J'adoube, Pt. I (Solo)

It has been three days since Katsumi Hirata found what can only be described as a 'smartphone-like device', and in that stretch of time, she still had yet to unlock the meaning behind its most alluring secrets. So many applications were beyond her ability to use, and all because the machine's built-in voice assistant kept reiterating the fact every time she attempted to look at something she wasn't allowed to see.

Perhaps she was not meant to yet? Or maybe the gods were playing some cruel joke on her, to see how long her patience would last before it eventually collapsed. Whatever the case, Katsumi was dutiful and committed, and she resolved to discover as much as she could about this strange new apparatus until it was no longer possible for her to keep it secret that her old phone had been destroyed as a matter of carelessness.

So far, though, her parents were none the wiser to Katsumi's secretive protection of the gadget, as smartphones have become an ubiquitous element of daily living in human culture, and they were generally negligent of the, a disposition she had become increasingly apt to take advantage of in the wake of recent events. The occasional vein of anxiety pulsed in the back of her mind when she reflected on how they would react if they found out, but as long as she kept quiet, they would not suspect her of anything uncouth.

To help take her mind off of the two biggest points of stress in her life, Katsumi spent tiny fragments of her spare time exploring the Chess app and found herself captivated by its gorgeous medieval fantasy setting and visually stimulating gameplay elements. The app's two mascot characters, stubby little fellows that resembled White and Black pawns, were especially endearing to Katsumi, as they seemed incredibly well-mannered and chivalrous based on how they were depicted in-game.

The more she played, the more Katsumi began to notice that the little pawn guys, which represented the White and Black pieces respectively, seemed to adapt to her moves over the course of several different games, as if they were learning her strategies and tailoring their responses to further heighten her own skills. She could only imagine the amount of effort it took to program a chess engine this advanced, Katsumi wondered, achieving another checkmate against the computer to the sound of celebratory fanfare.

Of course, when it came time to start classes, Katsumi took it upon herself to be responsible and silence the device until school had finished. Some students would have lacked the fortitude of mind to resist sating their constant need for Internet connection, but Katsumi did not suffer as these poor souls did, mainly because she was immune to peer pressure and also read books most of the time. The gizmo would be a distraction from other pursuits; she could mess around with it later, when school was over.

Certain as the sun rises in the morning, Katsumi endured her lectures with aplomb and was dismissed along with her peers to return home for the day at 3:30pm. Taking the phone-thing out from her blazer's inner pocket once she had left the main facility, she unlocked the screen, only to softly sigh in discouragement. A text from Mom. Opening the message would alleviate a large swath of this nervousness, however, as it called for Katsumi to perform a single task that would at least keep her away from the household for a small period of time:

'Please go to Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku and pick up your father's present. It's been paid for already.'

That's right. It was approaching their twenty-year anniversary. To think that they've been together for so long, and that she had got to see three-quarters of that marriage throughout her own life. But, from the daughter's point of view, their union was not without its fair share of flaws. Part of her wanted to believe it was a marriage of convenience more than anything, seeing as how they hardly ever interacted with each other for most of the year, anyway. It wasn't her place to say such things aloud.

Despite what she felt, Katsumi couldn't disobey Mom's instructions now; not while this new expectation rested over her shoulders. She hadn't even described what the gift was, but considering that the parcel was already paid for in full, it must mean that she was to retrieve it from layaway at the customer service desk.

The fastest route to Yodobashi Camera would be to take the Fukutoshin Line to Shinjuku-sanchome, Katsumi thought to herself as she wordlessly brought up the GPS feature to locate the appropriate terminal, while also wondering about the exact nature of the present her mother had purchased.

As if it had scanned the contents of her very mind, the device's screen had not only zoomed in around the area she needed to access, but had also highlighted the most efficient path for her to take on foot so that she could reach her destination in a timely manner.

Katsumi paused, taking a moment to process what she had just seen. She hadn't given the device any commands or instructions yet, nor had she specified the location of the transfer point. So, how in the world did it know which terminal she needed to take?

Wait a minute. It's GPS, she reminded herself, all phones have location tracking! It began to make so much more sense now.

Navigating through the swarms of people to get there had proven to be the most difficult aspect of this mission, as Katsumi had to be both swift of foot and considerate of everyone else's space, like how a colony of ants might function. Such was how it was in the city of Tokyo, always teeming with human activity, never slowing down or pausing for anybody. The voice assistant present within the computer-phone had even provided a string of directions for her to follow through the GPS feature, which helped her from getting completely lost among the crowd.

Exploring the Shibuya Terminal felt similar to the task of Theseus and the Labyrinth, except Katsumi did not have the benefit of Ariadne's help with laying out a path for them to exit the sprawling edifice once she had completed her quest of slaying the figurative Minotaur that was this latest errand.

Once she had reached the boarding station, Katsumi reflexively lifted the talking device up so that she could scan the infrared sensor and activate her digital train pass, but it had suddenly dawned on her that she wasn't holding her actual smartphone, and she had almost begun to panic until the gadget let out a peculiar warble, right before the rotating barricades begun to swivel and slipped her through without difficulty.

"No way...!" Katsumi said in a mixture of both elation and disbelief. How? How was it possible for this thing to have a digital train pass already attached to its IP address? The sheer likelihood of this occurring had to have been astronomically minuscule!

Unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying went, she quickly collected herself and waited for the doors of the train car to slide open before stepping her way inside.

In doing so, the first thing that Katsumi noticed was the abrupt and rather jarring absence of other people on the train car itself. Glancing at the windows of the cars to her left and right, the second thing she noticed was that there was almost no one aboard the train at all. And in the moment she realized that something might be terribly wrong, a third detail had made itself apparent to Katsumi before she could change her mind and turn the other way: the train doors had already closed on her.

Hearing the hiss of hydraulics behind her, Katsumi swiveled on her heels, hoping to make a break for safety. Her mouth hangs agape with shock, eyes wide in disbelief, her hand nearly loosening its grip on the phone-shaped apparatus in its grasp as she tried to make sense of what just happened, but only a primitive sensation of fear had begun to take its hold over the teenage girl as she struggled to comprehend what now lay in front of her.

Or, rather, what didn't.

"You have arrived at your destination," spoke the talking smartphone, further amplifying Katsumi's dread.

The world had vanished before her very eyes. Instead of a bustling terminal filled with people going about their lives, a great and vacuous realm of emptiness stretched out as far as infinity, as if the entire fabric of reality itself had suddenly been confined to the cramped interior of this train. There was no explanation for this. Nothing could explain this to her.

And she was all alone.

"This isn't real... This can't be real..." Katsumi sputtered, shaking her head in disbelief. Feeling lightheaded, she backed herself into one of the train car's many benches and forced herself to sit down, unable to process what was happening or why.

Vertigo and panic soon takes hold of her, and within seconds, Katsumi had lost consciousness, falling unceremoniously off the bench and to the floor of the train, which left the runaway vehicle to quietly take her towards its intended destination, and into uncharted territories unlike anything she had ever witnessed before.

Little did Katsumi know, her life was about to change forever.

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