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A MEDAL FOR HARRY

by Paul Levinson

Copyright (c) 1997 by Paul Levinson.

[Published in BLACK MIST and OTHER JAPANESE FUTURES,
edited by Orson Scott Card & Keith Ferrell, DAW, December 1997]


"Hai!" The waiter bowed quickly and receded like the warm
wind in autumn. Masazumi "Harry" Harihoto knew he would soon
have the freshest tekkamaki in New York on his plate. He also
knew he wouldn't enjoy a bit of it.

He looked at the rice papers, the rows and rows of crisp,
translucent rice papers on his lap, and shook his head. Somehow
the neat lasered letters on this ancient kind of paper were out
of place. Such letters belonged on screens; the delicate paper
deserved the tender ministrations of a pen in hand. The
combination of the two -- the government's requirement, its
attempt to cling to some tradition in a written realm otherwise
given over to virtual glyphs -- made him uneasy.

What the letters said -- the report he would deliver
tomorrow -- was even more disturbing.

In fact, it might well make him the most hated person in
Japan.

***

Harry had few illusions, especially about who he was. An
unknown, though hardworking, bio-historian. One of many
researchers caught up in his nation's obsession to find out why
they had become the undisputed global power on Earth by the
middle of the 21st century. Computer chips like jewels that
made the world run like clockwork; space stations that gleamed in
the sky; pearls of bio-mass in the seas to jump-start the food-chain;
and all the gems were Japanese.

Oh, everyone knew the proximate reason. The 21st century
was the most earthquake prone in recent history. No one knew
why. But Japan had finally come up with buildings that stood
up to them, a saving interface for cities prone to shake like
castanets. "Neuro-spine" construction, the media called it.
Grids ran through the centers of buildings with sensors in every
room, every tile, every wall, every floor -- self-sufficient
networks of such intelligence and interface power that they
could change the arrangement of those rooms, tiles, walls,