Paprika (12 page)

“Sorry. I’m in the way,” he said disingenuously.

“Same as always, isn’t it?” countered Atsuko. “No need to stand on ceremony, as they say.”

“No, I’d better be on my rounds.” Hashimoto even managed a glance at his watch as he left the room.

Nobue cast an unusually critical eye at Atsuko as she donned her lab coat. “Apparently Tsumura wasn’t only looking at the reflector,” Nobue said. “He was also using the collector. Wasn’t he?”

“So it seems.”

“So they’re all using the collector for treatment in the other labs? In that case, why am I the only one who’s not allowed to use it?”

“Hashimoto has put you up to this, hasn’t he. Tsumura was affected because he used the collector without sufficient training. Why is everyone so keen to use it, anyway?”

“You just don’t trust me, do you.”

“It’s not a question of trust.”

Nobue said nothing for a moment, then changed the subject. “I read the article about the press conference the other day. Then I had the idea of going around disguised as Paprika.”

Atsuko looked at Nobue as if something had just struck her. “What for?”

“To clear suspicion from you, of course. The media suspicion that you are Paprika.”

This mere slip of a girl wanted to parade herself as Paprika. Atsuko restrained her laughter at the very thought of that. “So in fact, the real identity of Paprika was none other than
you
all along,” she said. “And you really think they’re going to fall for that?”

“Did you know I’m being followed? Ever since that press conference? They obviously think I could be Paprika. But maybe you’re saying I’m not even good enough to do that …” Nobue stared hard at Atsuko, patently unaware of her own lack of logic.

Atsuko simply returned the stare. Perhaps Nobue really was being followed by some newspaper reporter who suspected all the Institute’s female staff of being Paprika. But that was barely credible; Nobue was more likely suffering from some kind of persecution complex. She didn’t seem her usual self. Both her words and her tone of voice were different today. Atsuko felt a shudder. Had someone been tampering with Nobue’s reflector? In that case, the danger was drawing closer. Atsuko realized she would urgently need to check the memory and software programs of her own reflector and collector.

Not wishing to convey her suspicions but knowing that Nobue had to be distracted, Atsuko immediately ordered her to photocopy and bind a large pile of research papers. That would surely keep her busy for three or four hours …

Atsuko bought some coffee and sandwiches in the Institute shop and took them to the Senior Staff Room. Tokita had already finished his lunch and was drinking tea with a face that looked like a damp floor rag. “Tea here tastes like gnat’s piss!”

Atsuko paid no attention. “There’s something wrong with my assistant,” she said in the hope of getting some advice from him.

“Her too?” Even the normally docile Tokita was surprised. “Tsumura was subjected to subliminal projections that caused his trauma to be released at the imperceptible rate of one-twentieth of a second every three minutes of real time. Truly ingenious.”

“Who could have programmed the device? Was it Himuro?”

“Well, whoever it was, the program came from Himuro’s partition. But what would Himuro gain by doing that? No, someone else must have made him do it. Don’t worry. I’ll wring it out of him.”

“No, I’d rather you waited. We don’t know what the enemy would do if they found out.”

“Well, I can get it out of him any time you like.” Tokita seemed inordinately keen to “get it out of” his almost equally obese junior. “He’ll soon spit it out.”

“Not yet, though. Please.”

“Oh, that reminds me. You know that DC Mini thing? I cracked it late last night.”

Tokita casually announced his breathtaking achievement with the same nonchalance as if he’d just scribbled off a short essay.
D
stood for Daedalus,
C
for Collector. Tokita took something out of his pocket and placed it on a corner of Atsuko’s desk. It was a conical object about a centimeter high, with a base about seven or eight millimeters in diameter.

“This is the DC Mini? What about the cables?”

“No need for cables. Same as the Daedalus.”

“Ah!” Atsuko sighed in admiration. “You’ve done it at last!”

“Yeah. It transmits the content of different people’s dreams to each other’s brains, so it doesn’t need fiber bundles anymore. After all, if we’re going to use biochemical elements, we might as well let them communicate by synaptic transmission, using the natural transmission width at bioenergy level.”

“Er, sorry to ask a stupid question, but does it use bioelectric current?”

“It does that. It applies nonlinear undulation using the conductive surge of bioelectric current. You see, bioelectric current allows us to produce a new type of communication based on synaptic transmission, by varying the BTU output.”

“So at what distance will it still be effective without cables?”

“Ah well, that’s something I don’t know yet. I think certainly up to a hundred meters, even with obstacles. But then again, I think anaphylaxis might occur with repeated use.”

“You mean some kind of hypersensitivity, the opposite of immunity? In other words, the effective range will increase the more you use it? Priceless. And how do you fit it on the patient’s head?”

“You just stick it on.”

“What do you mean?”

“You just press it on, so the point sticks into the skin. Well, you don’t have to go as far as that. Just bury it in their hair.”

“What if they’re bald?”

“Stick it on with tape.”

“And you call it the DC Mini. Brilliant. Are you going to announce it at the Board Meeting?” A meeting was scheduled for one o’clock that afternoon.

“What? Don’t you want me to?” Tokita looked unhappy.

“Well, no, actually. Best keep it under wraps for the time being.”

Atsuko was about to explain the reason for that when the part-time director Owada walked in. Owada was Chairman of the National Association of Surgeons and Director of the Owada General Hospital. Without even a peremptory glance at his own desk, which he hardly ever used, he went straight to confront Atsuko. “How does Doctor Shima plan to deal with this Paprika business, I wonder?” he asked.

“By keeping it hidden from the media, of course.”

“Of course. Otherwise we’d certainly be up a creek.” Six years earlier, Owada had asked Paprika to treat the Minister of Agriculture for neurosis. Of all the directors, he was the one most firmly on Shima’s side. “But Inui says if we’re to keep it hidden from the media, you’ll have to resign your post as director.”

“It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?” Tokita weighed in with some indignation. “All the directors were lining up to book Paprika for their friends when the treatment was illegal.”

“And that’s why you have to take a stand,” Owada continued, ignoring Tokita. “Say you’ll publicly reveal you were Paprika if you’re asked to resign. The only one who won’t be wetting himself is Inui. Since he never had anything to do with Paprika in the first place.”

Atsuko shook her head. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Just think of the scandal!” Tokita seemed to revel in the idea. He thrust out his lower lip and grinned like a child.

Morio Osanai, trusty sidekick to the Vice President, entered with his pale forehead gleaming. “Ah, Doctor Owada. There you are. Doctor Inui wonders if you could meet him in the Vice President’s Office.”

“Right away.”

“Don’t let yourself be won over,” Atsuko said as Owada made his way out.

Osanai had already stepped out into the corridor. He turned and smiled with a glint in his eye.

Just before one o’clock, the two other part-time directors arrived and joined the rest of the Board in the Meeting Room. The meeting was chaired by the President and Institute Administrator, Torataro Shima. Next to him sat the Secretary-General Katsuragi; everyone else just sat where they liked. As it happened, Owada, Tokita, and Atsuko all took seats on one side and their three opponents on the other, with the unintended result that the two opposing factions sat glaring at each other across the table. Directly opposite Tokita was Seijiro Inui, Vice President of the Foundation and Chairman of the National Psychopathological Association. He was thin and sported a graying beard. His appearance betrayed a certain fastidiousness; like Abraham Lincoln, he seemed to possess an instinct for justice bordering on the fanatical.

“Well now, you’ll note I didn’t write a detailed agenda for this Meeting,” started Secretary-General Katsuragi, who was also a Managing Director.

Whereupon the stern tones of Inui’s voice, reminiscent of some dull metal being struck, sounded out across the room. “You mean you
couldn’t
write it.”

Aiwa Bank Chairman Hotta, sitting to Inui’s right, smiled fawningly at the Vice President.

“Well, in any case,” President Shima said with a smile of his own, “I think you’ll all know why it wasn’t possible to write an agenda. And anyway, since nearly all of you asked for this Board Meeting to be held, you all knew what would be discussed and so there was no need to write it down.”

“But we need to report the agenda to the Ministry, don’t we. We’ll have to work out what to write later on. Heh heh.” Katsuragi laughed feebly.

“It’s not a laughing matter,” said Inui, his stern expression unrelenting. “We should be ashamed of ourselves for discussing things so secretively.”

“But back in the days when everyone was clamoring for Paprika, none of us thought it remotely shameful, did we,” said Owada. “On the contrary, we were all very much in favor of it. We all wanted to know how effective the PT devices could be for actual treatment.”

“That’s in the past, it’s nothing to do with it,” Koji Ishinaka interjected grumpily. He was the Chairman of Ishinaka Real Estate, a company that had donated a huge sum of money to fund the Institute. It was thanks to Ishinaka that the Institute could own such impressive facilities and its senior executives could all live in high-class apartments. “Precisely because Doctor Chiba has now been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Paprika episode is being tossed about as our skeleton in the closet.”

“Are you saying you want us to reveal Paprika’s identity?” Shima said with a puzzled look. “Even though it would tarnish Doctor Chiba’s reputation as one of our directors? Not to mention that of the Institute itself?”

“Well, if you put it that way,” Ishinaka said peevishly. “That would of course be undesirable.”

“Mr. President,” said Inui, turning to face Shima. “This secretiveness will inevitably spread to other things; you’ll just find yourself having to hide more and more unpalatable facts. Look at the incident with Tsumura. If there really is any danger in using the PT devices, it will reflect badly on you if you fail to disclose it now, while you still can.”

“There is no danger in using the PT devices,” Atsuko threw in hurriedly, before Tokita could say anything more damaging. “And I think we’ll soon know what caused Tsumura’s condition.”

“On the issue of Paprika,” Hotta said with some hesitation. “Well, Doctor Chiba was not a director at the time, so it was merely an illegal act committed by a member of staff …” Hotta halted in mid-sentence, as if to say “
Think the rest out for yourselves
.”

“Are you asking me to resign?” Atsuko challenged Hotta with a steady glare.

“Well, I mean, just until this fuss about Paprika has died down a bit.” Hotta was unsettled all right. “Temporarily, I mean. Just temporarily. As long as Doctor Chiba is not a director, the Institute could not be harmed even if the true identity of Paprika were revealed. And after all, you’re just coming up to the end of your three-year term, aren’t you …”

“And what about all the benefits brought to this Institute by Paprika, then?” asked Tokita, unable to hold back any longer. “What about the generous endowments received from politicians and financiers who were cured by Paprika, for starters? If it weren’t for them, we would never have made such progress with the PT devices! For behind such advances in science, you will always find adventures and experiments that go against the sentiment of the masses!”

“That old chestnut again, is it?” asked Inui, turning on Tokita with a look of rage in his eyes. “You always say that, don’t you. But that and Doctor Chiba’s unconditional faith in the safety of PT devices show that you have absolutely no self-awareness regarding the volatile nature of science and technology. You see yourselves as brave pioneers riding on the leading edge of discovery! Where’s your sense of social responsibility? You should be ashamed to call yourselves scientists!”

13

“Now now, Doctor Inui,” said President Shima, doing his best to force a smile. He was already fed up with Inui’s fanatical view of scientific ethics. “I shall have to take some of the blame for that. It was after all me who encouraged our two friends to challenge ever greater developments in their research.”

“What exactly does Doctor Inui mean by ‘the volatile nature of science and technology’?” Owada suddenly demanded with some annoyance. “Is he suggesting that our two friends have ridden roughshod, as it were, on the wave of technological development? What they’ve done is to apply cutting-edge technology to the treatment of schizophrenia for the very first time. That’s precisely why they’ve been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.”