I sat in the rear seat in a minivan. Another man, who was young and had been in the same facility, was next to me. He also seemed to have been notified of the appointment. In the passenger seat was the man who had just told me of the assignment notification. The one at the wheel was a young woman.
“It takes about seven hours by car.” The man at the passenger seat looked back and told us so. “We drive halfway by this car. We will take a bus in the middle of the way at the relay point. You two may sleep until then.”
“Sir, are we not allowed to ask you what duty it will be?” I asked.
“There will be an explanatory meeting in the tomorrow morning. It is not the kind of thing that you need to worry about.”
“I do not worry about it, sir.”
“We have hastily decided to conduct a large operation. Urgent personnel compensatioin.”
In my head, I analyzed the words of “operation” and “personnel compensation”. They sounded nostalgic. But I had yet to be able to think clearly as if clouds were covering my brain.
Inside the vehicle was colder than in the building. Each of the metallic parts was cold. I tried to cool my body by touching them. I thought I could think more clearly if my body was cooled down.
The car got on a roadway and started running on the street. I saw a huge factory-like building over the road. I looked back, and found out that the building in which we had been had a similar structure. Because there were few windows, it looked like a warehouse. The road with three lanes in each direction stretched straight. Many of the vehicles were large trailers and tanker trucks. That is the place where I have been, I thought.
“By the way, I’m Koshiyama from the information bureau.” The man at the passenger seat looked back. “How are your conditions?”
“No problem, sir.” I replied immediately.
“You?” He looked at the man next to me.
“I think I’m okay, sir.” The man answered. His eyes were sleepy.
As I saw absently the lights that appeared to be moving from front to rear outside the window, I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up once, guardrails of an expressway appeared to be stretching endlessly. I thought I had already gotten on a bus, but I was wrong. I looked sideways silently. The man next to me was also sleeping, while burying his chin into the collar.
I noticed that the car decelerated, and then woke up. The bright orange light was shining high in the sky. It was like a passenger airplane that was about to land. It was a lighting tower of a drive-in facility.
I stepped out of the car and got onto a large bus. I sat on the rearmost seat. About 15 people were in the bus already. Are they all pilots? I’m not sure about that. The bus started moving immediately after the two of us took our seats. The man who had brought us here did not get on the bus. I looked at him raising his hand to see us off through the rear window of the bus.
No one spoke anything. They had got to be pilots, I thought. There was no pilot who would enjoy talking in such a situation. I could no longer tell which seat the other man who had come here with me took in the bus.
The bus swerved to the right and left at slow intervals, and then moved to the expressway. The acceleration was slow. For how long have I not ridden on this type of bus? I thought. I remembered I got on a bus like this when I went on a school excursion. The bus made rattling sounds as if it were in a bad mood. It gave me unpleasant feelings, but buses were not designed to go down unlike aircrafts would do. They could be parked anywhere. Being on a road provides such conveniences, I thought. It was funny that I had such a thought. I had not had such feelings around that time. What is it? As if the drug efficacy was wearing off, my thought started getting clearer. Drug? Do not tell me that it was the effect of some sort.
Although I was used to monotonous vibration, cars were bumpier than aircrafts. In addition, I could not sleep if I thought about what would happen from that point of time. I was aware of myself getting unusually excited. We went over a mountain. By the time the light in the sky was growing, we were on a road in flat farm fields. I closed my eyes and took a sleep just for a short while.
The vibration sounds of the tail assembly woke me up. But it was the vibration of the bus. It was stopped in a parking lot and the day had completely broken.
The door in the front part of the bus was opened. One man got inside and ordered us to get off.
There were ones with big luggage. There seemed to be two women, even though I had not noticed them up until that point. No one said anything. We got out of the bus quietly. Since I sat at the rearmost seat, I was the last one to exit the bus.
The ground was graveled. Other than the bus, just four big trucks were parked. I saw a large structure with a dome a bit far away from us. There was a four-story building beyond the structure. And, at almost exactly the center of the vicinity that included those structures, there was the place that was elevated. Obviously, it was the control tower.
I looked around. From the direction of the shining sun, one aircraft was approaching at a low altitude. It seemed to be landing. Everyone looked at the direction. We heard the engine sounds a bit after that.
“Nice sound.” Someone uttered.
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