what was your name again? Sorry, my memory's a little weak, y'see."

He had a good four inches on me, and his designer clothes were much better than mine. His expression was mild-mannered, his way of speaking was mild-mannered, and so was, somehow, his clothing and stature, but whether or not Shinya-san really was mild-mannered, I couldn't say. I don't have the skill to judge someone just based on their appearance, and I'm the last person to jump to conclusions after knowing someone for just a couple of days.

"I don't believe I ever told you," I answered with a shrug. "I'm just Kunagisa Tomo's sidekick. No need for a sidekick to have a name, am I right?"

"That's awfully modest of you. Not that it's any wonder, being on this island, but speaking of sidekicks, I suppose I'm in the same boat as you," Shinya-san said and smirked.

Yes, Shinya-san and I were no more than tagalongs. It probably goes without saying at this point, but I wasn't here walking around on this island because I was any kind of genius. Kunagisa Tomo was the "genius" here, and I was nothing more than her attendant. If she hadn't said to me, "Ii-chan, it turns out I'll be going to some island, so come with me, 'kay?" right about now I would've been in my Kyoto four-tatami-sized room getting ready for school.

No question about it: the main character here is Kunagisa Tomo. Let's just make that clear.

Now then, as for who Shinya-san was accompanying, well, she was right under the cherry blossom tree. With those thoughtful, thoughtless eyes, she gazed at the fluttering cherry blossom petals.

She had blue eyes and hair of gold. Her dress, pale in color, was out of some French movie and was accented with dazzling jewelry. Just one of her necklaces or bracelets was likely worth more than my liver. Even if I sold off every part of my body I still couldn't pay for it.

Ibuki Kanami. One of the geniuses.

Having, supposedly, suffered problems with her legs from birth, she was confined to a wheelchair. And thus Shinya-san, as her caretaker, had tagged along on the trip. As I'd heard it, until a few years ago, she had also been totally blind. Her blue eyes were not a sign of foreign blood.

Kanami-san was a painter.

Even I, without the slightest knowledge of that field whatsoever, had heard of her. She had earned a reputation as a painter who possessed no single style. I had never actually seen any of Kanami-san's paintings, but I thought that maybe she was gazing at the cherry blossoms in that way so as to later portray them on canvas.

"What's she doing?"

"As you can see, she's watching the cherry blossoms. It won't be long before the petals start falling. She has a fondness for that 'moment just before death,' if you will, the ephemeral things in life."

Most of the trees on the island were just your standard fare, but for some reason, there was one cherry blossom tree. It looked quite old, and the fact that there was only one on the whole island was nothing short of bizarre. Most likely, Iria-san had transplanted it here.

"So they say dead bodies are buried under cherry blossom trees, eh?"

"How dreadful."

Ouch.

I was just trying to make conversation but instead ended it in one fell swoop. of course, it was pretty dreadful.

"Just joking," Shinya-san laughed.

"Personally, I think it would make more sense if that legend was about a plum tree. But then I guess it wouldn't be a legend, but a myth? Hahaha!"

"By the way, boy, have you gotten accustomed to the island yet? This is your third day here, right? Um, how long were you planning to stay again?"

"A week. So we have another few days."

"Mmm, that's too bad," he said, with a tinge of mystery.

"What's too bad?"

"Oh, it's just that I hear Iria-san's favorite will be coming here in a week. But if you're leaving in four days, you'll just miss each other, won't you? That's just too bad."

"Oh, I see." I nodded and thought about it for a moment.

Iria-san's "favorite."

In other words, the genius of geniuses.

"A chef, a fortune-teller, a scholar, an artist, and an engineer. What could be next?"

"Well, I haven't heard any specifics myself, but apparently this person is capable of just about anything. Not a 'specialist,' but a 'generalist.' Hikari-san tells me this person is as sharp as a tack and full of knowledge and has lightning reflexes."

Hmm. Yet another totally amazing person. Let's assume it was just some ridiculously over-the-top rumor. The fact that such a rumor even existed suggested that this particular genius wasn't just anyone. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued.

"Couldn't hurt to meet this person, I guess. What do you say to ask for an extension on your visit? I'm sure Iria-san would more than welcome you."

"Sounds nice and all, but…" I probably looked less than excited. "To be honest, this island is a little stifling. For a regular kid like me, I mean," I said.

Shinya-san guffawed boisterously. "Now, now. Now, now, now, now, now there, lad. Is that how it is? Kanami-san and Akane-san and all of them haven't given you a complex, have they?"

A complex. Even supposing it wasn't something you could put so bluntly, what I felt was certainly something similar. Shinya-san gave me a firm pat on the shoulder.

"There's no reason to feel inferior to that lot, right? Let's keep it together, brother! Whether it be Kanami-san…" Kanami-san glanced up from under the cherry blossom tree. "Whether it be Akane-san, Yayoi-san, or even Kunagisa-chan, if they were to play the two of us in rock-paper-scissors, they would only win one out of three times. I suppose Maki-san would be an exception there, but nevertheless."

"That's a pretty blunt way to put it."

Not to mention Shinya-san had just referred to his own employer as part of "that lot." I'm not saying they were at each other's throats or anything, but maybe Shinya-san and Kanami-san weren't quite the best of friends.

"Talent isn't such a big deal. In fact, I, for one, am glad I don't have any. Talent isn't worth spit."

"Why's that?"

"If you've got a talent, you've got to exert effort. Being ordinary is a breeze. Having nothing to master is an advantage, if you ask me," Shinya-san said with a cynical shrug. "I think we got a little off-topic. Anyway, I don't think it would be a terrible thing if you were able to extend your stay if you ask me. And hey, just maybe this 'generalist' will beat us in rock-paper-scissors all three times."

"Well, I'll talk it over with Kunagisa… It would hardly be right for the tagalong to decide something like this on his own."

"I thought so," he said. "You're a lot like me," he said, looking me in the eye.

His gaze was deeply disconcerting. It gave me that uncomfortable feeling you get when you're being watched.

"Me and you? Alike? How do you mean? In what way?"

"Don't sound so happy about it. In particular, you're practically identical in holding the idea that you yourself are a part of the world."

Seemingly with no intention of explaining himself any further, he broke his gaze and looked back at Kanami-san. Predictably, Kanami-san was still staring at the cherry blossoms with complete concentration. She was surrounded by a sort of transcendence as if just that one spot was isolated from the rest of the world. She had the air of being unapproachable, even sacred.

"So Kanami-san's been painting ever since coming here?"

"Well, it's more like she came to this island to paint. That's really all she does, after all. I suppose you could say she lives to paint. Can you believe it?" He spoke with a tinge of frustration, but if you took his words at face value, it sounded like an incredibly enviable existence; a life where what you want to do and what you have to do are directly connected. It was a way of life I could never even hope for. I, who had discovered neither what I wanted nor what I had to do.

I noticed that Shinya-san was watching me with a wicked smile as he had just remembered a bad prank. I recoiled a little. I was getting a bad feeling, like a premonition. And then Shinya-san, with a look on his face as if to say, "I've just had a revelation from God," clapped his hands deliberately.

"That's right! It's such a prime opportunity, so why don't you try modeling?" He set me aside as I stood at a loss for words and unable to comprehend his, and faced Kanami-san. "Hey!" he called. "Kanami! This fella here says he wants to be your model!"

"Wait, Shinya-san!" Finally grasping the situation, I spun in front of him. "I can't just, I mean, give me a break!"

"Now, now, why are you so embarrassed? That hardly suits your character."

I don't think so. Asking Kanami-san to paint me? That was an incredibly intimidating idea. But Shinya-san blew off my protest with a simple "Now, now, don't be shy," and waited for an answer from Kanami-san.

Kanami-san adjusted the direction of her wheelchair and took a look at me. She scanned me up and down, from the tip of my head to the tips of my feet, observing me, assessing me, and said, "So you want me to paint you?" She sounded truly irritated.

This was a difficult question to answer. With someone as talented as Kanami-san, the simple act of hesitating would have been rude. I was weak in these situations. A real pushover. A nineteen-year-old boy who's spent his life going with the flow has not the power to alter the flow of a tale.

"Yes, absolutely, if you don't mind," I said.

Kanami-san simply looked disinterested. "Fine then. Come by the atelier this afternoon," she said and swiveled her wheelchair back toward the cherry blossoms. She spoke with heartfelt apathy, but at least she had taken pity on me.

"Well, that's settled then. Are you free this afternoon?" Shinya-san said, strangely joyful.

I told him I was free and decided to get going before I got into any more trouble.

I returned to the mansion and visited Kunagisa's room once again. Kunagisa was just as I had left her, sitting in her revolving chair, her three PCs (I mean, two PCs and one workstation) in front of her. Right now she was focused on the workstation, and the two PCs had their power switched off.

"What were you up to, Tomo?"

No reply.

I went up to her from behind and tugged both her braids.

"Oww," she uttered in a strange voice, seeming to at last notice my presence. Without changing her position, she gaped at me in bewilderment. Surely I appeared upside down in her eyes.

"Yooo, Ii-chan. You're back from your walk."

"Yeah, well… Say, is that a Mac?"

The monitor on the workstation opposite Kunagisa was displaying some kind of Mac OS screen. As far as I had heard, Mac OS only worked on Macs.

"Yeah, it's Mac OS. Y'see, there are some applications that only run on Mac OS, so I'm running it on a virtual machine."

"Virtual machine?"

"Basically I'm making the workstation think there's a Mac inside it. In other words, I'm tricking the software. Of course, Windows is in here, too. Most OS's are installed on this workstation, so it can do anything."

"Ah…"

I didn't really get it.

"This is a dumb question, but how are Mac and Windows different, anyway?"

She gave my truly amateurish question a moment's thought. "They're different because different people use them," she answered, with an air of precision.

"Well, yeah, that's true, but… Well, forget about that. So an OS is like the core software, right? I think that's right. So then it's like this computer has multiple personalities?"

"It's a strange metaphor, but you could say that."

"So then that PC, er, workstation, what's its core OS? Like with multiple personalities you have a 'main' personality, right?"

"Geocide."

"Never heard of that. Is it like Unix?"

"That's Unix, with a 'yoo' sound. Come on, you studied abroad; you should know not to pronounce the alphabet like Romanized Japanese, Ii-chan. It makes you sound so stupid. Uh, well, it is compatible with Unix. But it's an original OS developed by a friend of yours truly.

"A friend…"

Kunagisa's friend. The only friend of Kunagisa who could've developed an original operating system was someone from that "team." From that notorious "team."

Several years back, in the last century, during the time when the Japanese network was still underdeveloped, that group appeared. Or, no, "appeared" isn't the correct expression.

They never for an instant let their visage, nor their shadow, nor even their smell grace the public eye. They never announced their name; whatever name they had ever been known by had been applied by others. Whether you called them a virtual club, cyberterrorists, a crack unit, or a gang that made mountains out of molehills, it didn't matter to them, and they probably wouldn't respond.

They were completely peerless, species unknown. How many people were there, and just what types of people comprised this "team"? These things were all shrouded in mystery.

And what did they do?

Everything.

They did everything, that was all you could say about it. They did so much of everything, there was nothing they didn't do. They wreaked havoc, havoc, and more havoc. I wasn't in Japan at the time, so I didn't get to see it firsthand, but they say it was such full-on, ludicrous havoc that it was practically refreshing, lending no hint as to their motives or aims. Beginning with pure hacking and cracking, they also had their hands in corporate advising and fixer fraud. It's also quietly speculated that, back then, they controlled a number of large corporations.

But you couldn't say they existed solely as a nuisance. For better or worse, it was thanks to them that the overall level of network technology improved drastically. You could even say they forced it. If you looked at it through a fine-toothed comb, sure there were losses, but in the big picture, the gains outweighed them tenfold.

But, of course, the fat cats upstairs saw them as little more than pesky, law-breaking criminals, a hacking, cracking eyesore. Thus the "team�� went on, despised, and pursued. But they were never caught, and exactly what they were doing was never brought to light. Then, sometime last year, suddenly and without anything, in particular, had happened, they were never heard from again. It was as though they had just burned out and vanished.

"Yo, what's wrong, Ii-chan? You're quiet all of a sudden."

"Nah… nothing."

She flipped her hair with a giggle.

"Yeah, I guess it's nothing…"

It was in that way that the "team" met what was, in a sense, an anticlimactic end. Who would believe the leader of that now-defunct team was this happy-go-lucky girl still in her teens? Exactly who in their right mind would believe something so nonsensical that it couldn't even be mistaken for a sick joke?

But if that wasn't the case, Kunagisa wouldn't have been invited to this genius-ridden island. Not as a communication and systems engineering specialist.

"How could I not have a complex, Shinya-san?"

"Huh? Did you say something?" Kunagisa glanced up at me for a moment.

"Just babbling," I said. "So 'Geocide,' doesn't that mean 'Earth murder'?"

"Yup. Of all the existing OS's, it's probably the most awesome. Geocide is number one. Even the RASIS is perfect."

"Sometimes I think you use those big words just to tick me off. What's a RASIS?"

"It's an acronym for reliability, availability, serviceability, integrity, security. But of course, that's in English," she said a bit irritably.

"Basically it means stability. Of course, it requires a high-performance system, but it won't cause errors or anything like that. Man, that Atchan really is a genius. Hehehe."

"Atchan, huh? Sounds like you two are pretty close."

"Hmm? Jealous? Hmm? Hmm?" she said with a strangely pleased tone and naughty smirk. "It's okay. I like you best of all."

"Ah, right. 'Preciate that." I shrugged and tried to change the subject. "But if it's such an amazing OS, why not market it? If it sold like Windows, you'd make a fortune."

"No can do. You know about increasing returns, right? With an OS this different, we'd never catch up. Business goes beyond skill or talent."

Increasing returns. The law of economics that states "the more you have, the more you get," which does nothing for what you don't have. It had been a while since I'd studied it, so I didn't remember it very clearly, but to put it simply, "once a significantly problematic difference has appeared, it is impossible to bury that difference." Whether it be in regards to skill or money, it seemed to make no difference.

"Besides, Atchan was satisfied just by creating Geocide. Atchan's a very self-satisfied person."

"Hey, yeah, must be very happy."

"Even if that wasn't the case, I don't think it would be possible to market it. Even though it's just core software, it requires some pretty outrageous specs. Seriously astronomical figures. Even my machine just barely cuts it."

"Hmm. How many gigs is your hard disk? About a hundred?"

"One hundred tera."

Different unit.

"Tera… that's the opposite of pico, so… a thousand times a gig?"

"Nope, 1,024 times."

Nitpicky chick.

"Man, I've never seen a hard disk like that."

"To be specific, it's not a hard disk; it's holographic memory. Unlike hard disks, which record data with magnets, this records data onto a surface. It's capable of one tera per second rapid transfer. What you'd find on the market is, well, quite a bit slower. This is the kind of media they're using in the development of space technology."

She had those kinds of connections, too?

She belonged to an altogether dubious community.

"Of course, this goes for the machine's capacity as well, but if the motherboard specs aren't customized homebrew as well, you're probably out of luck. Atchan just makes things without considering any of the surrounding circumstances, y'see. So they just end up like this. He doesn't try to suit things to other people."

"Motherboard homebrew? There are people who do that?"

"Like yours truly, for one." She indicated herself with her thumb.

That's right. She was an engineer, after all. She must've been the culprit providing her "teammates" with the hardware and software that were to be their main "weapons." If you thought about it, it was fairly disturbing. It was one thing to develop a seemingly unmarketable OS like that, but to take it and build your own motherboard for it was just plain freakish.

"Mr. Earth Murder aside, haven't you ever considered selling this stuff? Like that motherboard, you're so proud of?"

"I'm the self-satisfied type, too How 'bout you, Ii-chan?"

"Hmm, I wonder."

Regardless of talent or lack thereof, in the end, all people are classified into two groups: those who pursue and those who create. My own case notwithstanding, Kunagisa was overwhelmingly the latter.

"Besides, as far as money is concerned, I've got plenty and then some. I'm not thinking about making any more right now."

"Ah, no wonder."

That was true. Kunagisa wasn't in a position that demanded she immediately go into business. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say she spent money like it was water. A nineteen-year-old occupying a high-class, two-floor condo in Shirosaki and spending money as fast as she could. I didn't know how many people out there had more money than Kunagisa, but surely no one individual spent as much.

Between the Akagami Foundation and the Kunagisa household, who held the greater power was beyond my realm of knowledge, but either way, they both possessed enough of a fortune to enjoy the best things in life and still get change back, that much was certain.

Speaking of which, Kunagisa resembled the master of this island, Iria, in that she, too, was semi-exiled from her family. Perhaps they were similar people. In the three days, I had spent on the island, signs indeed pointed to the contrary, but, well, they were both eccentric, that was for sure. So much so that it would have been impossible for them to blend into any group or be members of any organization.

Surely that's how it was.

In which case, this island…

The meaning of this so-called island of wet crow's feathers…

Kunagisa returned to her typing.

"I'm gonna go have to breakfast. What about you?"

"No, thanks. Not hungry. It's mating season. Ii-chan, go ahead on your own. Eat for me, too."

Gotcha, I said, and headed for the dining room.