Chapter 1: The shortest mom-dad-son argument of them all (August 1990)
"What's the idea behind this new startup, son?" Akio Rokubungi asked. "You've been involved in that Metaphysical Biology crap for far too long!"
"Yeah." Gendo said.
"Say something other than 'yeah', son. And stop leaning on the table with your hands in front of your mouth like that." Junko Rokubungi said. She placed cups of matcha on the table.
Father and mother sat together at one end, their son at the other. Junko remembered just how inquisitive and intelligent her son had been, but he hadn't been much better than average at high school, and he had drifted away from economics to biology, and then to metaphysical biology as an undergraduate student. Now, as a graduate student, he was up to no good.
"Yeah." Gendo said, bringing his hands down a little bit.
"Bah, it can't be helped." Akio said. "First you give up good stuff like shipbuilding and nautical engineering - well, any kind of engineering would have been great - and you went off into this wishy-washy crap about souls and spirits and other such stuff. Being a graduate assistant is good but do you think you're going to earn much from that in the future?"
"I have never asked for money and I never will." Gendo said, without any emotion.
"I know that, but that's not the point! How are you going to support a wife and kids? Where is your job security? I have lifetime employment and expect a steady pension in a couple of years, but in your field, what's there?" Akio said. He would have been very angry if he had been speaking to his son two years ago, but
"There is new technology that allows the transfer of a soul from one body to another, and towards the growth of new human tissue. Respectable sources suggest the possibility of a market in reincarnated human beings." Gendo said, with a straight face.
"Is this the political philosophy of market fundamentalism you were talking about? Making a market out of reincarnating human beings? What lunacy!" Junko cringed and quickly took a sip of tea.
"Nonsense! Charlatanry! Crackpot business!" Akio said, rubbing his forehead.
"Nevertheless, the technology and the financing exist. There are many multibillionaires who wish to be reincarnated on their own terms or achieve living immortality. If I exist to provide a service to them, I am generating value." Gendo said.
"Or scamming them out of their money. Is that what you learnt in economics? I really should have made you stick to engineering instead of listening to that counselor's nonsense!" Akio said, raising his voice for the first time.
"Dad, neither you nor mom understand how the world works any longer. Things are not the same as they were for you." Gendo said, with a sigh.
"Son, some things never change. Human nature does not change! Morality does not change! The applied sciences do not change!" Akio raised his finger to make a point, like he always had when Gendo was a child.
"...but human nature has the good and the bad together, and in a world where the bad dominates, one must become bad to survive." Gendo said. He slurped his cooling tea down noisily.
"What a thing to say! And I haven't forgotten the time when Mrs. Shimakaze complained about you flirting with her daughter..." Junko began.
"...one has to put on the appearances of being a man, rather than the appearance of being human. I appreciate your concern, mother, but neither you nor father can protect me from the world." Gendo said. He finished off his tea.
"Wait! Are you leaving already? You haven't had dinner!" Junko said.
"I have a dinner appointment with someone else." Gendo said.
"Come on, we don't have a proper conversation - no letters, hardly any telephone calls! At least you could do me and your mother the courtesy of telling us what you plan to do in the future." Akio said.
"I will take care of you in the future, as a son should. Good evening." Gendo said, and walked out of the door.
Respectable, middle-class parents, Gendo thought. All they cared about was getting through the right college, the right grades, and the right company to work for in life. Gendo knew he had disappointed them dreadfully in the past - they had been far more vocal and less resigned about it back then - but what good had being a nice boy been? He had been bullied, isolated and picked upon more often than not, and he knew now that to build "social capital" as Bourdieu put it was a brutal, competitive process. Both his parents had been foolishly idealistic when it came to people, and to the world.
Gendo knew that the world was changing. The Soviet Union was facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions and was threatening to come apart at the seams. The Japanese economy was suddenly taking a turn for the worse after a period of continuous, unprecedented prosperity. The science of genetics was catching on, and Japan was still leading the way in both genetics and metaphysical biology. And now, with all the change surrounding him, the old hypocrisies of the world were being peeled back to reveal the filth deep underneath. There was never any place for an honest, decent man to go, so Gendo Rokubungi would stop being an honest, decent person.
What was next? Gendo's little "soul-transplant" startup had enough capital to last it a year or two, but he knew that he would have to pull a lot of strings if he wanted a future for himself.
I'm a little curious about the comment on S2 energy being "biological" (Adam won't be discovered for a while yet!). Also, some timeline comments:
. It's not so much about the Super Solenoid theory at this point - Akira is yet to come up with that - but he has to have some basis, and it occurred to me that Dr. Amagiri set Akira off on his path and provided him with much of the basis for his future research work. There's a lot of mentorship in academia and I imagine that Akira would have taken at least slightly after his "intellectual father".
