Chapter 35

After the meal I again worked on a street by street map of Tokyo and another one of exactly the same size that showed how I wanted it laid out. I did almost eighty large maps that listed even small neighbourhoods that could be shown when I had to convince the leaders of the local prefecture. I was still saddened by the large percentage of land that still had only bombed and burnt out buildings. Although this made my job possible, it had only been made so by the loss of so many lives.

I had the plans of the cement plant in mind for a long time but decided to enlarge it and make it even more automated. I could also dispose of scrap rubber, solvents, old foundry sand and other commodities that should be destroyed at high temperatures. The electronic control devices had not been fabricated yet but would be ready by the time the plant was completed. I stayed until three in the morning to finish the prints. I put everything away and went out the front door travelling west toward the Nagatacho district and Mr. Akutagawa's sprawling home.

The man had the misfortune of supplying three of the men that had attacked me last night. They had guns at the time and were now all dead.

This time I put the complete household to sleep, even the ones that were had started that way. The house had a burglar alarm but was supplemented by many armed guards to assist. Apparently after the three deaths, even more had been called up.

Mr. Akutagawa was sleeping with his wife and I just floated him out of bed and took him outside and sat him on one of his stone benches and awoke him.

The man was about fifty years old and overweight. His bald head gleamed in the moonlight as he slowly came to his senses. His eyes went back and forth then recognition came to where he was. I stepped out of the shadow and his eyes found me instantly. He needed glasses but could see my almost white hair and size and could guess who I was."

"Who is there?"

"You know who I am Mr. Akutagawa. I came to change the course of your life or simply kill you."

He tensed his muscles and before he could jump on me his legs gave out and he fell onto his face. Only his hands kept him from being hurt much. He pushed his body up to look at me and said, "What do you want?"

"I already said what I wanted. To be more specific I want you to drop some of your illegal activities and alter some of the businesses you own to provide a needed service. This keeps the law from attacking your interests and allows you to pay taxes. I know who you pay now for protection from the police and courts. This will stop now."

"What makes you think I will do that?"

"Either you do this after I demonstrate my abilities or I break up your empire and sell the parts. This way I make a tidy profit and you are beyond bothering me. Now to begin, your folktales mention spirits taking to the air and travelling from one place to another. You will now do that with me and I will drop you from a few miles up. I like the timing because I have exactly sixty seconds to catch you before you hit the ground. If I miss I have no problem. Let's begin now."

He screamed as he was hoisted rapidly into the air and soon he was too high for his voice to be heard. At the same height as last night I stopped and allowed Mr. Akutagawa to have a view. He was laying horizontal on his stomach and could see some of the lights below. "Your city was famous and will be so again even if I find it dull and drab. Are you ready for your fall Mr. Akutagawa?"

"No, no just put me down easily and I will give you anything."

"That is what you are saying now but I have to make sure." He fell screaming all the way and I caught him a bit lower than Tsuji because of his weight. We went up higher this time and he fell again and again, till he was thoroughly soiled.

I set him down at the front of his house. He was crying pitifully and stayed on the ground as if he could hold on to it to keep him from ascending again. "Mr. Akutagawa listen to me now." His head slowly came up and I told him what he would do in more detail. "We are going inside your home now and we will make some notes so that you will not forget. Now stand up or we will go for another flying lesson. The man quickly got up and followed me across the cobbles and inside to his bathroom. "You have five minutes. Clean yourself or I will drop you in the bay to do it."

He came out in three minutes with a towel wrapped around him and I led him into his office. I shut off his alarms and we entered his inner sanctum. He sat at his desk, while I stood. Paper was provided and he began to write as I dictated. When I was done I went to his small safe in the wall and opened it. He had cash and stolen jewellery as well as personal papers. The safe door I ripped off its hinge and then used my power to push a hole through the metal and then stretch the resulting ring until the opening was twenty inches in diameter.

"This jewellery belongs to an important man. Give it back to him but tell him you recovered this as a favour to him. I want his help in the modernisation of your city." I assisted him in remembering all this and opened the window and flew out. Part way down the street I removed my block on the people in the house and went to the next person on my list.

Mr. Ayugai was almost as hard to convince but I was fairly certain that he would assist me. The sun was coming up and I had to hurry home before somebody saw me flying about. I was a little sleepy but had got by on very little rest for days at a time. I just had tea made as Kochiyo got up. She came into the kitchen after seeing the light on. I sat her down then gave her a cup of tea and a kiss on the cheek. "Nice to have someone make tea for you for a change?"

"I have to do this work Sir Shawn. I do not want to lose my job."

"You would not lose your job. Mr. Hitomi likes you and so do I. If the worst came to the worst you would work for me and take care of my family." I made the meal and served her as I nibbled from a plate across from her. When Mr. Hitomi came to eat he found me awake and we talked about what the day would bring.

"I have completed the plans for the proposed changes to your city and made new drawings for the cement plant. The location I chose is good because it is close to a clay deposit and the coast. I think I will form a partnership with your daughter, with your permission. She would own half of my new companies and allow me to buy property."

"My daughter would only give her name?"

"Yes, that is all I need. I was thinking of Juni Cement Company but it doesn't sound as good as I think it should be. There will also be a lot of property purchased in the city and I will use the vacant properties to move people and businesses around. One day I think it will be worth millions of millions of pounds. That is only one of the reasons I am doing this. I can be like a gardener working on his bonsai tree but I know this tree will get very large. I just want it to grow free and straight."

Later in the morning I found a small shop close to the waterfront and made a deal to purchase it. A cash down payment followed and I continued down the street till I had bought everything I could find owners of. At noon I made some papers that were in the finest tradition of Japanese jurisprudence and had Juni sign them with Maeko and Kochiyo signing as witnesses.

I called Mr. Tsuji, Mr. Ayugai and Mr. Akutagawa and asked them to come to Mr. Tsuji's home for a legitimate job. Mr. Akutagawa and Mr. Ayugai were not over their fright yet but did as I asked. An hour and a half later I walked up the walled driveway and gave a small courteous bow to the two guards. The three leaders were out front too and I gave them a bow. I was given an even deeper one in return.

"Good day gentlemen. I would like to have a small meeting first if that is all right." It most definitely was and we were all seated inside, with a cup of tea. I brought out a large map and had three different areas shaded with different colours. "Gentlemen I want to start buying property now. Each of you men will choose a colour and I want you to find out who owns the property and where they are. Some may have reverted to the government. I want each of you to buy as much as you can get. This time you will not cheat or threaten anybody but act in good faith."

Mr. Tsuji asked, "How high must we pay to purchase this land?" I gave him a maximum and a minimum per square foot. I didn't want future generations saying I stole the land from the present owners and told them so.

To Mr. Ayugai I said, "You have prostrate cancer but it is operable. Check with you doctor to prove that I am right. I will cure you without losing your sex drive. Ask any doctor you think competent and see what their prognosis will be. They may give you only three years to live but I can do much better. Mr. Akutagawa you are overweight and your arteries are clogging up. You must go on a diet and some regular exercise. You have a long profitable and happy life ahead of you if you do as I ask."

Turning to Mr. Tsuji, "You sir are very healthy but don't get enough exercise. I would like you to work out, then relax a bit with your grandchild." Sitting up a bit I resumed my previous talk. "Gentlemen, the properties you purchase will be signed over to me and I will pay you full price for what you have paid yourself. I plan on buying much of your city and you will help me. Tomorrow I would like to met at Mr. Ayugai's home and discuss what to do next."

It took almost ten days until the loan was approved along with a large line of credit I attached to it. As in London I went to the many prefectures and negotiated for large tracts of land. The former underworld bosses and a few more I acquired assisted me in this matter. Three of the hoodlum leaders were not quite sane and they died. Their assets were split up among the rest.

The plans for the cement plant were approved and building started at once. I gave contracts to many companies and they would build sub-assemblies to my specifications. During this time I talked to all of my family and told them what I was doing. The ones in other countries wanted to come to me but had things to do where they lived.

Juni was gathering her strength after I removed the large growths from her head and abdomen. The latter required me to assist in getting her ovary and a portion of her uterus to grow and replace the dead tissue. She spent only a few days recovering and showed a marked improvement. The sad part for her was that she could not now see my aura after the operation.

Mr. Ayugai came to me and told me his doctor's prognosis and I decided to operate. This was done in front of Tsuji, Akutagawa and eight other men. I used no hands and they thought they saw an invisible spirit manipulate a scalpel. The man got up ten minutes later and participated in our meeting. Two days later he told his colleagues of how his doctor thought the way he was healed had to be magic.

The shipyard grew to a monstrous size. At night I cut large blocks of stone from the seabed and placed them in deep holes, resting on the bedrock of the bay. They were many tons each and I had to rest after each but I was getting stronger all the time from the work. I also came to a better understanding of what I could do and used the information to tap even more power. Soon I was using very little of my own power but could draw what I needed from what I thought was a different dimension.

Mr. Hitomi had his ships add to the top of my undersea wall and soon it was twenty feet above the sea at high tide and fully fifty feet thick. The muck dredged from the enclosed area was deposited behind another wall and this increased the size of our properties. Small shops were building sections of the ship I wanted. Some were so small that they had to form temporary partnerships with competitors to make the large sections. They were mostly 25 metres long by almost that high and ten metres thick. Forty sections had to be made but most were very similar.

I designed much larger cranes for the yard and got them ready for when the shops finished each sections. The parts were built and delivered just as we needed them and the ship went together in record time. I insisted that all welds be x-rayed and many flaws were found. I found many more and had them noticed by others. This way quality control was stressed much more.

In Mr. Hitomi's home I made my first monolithic array of transistors. The small but powerful laser burnt a path that was only one and a half nanometres wide. My mind could make smaller paths but these devices had to be made by others. They would be forced to use the laser. My first chip could only process a hundred thousand instructions in a second but the second could beat that by a factor of ten. With three small lasers I was able to make a three dimensional hologram that would display almost any of the data that I wanted. This could be displayed on a ten feet wide by eight feet high grid but the lasers worked better at dimensions only half that size.

This project was a long time coming and I had been working on it for almost four years. I had published no information for fear it would be used for something immoral. I was able to transfer data from my mind directly to its memory. It used the basic type of transistor which could only be in the on or off state. A crystal that was scanned by a eight pairs of lasers would store over eight to the twenty third different transistor states. For my own uses in future versions, I wanted to work with three state transistors that I found. Here only one electron at a time could go through a particular gate. This would produced a great increase in efficiency and in speed.

I took the device that was only ten inches square by three inches thick to breakfast with Mr. Hitomi one morning. We sat with Juni and ran my hand over her shoulder possessively trying to convey my love. She leaned into my caress even if her father was present.

The machine operated on my mental commands but would work much slower on voice instructions. The intonations of five language groups were stored in the machine at present. Many versions of Japanese, English, Amharic, Russian and Chinese were commonly used. In all there were almost a thousand distinct language files stored and cross referenced.

"What is this device Sir Shawn?"

"A machine I was telling you about when I first came here. It has many pieces of information stored in it. It can use true or false decisions and others based on value to decide what to do. It can do mathematical operations, basically but can show results in many forms. For our present purposes, it can display pictures that I have put into the machine. My ship design has been entered and you can go from one of the prints to another very easily. It is like looking through vellum till you see the print you want and remove the ones over it. The best part is that it can use voice commands to operate."

"That can't be. Nothing can do even a fraction of what you say. I will admit that the small control modules you made are amazing."

"Well just try it. Get close to the machine and say your name and say the alphabet and count to fifty so it can record the differences in your voice."

"No, it is too foolish for me."

"Well I can think of another way. Juni will try it but since you have made your decision, you cannot take it from her until tomorrow at this time."

Juni did speak into the device as she was asked. A mechanical voice came out and asked her to repeat words the way she would normally speak them. This was a shock and both had to have a few minutes to recover. "It is only a machine. A telephone talks to you and you are not upset. Please do as it asks."

Juni stood further back but did repeat the words. When the list had been completed the machine simply said, "Working." It took almost three minutes for the data to be stored correctly in her profile. Then it said, "Complete."

Both people looked at me and I told Juni, "Say, 'computer, display ship zero zero zero four six two, in profile from one thousand metres and an elevation of fifty metres. Proceed now.'"

She got it wrong twice but the third time the ship appeared in front of her and she fell backwards. Her father was no different and he scrambled out of the way of the ship before him. I remained sitting on the floor and they could see me through the hologram but only vaguely because the graphic was so rich. I got up and walked around the table and helped a stunned Juni to her feet. She fired questions at me non-stop till I placed a finger on her delicate lips. Her father was the same but quieted when his daughter did.

"Say 'computer, distance two thousand metres. Proceed now.'"

She stammered so much she had to do this four times but the ship shrunk in size. There was many more questions but I just said, "Just work with this and try different things. You will not damage it and hopefully you will learn a lot."

I took out a small device not much larger than a small battery and pointed it at the ship. A red beam of light shot out and intersected the hull at the bow. The light did not diverge much and was still an eighth of an inch after travelling almost twelve feet. "Take this light and press the button. Now Juni, never point this in someone's eye or where it can be reflected there. Do you understand?"

"Yes... Shawn."

She pointed at the bow and repeated my words. "Computer, reference position. Distance twenty metres. Elevation neutral. Proceed now."

The ship hull now filled the screen. The black painted hull and the bright white lettering showing the name I chose for the ship. The name Juni was easily seen but was off centre. Both people looked at the hull and could see the way the steel plates joined. The weld was prominent but not much. The wire rope strung around the edge to prevent people falling overboard. The stanchions were in view and could easily be seen for what they were. The display was close to a photograph but I could see too many places where I used mathematical algorithms to replace what would be seen to make it real. The hull was perfect and in reality there was always small imperfections.

"Juni, you don't mind this big fat ship carrying your name do you?"

"I... I; I think it is fine."

"Good, it is settled. Now say, "Computer, Distance fifty metres. Proceed now."

This time she did it right the first time and we saw the ship from further away. "Let me try now," came from her father.

"You have not been registered in the machine yet and I think Juni needs to have her turn to see how it will be used. Ask her to do what you want and we can see what works the best. The man didn't like it but had to work through his daughter.

An hour later he was late for work and I suggested seeing the engine room. All of a sudden we were in the room and we moved from one position to another. He got Juni to zoom in on the engine and he could see the serial number quite plainly. I could have told him to superimpose the text over the picture and he could have read a whole book on the engine and what it was capable of doing. Leaving it to later would give him a bright jewel to find.

"Juni move in further and say 'computer, animate'."

She did and then saw the engine working even to the flames from when the fuel burned. It had purposely been set to a low default speed but it was still easily understood what was happening. Maeko, then Kochiyo came in to clean up but stayed to see what was happening. I whispered in their ears that this was a machine I made and would sell in the future. They were invited to watch.

Juni got the idea and went into the generators and the gear reduction units and saw how they worked. Some of the data was not complete and there was no shading or many choices of perspective.

Juni's father had to call in and say he would be even later. He hurried back and I was just pulling out of the steering gear and asked Juni to go to Tokyo and display it from an altitude of six miles. I guided her to our shipyards and showed them what was happening as of three days ago when the data was entered. We moved over to the house and she saw herself in the garden. When we got close the figure looked up and stuck out her tongue and then walked into the house.

"I never did that Shawn. Why did you make me do this?"

"I knew you would come to the house and I wanted to see what could be done. Go to the washroom by your bedroom." In a moment we found Maeko squatting and ordering us angrily out of the room until she finished.

I heard a commotion and knew that everybody was now upset. "This was like a animated cartoon I made. It never happened. It was just a joke and each one of you are in it."

Juni asked, "What is Kochiyo doing?"

"Search the house and find out." We found her father working at his desk and when we came in he angrily gestured for the viewers to leave. Juni did then went back and the same gestures were repeated. Kochiyo was in the kitchen making a meal and tasting the food to see that it was seasoned right. She wagged her finger at us to evict us and again it was repeated when Juni went back in.

They searched and didn't find me till I told them to wait over the bathtub. My figure came out from under the water gasping for breath and hiding my genitals from view. I didn't order anybody out but my figure did turn red in embarrassment.

"I can put sound in too but that will take some time to get right. The five of us in this room are the only people that know this device exists. I want to install this in a large meeting room and let everybody in the world think that this device is very big. I will make a new display unit that if it is stolen or damaged will not benefit anybody else very much. The reason I am doing this is because devices like this will be worth many millions of millions of dollars. We will use them in almost every electrical device. They are working on one of these computing devices now and it takes up a very large room and will only be able to add and subtract. We are many years ahead of the competition and I want to stay there for a while yet. When the world finds out there will be people bothering all of us in this room for any information that we have."

Juni asked, "Why not just give it to them?"

"First it is worth too much to just give away. Second, I can use one of these devices to send a nuclear tipped missile around the world and hit an area only two foot square. Do you want the military to get this now? I have to make things so that they will not learn the real way this machine works."

In three days Mr. Hitomi chaired a meeting of his engineers, foremen and suppliers. A large steel cube with very heavy cables from it sank into the floor. On the top could be seen a thick glass enclosure that was permanently bonded to the metal base. When he was discussing some of the fine details of the ship, he actuated the machine with a FM microphone that sent a radio signal to the machine that was supposedly in the basement. The hologram he wanted to display sprang up. Shocked was not a strong enough word to use to describe their feelings. He continued his talk though as if he were narrating a eight millimetre film of home movies he took. Areas of concern were shown and what was proposed to change so that it could be easily remedied.

The display was at its maximum and we could see the ship as if it was outside our window. After a half hour he took us through a simple tour of how the machine worked and how the ship was to function. Then we went through the hull and down the access holes to the areas he really wanted to talk about. He had chosen the harder sections so that his ability was more readily seen. His words didn't register much as all the engineers and other yard owners craned their neck to look at this feat of magic.

I felt a bit like Pandora after the box was open but knew the world had changed again today and hopefully for the better. After the computer came out of the box I released the next horseman. I had shifted production to components for a satellite and even with all the miniaturization I could, it still weighed in at over three hundred pounds. This device would send back encrypted radio messages as well as receive the ones I sent it. Surveillance and television transmission were also installed. This would be the first of my satellites that would allow communications wherever I went.

I made six hand units that could easily fit in a pocket. The face of each had twelve buttons but two of them allowed different menus to be used so that the real total was much higher.

The satellite had its own propulsion units but could not make it to orbit this way. With my insubstantial fingers wrapped around me I could descend far into the sea without getting wet or high into the atmosphere and still carry some air with me.

With my new found increased power, I dragged the satellite behind me and travelled up to three hundred and forty miles and pushed it far ahead of me. Like a whale I had to dive back into the atmosphere for air. With the hard part done I chased the satellite and moved it higher and stabilised the orbit. When I got back to earth to test the phones I just realised that I had not only been the first man into space but I had circumnavigated it as well.

Mr. Hitomi used the computer at other meetings where he tried to get them to help in restructuring the city. This time the word had gone out and everybody came to our meeting room to see the fantastic device. He didn't say anything too important because it would not be remembered anyway. In coming weeks the people that ran the various prefectures came to find the machine less intimidating. The small wireless telephone allowed him to keep in touch with me even if nobody knew that they were doing it from a satellite.

Everybody had their own part to play but wanted to protect what they already owned. They expected me to work around them. The arguing continued and I was happy because the machine could be used to show what would happen when each obstruction was left as it was. Photographs sent back were displayed as aerial reconnaissance photos to show some important features.

Mr. Hitomi had been playing with this machine almost like an addict most the time. He did justify it by saying he was becoming much more proficient at it. Others from our company used the device to understand more of the mechanics of how the various ship's systems worked. The problem for them was that they had to use it at night because their boss was almost always on it.

Soon after, many strange people started coming to the meetings with small hidden cameras. Half were from companies all around the globe and the other half were from governments. I had been asked by many people I knew if I would sell the technology to them or some of the units. I finally used the newspaper to say that I would sell similar units in a few years when I could produce enough. This did not stop the spying or the asking in the least.

Juni's father saw us together most of the time when he wasn't working. She had used a second machine at home when she could get it away from her father. She went to many of the meetings at the yards and elsewhere. Even though she was a Japanese woman, she fought for what she believed in and the men did listen.

In January I had told her more of my life and by March she knew of all the rest of my family. She would even talk on the phone to them after I taught her English with a British accent. Her father thought this miraculous but that was common place around me by now. At this time my cement plant was almost done it was fitted it with the controls I wanted and I buried them under cement to protect them.

A tire plant had decided to make the tires that I designed. I made the moulds and they supplied the trained personnel to produce each piece. The tires were eighteen feet in diameter and even when laid on their side were over eight feet high. I was making the smaller truck first and only needed six per vehicle to carry five hundred tons.

The company that made large diesel engines, took my designs and made sixteen engines of three basic designs. Some would go into the 'Juni' and smaller turbo diesel went into the first truck. The engine was only a few times larger than what a large transport truck would have.

Our own yards made a large wheel that had many buckets around it. Large electric motors pushed the device forward and it would eat soil at a fantastic rate. The contents of the buckets would land on a long conveyor belt and be carried back to be processed. This device could move almost a hundred tons a minute and I knew it would gain as much of an audience as the computer did when it was working.

The machines for making my computers had long since been shipped to Ethiopia. I was going to leave Japan at the first part of May, in just three days. Juni was almost in hysterics when she knew I was going. Her father saw the futility of keeping her and consented to let her accompany me.

The next morning Mr. Hitomi and I were alone I said, "Sir I think it is time we continued our talk about your daughter. She knows about all my family and even ones that I treat as family. You allowed her to accompany me but I want her as my wife. Your daughter and I respect you and she still possesses her hymen. It would make us both happy if you were to give her hand to me."