Everything about this moment should remind me of when I’d faced him at Henka Games as a small-time bounty hunter, anxious and awkward. Hideo looks as polished as ever; I’m opposite him, wondering what he’s thinking.
This time, though, a set of silver handcuffs binds Hideo’s hands together. His side is still healing, and underneath his fitted shirt, I can see the telltale sign of bandages wrapped around his waist. I’m no longer dressed in my torn jeans and black hoodie—but in a sharp, tailored suit of my own. Hammie had helped me pull my hair up into a high bun. It’s the looking-glass version of our first meeting.
There are also other differences that matter. He looks tired, but his eyes are alert, his expression more open than I’ve ever seen it.
We search the other’s gaze. He notices the change in my appearance, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he says, “I didn’t think you’d come to see me.”
“Why’s that?”
He smiles a little, amused and shy. “I thought you were already headed back to the States.”
There’s something broken in his words that makes me sad. I think of the way he’d turned his face up to me in the panic room, what he’d murmured to me when he thought he was uttering his dying words. I think of his arms around his little brother, his words through his tears. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.
Now, after everything we’ve gone through, he’s hesitant to believe that we could ever find our way back to our beginning again. He is ready for his punishment.
I clear my throat and say, “Are you going home today?”
He nods. Hideo may technically have a prison term, but there’s no way the police can keep someone of his status in a regular penitentiary, with all of the attention and disruption he would bring. Like other prominent people of the world, he’s going to be serving out his sentence under house arrest, with a small army of police around his property and the government keeping a close watch on what he does.
Hideo shakes his head, and for a moment he looks idly toward the glass window, lost in thought. I don’t need to say anything to know that he’s thinking about his brother. “We were never well matched, were we? There’s no version of our story that wouldn’t have been doomed from the start.”
“If I were to do this all again, Hideo, I’d still have to hunt you down.”
“I know.”
I’m quiet for a second. “It doesn’t mean I don’t still have feelings for you.”
He turns to study me, and all I can think about is what the world would be like if Taylor had never taken an interest in his brother. If my father had never died young and I hadn’t been so desperate for money. How did this chain of events end with me sitting here across from Hideo, our positions of power flipped, the question of what if hanging in the air?
“I’m sorry, Emika,” he says. “Truly.” And the pinch in his eyes, the wince he tries to hide, tells me he’s being sincere.
I take a deep breath. “Ms. Kapoor called me. The new CEO of Henka Games. They’re going to rebuild the NeuroLink and have invited me on board. I’ve accepted her offer.”
At first, I can’t tell how Hideo feels about this news. Surprised? Resigned? Maybe he always guessed that the NeuroLink couldn’t die completely, that someone else would eventually take the reins. I don’t know how he feels about that someone turning out to be me.
But he just looks at me now. “She’s smart to tap you for it. You know as much about it as anyone who has ever worked on developing the system.”
“I’ve been tasked with putting together a team to help rebuild the NeuroLink.”
“Have you picked this team yet?”
“I didn’t come here today just to see you.”
Silence. He lifts a skeptical eyebrow at me.
I nod without a word.
“Emika, I’ve been sentenced for what I did. You were hunting me yourself.”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t think you still made something remarkable.” I lean forward against the table, then glance toward the black screen that sits flush against the entire side of the wall. “Play the footage.”
As Hideo looks over at it, the screen turns on.
It is a sequence of videos, news and memories from years past.
There’s a snippet from a documentary about an old woman trapped in an unresponsive body who was able to use the NeuroLink to communicate with her family. There’s an interview where a journalist travels to a war-torn border, where young refugees are using the glasses to continue their school lessons or talk with separated relatives. There is the inside of a children’s hospital that Hideo had once visited, where kids could travel down corridors that looked like fantastical worlds instead of white halls, where their rooms were filled with magical creatures that made them laugh. Alzheimer’s patients able to rely on the NeuroLink’s recordings of their memories. People trapped in a burning building who could use the NeuroLink’s grid to find their way out. The videos are endless.
Hideo watches them without a word. Maybe there will always be a weight on his shoulders, the guilt of what he’d done wrong, the loss of his brother. But he doesn’t look away from the videos, and when they finish, he doesn’t speak.
“Hideo,” I say gently, “you changed the world forever when you created the NeuroLink. And even though no one is perfect, it doesn’t mean we don’t listen. Become better. There are a million good things left to do, and they can be done responsibly, with thought and respect, without taking away from what’s wonderful about the world.”
He looks at me. “I don’t know if I still deserve a part in all of this,” he says.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t mean you won’t be closely watched. Or carefully guarded. You won't be able to work directly on anything, or write code, or be an official part of the company. There are going to be a lot of rules. I can promise you that.” I meet his eyes. “But you know the NeuroLink more intimately than anyone does. Before it was the world’s, it was yours. So I still believe there’s value in your advice, that we can benefit from your knowledge and your help.”
The spark in Hideo’s eyes now is the one I recognize from his early interviews. It’s the creator’s gleam, that magical thing that keeps you awake at night, wide-eyed with potential and promise.
“You once said that you were tired of the horror in the world,” I say. “Well, so am I. We can still find a way to fight it, the right way. We can find a way to do this together.”
Hideo doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then, he smiles. It’s not his secret smile or a suspicious one. Instead, it’s everything I could have hoped for. Genuine, honest, full of warmth, like the little boy he’d once been, sitting by lamplight in his father’s repair shop and piecing together something that would change everything forever. It’s the smile I used to have when my father waved me over and showed me how he stitched delicate pieces of lace, one by one, onto the train of a dress. The same smile from when I stayed hunched over my laptop in the foster home, feeling in control of my life for the very first time.
Maybe we can find a way to move forward, on the same page. We can find a way to be together.
I lean forward into this looking-glass version of our very first meeting. My steady gaze meets his.
“So, I have a job offer for you,” I say to him. “Would you like to hear more?”
Emika Chen has accepted the role of CEO for Henka Games. She has pledged the majority of her fortune to a trust dedicated to funding the creations of young women from difficult circumstances. . . . Chen was seen holding hands with Hideo Tanaka as they left a local restaurant early last week, fueling speculation on their relationship.
—TOKYO LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Acknowledgments