"Ken. Right, that's his first name. Maybe you know him. I think he used
to be a flunky with some government bureau
over there. But now he's just been put in charge of the Fifth
Generation work. It's more than a little curious."
She puzzled a minute. From what she knew about the Fifth Generation,
and about Kenji Asano, he had a lot more important things to do than
run the lab. The "government bureau" he worked for was none other than
MITI, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. In fact, at
last count he was Deputy Minister for Research and Planning, a top-
ranked executive slot. Could this mean that Japan's ambitious
artificial intelligence effort was being moved in on by MITI, their
industrial war room?
"Allan, I'll tell you the truth. You may not have heard, but I'm in a
fight now at the university. I expect to win, but I've got a lot on my
mind. Notes for the book. I can't just suddenly--"
"Tam, I need your help. Look, maybe they've had some new breakthrough
that none of us ever imagined." He paused. "Just between us, I lifted a
strange MITI memo I found lying around an office when Asana took me on
an escorted tour up to the labs at Tsukuba Science City."