Yamazaki appeared at Laney’s elbow. His glasses had either been repaired or replaced, but two of the pins holding the sleeve of his green jacket had come undone. “Mr. Kuwayama is Rei Toei’s creator, in a sense. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Famous Aspect, her corporate entity. He was the initiator of her project. He asks to speak with you.”
“I thought it was so urgent that I access the combined data for you.”
“It is, yes,” said Yamazaki, “but I think you should speak with Kuwayama now, please.”
Laney followed him through the black modules and past the barricades, and watched as the two exchanged bows. “This is Mr. Cohn
235 35. The Testhed of Futurity Laney,” Yamazaki said, “our special researcher.” Then, to Laney: “Michio Kuwayama, Chief Executive Officer of Famous Aspect.”
No one would have guessed that Kuwayama had so recently been up there in the dark at the Western World, the crowd heaving and screaming around him. How had he gotten out, Laney wondered, and wouldn’t the idoru have been lit up like a Christmas tree? Blood had seeped down into Laney’s shoe; it was sticky between his toes. How much had the combined weight of all the human nervous tissue on the planet increased since he and Arleigh had left the bubble-gum bar with Blackwell? He felt like he’d acquired more himself, all of it uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have a card.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kuwayama said, in his precise, oddly accented English. He shook Laney’s hand. “I know that you are very busy. We appreciate your taking the time to meet with us.” The plural caused Laney to glance at the driver, who wore the kind of shoes that Rydell had worn at the Chateau, flexible-looking black lace-ups with cleated, rubbery soles, but it didn’t seem as though the driver was the other half of that “we.” “Now,” Kuwayama said to Yamazaki, “if you will excuse us Yamazaki bowed quickly and walked back toward the van, where Arleigh, pretending to be doing something to the espresso machine, was watching out of the corner of her eye. The driver opened the Land-Rover’s rear door for Laney, who got in. Kuwayama got in from the other side. When the door closed behind him, they were alone.
Something that looked like a large silver thermos bottle was mounted between the two seats, in a rack with padded clamps.
“Yamazaki tells us that you had band-width difficulties during the dinner,” Kuwayama said.
“That’s true,” Laney said.
“We have adjusted the band-width ,..”And the idoru appeared between them, smiling. Laney saw that the illusion even provided a seat for her, melding the two buckets in which he and Kuwayama sat into a third.
236 William Gibson a “Did you find what you were looking for, when you left me in Stockholm, Mr, Laney?”
He looked into her eyes. What sort of computing power did it take to create something like this, something that looked back at you? He remembered phrases from Kuwayama’s conversation with Rez: desiring machines, aggregates of subjective desire, an architecture of articulated longing….”I started to,” he said.
“And what was it that you saw, that made you unable to look at me, during our dinner?”
“Snow,” Laney said, and was startled to feel himself begin to blush. “Mountains But I think it was only a video you’ve made.”
“We don’t ‘make’ Rei’s videos,” Kuwayama said, “not in the usual sense, They emerge directly from her ongoing experience of the world. They are her dreams, if you will.”
“You dream as well, don’t you, Mr. Laney?” the idoru said. “That is your talent. Yamazaki says it is like seeing faces in the clouds, except that the faces are really there. I cannot see the faces in clouds, but Kuwayama-san tells me that one day I will. It is a matter of plectics.
Yamazaki says? “I don’t understand it,” Laney said. “It’s just something I can do.”
“An extraordinary talent,” Kuwayama said. “We are most fortunate. And we are fortunate as well in Mr. Yamazaki, who, though hired by Mr. Blackwell, has an open mind.”
“Mr. Blackwell is not too pleased about Rez and.,.” Nodding toward her. “Mr. Blackwell might be unhappy that I’m talking with you.”