Chapter 23: Tabula
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“I know him.”

Aimi was looking at the printout of the email from the person calling themselves ‘Mr. Slate’, that Nana had brought with her up to the rooftop. She had gone over the message several times. Between her, Nana, and Riko, they were versed enough in English to work out most of the nuances in the writing. But for Aimi, there was something even more telling about it.

“A contractor for the government met with me three months ago. American man. Called himself Mr. Slate. Corrects you to Mr. Slate if you say Suraito-san or sensei. Talks like this, constant mentions of percentages. I can’t prove it’s the same person, but it’s probably not a coincidence.”

Aimi handed the printout back to Nana. Riko leaned over to look at it as well. She was desperate to have some sort of insight to contribute, until finally, something hit her.

“Slate’s a color, right? A shade of gray? Did he have a thing for gray? Could he be one of those terrorists with the color themes?”

Aimi went quiet for a moment, though not out of bewilderment or annoyance. It was soon made apparent that Riko was on to something.

“He did wear a stone gray suit and gray tie. But that’s not uncommon in America,” Aimi mused.

“It is here,” Riko replied. “Besides, if you’ve seen him in person, you’ve seen his mind, right? You looked inside it and saw it, right?” A mixture of anxiousness and excitement rushed through Riko. “If he’s a contractor, maybe he knows where my sister is! Did you see anything like that?”

“I don’t know,” Aimi replied tersely. Her hair was starting to rise a little.

“There’s no reason to assume-” Nana began, trying to calm Riko down, but was swiftly interrupted.

“You had to have looked! You didn’t just talk to a government man without scouring his mind!” Riko charged up closer to Aimi, about as near as one generally did without being pushed away by psychokinesis. “You always look! Especially when you’re wary!”

“I looked. I don’t remember anything about terrorists, or clones. I don’t remember deep memories unless I look for them.” After a pause of what Riko realized might be reluctance, Aimi added, “His psyche was like looking into a mirror. I think it has something to do with his ability.”

“Ability?” asked Nana. “So he has a color name, a suit to match, and an ability. More hilarious coincidences.” Nana’s face was completely humorless. “What kind of ability?”

“He’s a mentalist,” replied Aimi, and then, as Riko and Nana looked at her, added, “a real one. He reads eyes, hand movements, face muscle twitches, your breathing, and then makes a guess at your thoughts.” Aimi looked away from the two of them. “A very good guess.”

“If he could do it on purpose to hide state secrets, that’s the kind of person the government would want to send to meet a telepath,” Nana remarked. “Could he use his ability on a computer?”

Aimi shrugged. “Amano can. Why couldn’t he?”

Riko thought about it for a moment. People like this so called Mr. Slate could do anything they wanted with abilities like that. A great detective, psychologist, or even a TV psychic that was actually psychic. Instead, they hide away in a school library like her friends, or become bureaucrats at the government’s beck and call.

Those who took their abilities to their logical conclusion ended up branded terrorists.

Would her friends end up pencil pushers too? Or get taken down by the cops someday after they snap?

No, Riko decided, they’re too cool for that.

“Aoki-san, you’ve sensed his brain. If you were Kyo, that’d be enough to look over everything he knew, right? It didn’t matter if you thought to look for it at the time!” Riko put her hands on her hips, proud of her sudden insight.

“I’m not Amano,” Aimi replied, irritated at this sudden new direction. “I’m me. I don't think like Amano. Amano doesn’t think like me. Amano is a rare prodigy.”

“You’ve combined abilities before, remember? Yesterday, at the karaoke place. Just project your thoughts into Kyo and maybe she can process them. If she can read binary code maybe she could read human code!”

Nana turned her head. “Human code?”

“Riko tilted her head. “Like, neurons communicate with electricity, just like computers do, right? It’s basically the same thing. Either there’s a little zap or there isn’t.”

Once again, Riko’s friends were silenced by her unique brand of logic.

Aimi finally spoke up. “I refuse.” She looked away, a different sort of reaction than when she glared at Riko for her clingy behavior.

“Why not?” asked Riko. She was just about to reach out to Aimi and grab her hand, but realized that might be the exact wrong thing to do, so she placed her hand on her shoulder instead. “Did this man do something bad to you? You can tell us. We’re your friends. And I’m more than that, I’m your-”

“No. I don’t want to remember something different.” Aimi continued to look away, but she didn’t shove Riko’s hand off her shoulder at least.

“You know all our secrets by now, Aoki,” Nana said, “you shouldn’t have anything to hide from us.”

Finally, Aimi shook herself free from Riko’s hand, but it was Nana her attention was directed towards. “I don’t want to remember myself back then.” Her hair was starting to float up more, reminiscent of Medusa’s snakes at this point. “I was an animal. Thinking about it makes me angry.”

Riko dived in to hug Aimi, but found herself stopped mid-motion. Her legs scrambled for purchase, but slid around in place, as if Riko was going for a hike on an invisible treadmill. “You were never an animal. Aoki-san, I lo-”

“Stop it! You’re making it worse!” Aimi yelled at her. The force built, and Riko slid backwards further.

“Help me find my sister then! Help Ishihara-sama figure out who’s stalking her and why! I know you care, Aoki-san!” Riko refused to give up, continuing to push against the unseen force holding her back.

Finally, something in Aimi gave. Riko suddenly was hunched forward with nothing holding her up, and began to fall. Nana, reacting swiftly, disappeared into thin air, and reappeared next to Riko, catching her and pulling her back up.

“Thank you, Ishihara-sama,” Riko said, straightening herself up. “We’ll all help you. Let’s go to the club room and I’ll explain.”

“So, it’s like this. Everyone can do something that might help us figure out who this Mr. Slate is, what he knows about us, about terrorists, and about anything else we want to know. Kyo’s head is like a computer simulation, but better, since she can like, make assumptions and stuff. Aoki-san has seen Mr. Slate’s brain, she’ll know every memory that was in his head, if Kyo can loan her some of her power. Chiyo-chan can lend her ability to see visions of the past and future. Me, I can loan everyone my excess P.K.E. I have since I have no potential-”

“P.K.E.?” asked Nana.

“That’s what they call psychokinetic energy in Spirit Busters. Classic American comedy. Normal people with normal potential use their P.K.E. to be lucky or intuitive or for a second wind while running or lifting weights, right? But I’ve got lots I can’t use, so I can be like a backup generator and stabilizer.”

“Right, the Brinsfield Effect,” Nana nodded. “So what’s my job?”

“You’re the leader! You keep everyone focused. And if something goes wrong, you teleport us an inch away from each other to break contact, right?”

Riko had drawn a pentagon on the club’s whiteboard, with a circle at each corner, which was described by her as the five parapsychology club members holding hands. She took an erased, breaking each line at the approximate center. “Contact ends, we all wake up, right?”

“”You’re sure this isn’t just an excuse for you to hold hands with Aoki-san, and to get everyone else holding hands as well, Control Sample-chan?”

Riko blushed, though she grinned as well. “Are you volunteering to be the second, Ishihara-sama?”

Nana remained firm. “You should be between Aoki and Amano. They’ll need the most adjustment from the Brinsfield Effect. Shiro should also be in contact with Aoki, so that Aoki’s telepathy can more easily read from Shiro’s nensha. And Shiro should be in contact with Amano, because otherwise I’ll have to object on Shiro’s behalf.”

Chiyoko nodded, and looked up admiringly at Kyo, as Nana went over and drew a square on the whiteboard.

Riko looked at the square dubiously. “But what about you, Ishihara-sama?”

“I’ll supervise. Someone needs to watch you from a distance.”

Riko wasn’t sure that was the real reason Nana didn’t want to be directly part of the experiment, but she couldn’t argue the logic behind the square link.

They were all lying on the floor. This was, in the case they lost consciousness, Riko explained, no one would hurt themselves falling down. Nana had convinced Kazuko to join them, and bring her guitar with her. Although the experiment had nothing to do with plants, she did have the best command of Resonance among them, so maybe a little music wouldn’t hurt.

It was time to begin. They all grabbed hands, and Kazuko began to strum and sing softly. The world faded, as if the four of them were drifting off to sleep…

When Riko came to, she was sitting on what looked to be a very old couch. Not a dirty or gross couch, just well-weathered after a long life of service.

Like something you’d see at a grandparent’s house.

Kyo and Chiyoko were sitting with her at either side, filling up the couch’s three seats. Aimi wasn’t with them.

Was this a dream?

“Let me see. Kyo Amano, Chiyoko Shiro, and the infamous Riko Nomura, the daughter of the Deputy Minister Dr. Yori Nomura? I’ll have to tell him I met you, when I report in. Oh wait, this is a vision, right?”

Slowly, Riko and the other girls turned their heads to an adjacent chair. A man was seated there. He fit many of the positive stereotypes of an American man: strong jaw, broad shoulders, thick head of hair, and a confident swagger. There was, however, the gray suit. Too bright to blend in, too dark to stand out. It seemed like something more out of a mens’ magazine than what men actually wore. His hair, a silver that seemed neither the result of aging, nor dye. He even had gray pens in his jacket, in a gray pocket protector. He certainly seemed psychotic enough to be a terrorist, Riko thought.

“Oh, where are my manners. Mr. Slate. A specialist in… many odd skills. Currently operating on behalf of the MEXT.”

“You… know us?” Kyo wondered out loud.

“Of course I do. Aimi knows you, and I’m part of Aimi’s memory, right? This is all Aimi’s memory, isn’t it? I’m ninety nine percent sure of it. That means I don’t technically have a body, right? Interesting.”

Riko stared at him. She had heard of lucid dreaming, but never a self-aware dream. She wondered. There was a word, right? Not in Japanese, but…

Mr. Slate looked at Riko appraisingly, watching her eyes read him, until realization dawned. “Tulpa is the word you’re looking for. Tibetan. A self-cognizant mental construct. Theorized to be possible by those who study espers, but never observed. Wow, and a bunch of teenage girls managed it? Boy I wish I had my body right now, I have a lot to report back about.”

“Who are you?” Riko raised her voice up to the grey-suited man. An unnerving smile was spreading across his face. “Where’s my sis-”

They were interrupted by a kindly-looking older woman who had come into the living room, holding a pot of coffee. She seemed quite surprised to see three teenage girls suddenly sitting on the couch, her reaction a bit, letting out a loud gasp.

“Girls, meet Aya Aoki. Grandmother of Aimi Aoki, and maker of the best coffee I’ve had since coming to Japan.” He gestured towards her with an open palm, and she seemed to smile in response. He must not have been so much of a creeper around her. “Granny, these three are from Kagakujo’s very own parapsychology club. I’m as surprised to see them as you are, but I think they’ll help me reach out to Aimi.”

The woman called Aya looked over the three of them. She was just as sweet as Riko had imagined her, though she hadn’t imagined their first meeting would be like this. “Are they… like you and Aimi?”

“Not exactly. This one here, Kyo Amano, she’s a genius, remembers everything she’s ever seen and heard in perfect detail, and has a near perfect imagination. Why, this could be a world she helped dream up, and you would never even be able to tell it wasn’t real.”

Aya laughed jovially. Riko didn’t like this. Even if she was only a memory, it didn’t feel right to toy with people who had less information than you. It reminded Riko of talking to her father at his worst.

“And the quiet one here,” he said, gesture moving to the side, “is Chiyoko Shiro. An absolute beast with a pencil and pad. She sees the world as it really is. It’s quite a horrifying place to see nakedly, and brutally fatalistic, but she deals with it admirably.”

Aya nodded slowly, refilling the mug Mr. Slate had in front of him.

“Thank you kindly,” he said, and tore open a sugar packet from the service, tipping it inside. “Finally, this is Riko Nomura. She’s the most special of them all.” His grin spread even wider.

“Special? How so?” Riko’s eyes met the elder Aoki’s eyes as she appraised her. It wasn’t quite the same as Aimi’s glare, but it was reminiscent of it.

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” This seemed to get a laugh out of the woman, who didn’t know how very real it sounded to Riko and her friends.

“Can I get you girls anything to drink? There’s plenty of hot coffee, or I can make tea.”

“Ah, um, coffee’s fine, thank you,” Riko said, not wanting to be rude to the memory of Aimi’s grandmother. When she had left, Riko turned her attention back to Mr. Slate, looking at him intently.

“Ah, Nomura-san, what’s with the look? I’m just a kindly contractor here on loan from America, someone they thought could empathize with the younger Aoki. Perhaps literally. Hyper-Empathy, I believe the good professor calls it. I can see you’re worried about… family. It’s in your eyes. Your father had the same look in his eyes when I met with him today. I can you’re from a future where you cleaned up your act, but today, you were quite the hellion, I imagine. He was worried sick about you. It was all over his face. A father worried about his daughter can be read like a book. But for you, it’s more like a sister. A twin sister.”

“Just say it!” Riko was getting fed up. How did he have his ability when he was just a figment of the imagination? Was this because she was holding Kyo’s hand in the real world, creating this ability from her hypertalent? Was he using Aimi’s telepathy?

How was she going to get out of here, anyway? If she was waiting for Nana to pull them out…

“It’s Miss Aoki’s world,” said Mr. Slate, answering Riko’s internal monologue. “You’ll have to convince her to let you out. As for your… twin sister, not even your father has high enough JSDF clearance for me to have a chat about that.”

“You’re just a dream! You won’t get in trouble! You could be dead in the real world for all you know!”

“I’m ninety five percent I would be in trouble. State espers are expected to keep their secrets under very extreme circumstances. Besides, I saw the email I wrote in Aimi’s memory.  I’m not proud of the fact that I was emailing random teenage girls I found on X Channel, but it did sound like me. I’m very much alive. I’m eighty percent sure of it.”

Kyo messed with her glasses, then looked at the man. “Only eighty percent? Who else could have sent the email?”

Mr. Slate shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’d beat around the bush if I did. Maybe it was my good twin.”

“Your good twin?” asked Riko, and then she was reminded of something. “Hey, what’s your full name?”

“Ash Greyson Slate, at your service.”

“Okay, you’re leaning into this color thing way too hard,” Riko sighed. “Are you with Phantasm?””

That seemed to finally get the playful Mr. Slate to speak a bit more seriously. “Ah right, Miss Aoki has encountered those rogues before, hasn’t she? And you as well, Miss Nomura. As for you, Miss Amano, I see in your eyes that you’ve encountered some of their handiwork by proxy. A laptop and… a dubious book of conspiracy theories surrounding human cloning. One of our finer limited hangouts, that little number.”

“Limited hangouts?” Riko asked, peering over towards Kyo.

“A term coined by the US Central Intelligence Agency. A misdirection tactic where a small truth is revealed to distract the public from the larger web.”

“Very good, Miss Amano,” Mr. Slate said, leaning back in his chair. The elder Aoki returned with coffee cups for everyone, and the talk of government hushups hushed itself up. When everyone was furnished with a cup of coffee, Aya asked, “Do you think you can all help my granddaughter? She could really use… friends. She hasn’t really bonded with anyone since my son… her father… was murdered.”

“My contacts in the Tokyo PD assure me they’re still on the trail of the animals who did that, maam. As for these girls, well, I have a strong feeling they’re already good friends with young Aimi. Aimi just doesn’t know it yet. She’s not a precognate. Not yet, anyway.”

Aya Aoki smiled. “Let me know if you girls get hungry. I’m sure I could prepare something for lunch.”

Mr. Slate stood up. “I think we’ll need to get started soon, and you should probably leave the apartment. Things can get hairy when you disturb an angry psychokinetic, and I intend to stick around longer than those city psychologists who ran off terrified. These girls though, they’re already pros at dealing with dangerous espers.”

The elder Aoki looked them over. “But they’re just teenagers.”

“The parapsychology club can get quite intense, I assure you.”

The old woman nodded slowly, and finally went towards the door to the apartment. “I’ll be in the downstairs lounge, let me know when it’s safe to come back in.”

“Of course,” Mr. Slate replied. When she had exited, he turned his attention back to the girls. “Okay, seeing as you girls are already in the thick of things, and I’d like to be able to trust me should we ever meet in the real world. So I’ll level with you. Soon. First, we need to talk to Aimi.”

Riko was eager to meet past Aimi, but she wasn’t sure why this government oddball should be. “Why?”

“Because she’s pissed,” Mr.Slate said in English. “And she’ll destroy this world, and every mind connected to it, if we don’t calm her down.”

“Why did you wait-” Riko began.

Mr. Slate either read her face, or predicted the reply, and interrupted, “It took exactly this long to get Aimi’s grandmother to trust me enough to leave the apartment. Any sooner and she would have refused. I’m ninety percent sure of it.”

Riko had to wonder how much of this Mr. Slate was a simulated personality, and how much of it was Aimi talking through his image.

It was just then that a chair decided to throw itself at Mr. Slate.

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