The Tokyo Domain

The sun was rising slowly.  I was starting to feel exhausted; the weight of the day was bearing down on me already.  I could barley keep my eyes open.  The shadows of my room retreated slowly into the corners, waiting silently for the night.  I stared long and hard at my desk, my vision blurring.  I wouldn’t be able to keep this up much longer.

The trip last night had worn me out more then usual.  Now the sun was taking its turn, sapping all of my strength.  I found my eyes closing slowly every time I tried to concentrate on the display hanging form my wall.  There wasn’t anything I could do.  I had to surrender to it.  I collapsed onto my ragged futon and let sleep wash over me, just as the first rays of sun washed over my body.

The days and nights were odd like that.  As if somewhere something had gone wrong, and the two had traded positions.  The warm rays of the sun were my only comfort, they lulled me sleep like the rocking of a cradle.  The night air cut my lungs deeply, and drove me to near insanity.  Driving me until even the moon was no longer in the sky.  Whatever the reason was now I did not care.  I slept heavily. Strange dreams danced in my head, just beyond recognition.

When I awoke the sun was well on its way to setting.  The air felt different now, almost thinner, and easier to take in.  I stirred lightly under my sheets.  I rolled over catching sight of the panel still silently running my programs.  I yawned before trying to sit up.  My stomach hurt.  I hadn’t eaten in a while.  I rummaged around on the floor next to me and put on my glasses.  The world rudely snapped into focus.  I rubbed my eyes again, trying to cast off the sleep.  I couldn’t see Konpyuuta Chan anywhere.  I sat up slowly to keep the blood from rushing away from my head.

I looked down.  I was still almost fully dressed from the night before.  Only my jacket and helmet were thrown over the sofa.  I stood up and sat down at my desk.  The screen was going through all of the searches and requests from the night before.  It would be hard work, but I knew it had to be done.  Somewhere something was yelling at me to do it.  I wasn’t one to argue with myself.  First I needed to wake up.

“Konpyuuta Chan!”  I yelled without realizing it.  She walked into view on the screen in front of me.

“Yeah?”  She was wearing a pair of glasses now; I guess she was still searching from the night before.  She was decked out in some weird secretary outfit, the usual visual cue to let me know she was busy.  She was still looking down at some papers and folders in her hands.

“Oh, never mind.  I’ll take care of it myself.”  I paused to yawn. “You keep working, take all the resources you need.  Lets get the preliminaries done by dinner eh?”  She just smiled and walked out of view.  I guess it was going to be a lonely afternoon.

I discarded my shirt, and picked up a towel that was hanging by the door.  There was nothing like a hot shower after a long night of work.  When I walked out into the hall I saw one of the waitresses from downstairs sweeping up the hallway.  I tried to walk by quietly so she wouldn’t notice me.

“Oh! Good morning!”  She gave me a big smile.  It was too early for me to smile.

“Ah, ‘morning.” I’m sure I sounded a little nervous saying it.

“I heard you come in last night.  You stayed out very late.” Her English was a lot better then any of the other people who lived here.  She was studying it nights at the college in town.  She was still young, so she had plenty of energy to work all day, and tackle some night school.

“Oh it wasn’t that late really was it?”  I started speaking to her in Chinese, it made me feel more comfortable.  At least now if I said something wrong I could blame it on my Chinese.

“Is my English bad?” Looks like I wouldn’t get her out of her English groove today.

“No, actually it is quite good.  I just prefer to speak in Chinese that’s all.”

“Oh of course.”  She laughed a little.

            “Do you mind?”

“Oh not at all. Hey, maybe you could take me for a ride on one of your motorcycles sometime!  It looks like it is a lot of fun.”  I guess she gave up on her English at this point; her vocabulary probably didn’t cover the request.

“Sure, if you really want too.”

“Maybe you could teach me how to ride too?  I always wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle.”  I just laughed a little at that comment.  No one was touching my bike.

“I don’t know.” I paused. “She is definitely not beginner friendly.”

“She?” I must have said something wrong.

“My Bike” She let out a huge laugh.

“You call it a ‘She’”? She found it quite amusing.

“Yeah, why not?”  I was a little annoyed.

“Oh no! I didn’t mean it like that at all; it’s just kind of… I don’t know, cute, that’s all.” Cute?  I had no idea what she was talking about at this point.

“Well, maybe sometime later we could go for a ride.”  I started moving toward the door of the bathroom.  I was a little too tired to talk to people, especially in real life.

“I’m looking forward to it.”  She smiled at me and went back to her housework.  I walked quickly into the bathroom.

I wasn’t feeling like a people person at the moment.  I just needed to be alone for a good hour or two until I could wake up.  I hadn’t even “had the morning coffee” so to speak.  My stomach growled a little.  I must have forgotten that I was starving.  Well after my shower I could go downstairs and grab some late lunch.  I turned on the shower and let the hot water run over me.

My eyes snapped open to a familiar beeping sound.  I couldn’t tell how long I had been standing there in the shower, maybe an hour at the most.  I turned off the water and started drying myself off.  My glasses were beeping louder now, the sound was starting to hurt my ears, and I could feel it in my teeth.  I finally put them on my face.  Konpyuuta Chan was standing there in front of me.  She giggled.

“Why don’t you put some clothes on there eh?”  She blushed a little.  God I watched too much Anime when I programmed her.  I just wrapped my towel around my waist.

“What’s up?”  I brushed my hair back.  It was still pretty wet.

“I got all the info you need.  I sorted it out too while you were in here.  Its all set to go.”  My eyes snapped open.

“Ok let’s go.”  I started to walk out into the hall.

“Um maybe you should put some pants on?”  I wasn’t listening to her at this point.   I walked out of the bathroom to find the waitress girl was still cleaning up the hallway.  She just blushed and started giggling.  I just walked across the hall quickly to my room.

“You probably scarred that girl for life you know.”  Konpyuuta Chan wouldn’t stop giggling.

“Whatever. Show me what you got.”  I pulled on a pair of jeans, and threw myself down in my chair.

“Ok ok, but only since you put on some pants.”  She chuckled.

The screens in front of me started scrolling through line after line of downloaded information.  All straight form Kawasaki headquarters.  Everything I was looking for was there.  Timing information, Bike specs, Microprocessor formats, everything.  Okay so its all here right?

“This is just the Kawasaki stuff, we got direct info on everything I could find related to motorcycles here.  Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha.  You name it we got it.”

“Even the top secret stuff right?”

“A lot of the classified info we already had on disk.”  The screen flashed displaying the classified files I had hacked from the companies previously. “New engine designs, new Bike chassis, all the good stuff.”

“Awesome, so we got everything we need right?”  I scrolled through the code of one of the gear changing maintenance programs Kawasaki used in its robots.

“Everything.”

“AI Bike control?”

“Right here.”  A couple of new windows opened.

“Perfect.  I think you already know what to do.”

“I am formatting it as we speak.”