One thing was different, though. Kenji Asano was ill at ease. He was trying to mask it, but it was there. And that was very different from the old days.
As they passed the usual pleasantries, he led her down a hall, then through a room where intense young men in open shirts were now opening a case of Asahi beer. Computer terminals were in neat rows along the walls, beneath gleaming white "blackboards" that sparkled with equations and quips. The place was so informal, so . . . American. There were plenty of jeans and frazzled sneakers among the forty or so young researchers, most of them in their late twenties or early thirties. Plastered across the low partitions were film posters and American counterculture bumper stickers (Radio Already Stolen, Nuke a Commie for Christ); above a row of printers a blond pin-up was unveiling her gynecological mysteries to the movie still of a startled Godzilla; and a couple of rusty California vanity plates were hanging over one long-haired staffer's terminal like big-game trophies—one read 64K-1ST, the other EZ BKS. Probably commissioned by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley whose Porsches had since been repossessed, she thought. The rock and roll dissonance of Siouxsie & the Banshees sounded from a tiny stereo assembled out of computer hardware and a new Yamaha digital tape deck. Presumably as a stunt, the high end of the audio was being used to drive a garishly tinted computer graphics display that had been projected against one of the windows, creating a virtual image that seemed to dance amidst the Tokyo skyscrapers like a Martian son et lumiere.
But she wasn't fooled by the frat-house trimmings. She realized these casually dressed young researchers were the pick of Japan's technical graduates. Making the Fifth Generation team these days was one of the highest honors in the land. After some initial skepticism the big corporations were now competing for the prestige of loaning their young stars to the project for a few years, since they hoped to reap enormous benefits down the road.
In fact, the youthful atmosphere was entirely intentional. That, she knew, had been the legacy of Ken's predecessor, Dr. Yoshida, who had refused to let anyone over thirty-five on the project. Furthermore, since he believed the stuffed-shirt layout of most Japanese offices and labs stifled creativity, he had deliberately devised an un-Japanese workspace to try and reproduce Western research environments.
Finally they reached a closed door. Metal. When she realized it was Ken's office, she almost remarked on this departure from what she remembered about Dr. Yoshida's well-known attitude. He liked to be out on the floor, with just another low partition, right there interacting with his young staffers.
Without a word Ken inserted a magnetic card into the slot beside the door handle and then pushed it open. Not only a door, she thought, a locked door. Are they finally starting to worry about industrial espionage?
She wasn't surprised, however, to see that his office had a
monastic spareness, with only his desk, a small but expensive leather couch, and a row of computer terminals along one wall. He was, she knew, a big believer in Zen philosophy. Maybe pan of the reason for the door was just to shut all the madness outside and keep his own world serene.
Through the window behind him she could see Mt. Fuji, outlined against a backdrop of autumn blue. He smiled and pointed it out, saying they were lucky to have a rare smog-less day, then gestured her toward the couch.
"Welcome to my refuge." He was cordial but entirely correct—right down to his conservative charcoal gray suit. Not a glimmer of a hint about their brief Kyoto episode. "Let me have tea sent in." He leaned forward in his leather chair and punched the intercom on his desk.