“Try to hold on to your wits, Lemon-san,” Tessa advised him. “We’re at the epicenter of the time hazard right now. It’s impossible to predict what effects it might have on the mind.”
“The epicenter, huh? But isn’t it strange? The world rotates and revolves,” he observed. “The solar system travels through the galaxy. If we’re talking strict coordinates in space, the place we’re ‘at’ is leagues away from where it was eighteen years ago, right?”
“No. The omni-sphere exists only in the presence of human minds, so coordinates in the physical world are irrelevant. This isn’t the luminiferous aether postulated centuries ago...” Tessa trailed off for a moment. “I can only explain it by referring to the realm in which humans exist—in other words, the Earth—as ‘where it is.’ The omni-sphere sticks to the Earth and moves with it, and in Earth coordinates, the epicenter remains here, at Yamsk-11—That’s not an entirely accurate description, but it should cover what you need to know.”
“This is tricky,” Lemon agreed. “But these ruins were abandoned. How could the omni-sphere still exist if there were no people here?”
“It’s not that it can’t exist without people. It would be more proper to say ‘it would serve no purpose.’ And this place is different... The effects echo—they linger, you could say—eighteen years after the incident.”
They located the entrance into the dome, a narrow hatch about Tessa’s height.
“Yeah... I’m totally lost now,” Lemon admitted. “How are you doing, Kaname-san?”
“I...” She’d been silent for a while, since her head was beginning to pound. It wasn’t just the déjà vu now, and every step she took made it worse. She felt like she was walking through slime, and the discomfort and resistance was getting stronger as they went on. “I... I understand.”
She did indeed. These weren’t just uninhabited ruins. Something was waiting for them here.
“Yeah... I’m totally lost now. How are you doing, Kaname-san?” Lemon said.
“Lemon-san. You’re repeating.”
“Yeah... I’m totally lost now. How are you doing, Kaname-san?”
“Lemon-san?” she tried again.
“How are you doing, Kaname-san?”
“Lemon-san!”
“How are you doing? ...you doing? Doing? Ing? Ng... uuuuwah... wahhhh!” Lemon launched into a bloodcurdling scream, writhing as he clutched at his head, trembling and arching his back. It was like electricity was coursing through him. “Stop stop stop stop stop stop no no no no no no!!”
“Lemon-san!” While Kaname just stood there and trembled, Tessa shoved him with all of her might. Lemon lost his balance and fell onto his back several meters away from the dome, but his struggles continued. “I’m dragging him out! Help me!”
“Huh? Um, sure...” Kaname and Tessa dragged Lemon, still kicking and screaming, out of the chamber. Before long, his fit stopped, and he just lay there, coughing and weeping. “What... What just happened?” Kaname asked.
“I’m not sure. But I suspect...” Tessa whispered, shoulders heaving with effort. “The iota waves emitted from the core of this facility were stronger than anticipated. Powerful feedback from the omni-sphere might have triggered a mental breakdown. He’s an ordinary person, after all.”
“Could be. I hear I reacted a little like that the first time I heard the voices in North Korea,” Kaname agreed. “It’s pretty rough here, even for people like us, who are used to it, so I can see how it’d be enough to send someone into shock...”
“It’s unfortunate, but we can’t take him any further,” said Tessa. There was no reason to drag Lemon along if he couldn’t handle it.
It might, in fact, Kaname thought, be more convenient for Tessa if she could leave him behind... but she doesn’t seem happy about it at all. Out loud she said, “But the presence of iota waves means there really is something in there, right?”
“Yes, and it may be far more powerful than we imagined...” Tessa turned her eyes down, and coughed again as if holding back bile.
“Tessa, you okay?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. “Let’s leave Lemon-san here. You can remain here as well, if you wish. Remain here with—” she began to say, but Kaname seized her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I’m okay,” Kaname told her. “Let’s go.”
“All right,” Tessa said after a pause. She squeezed Kaname’s hand back, and they proceeded once more into the abandoned dome—into the TAROS.
“The end of history,” said Sousuke. “What does that mean?”
Leonard whispered into the deep darkness, something about “Machenschaft” and “Herrschaft...” It sounded like German, but Sousuke couldn’t catch the meaning. He made a questioning noise.
“Oh, words from Heidegger... ‘Machinations towards creation and control of the created.’ The causa sui of a god, one might say... It just came to mind,” Leonard said absently. “The end of history means an end to known relationships of cause and effect. But, that’s all philosophy—the point is that we liberate ourselves from causality, it opens up to us a completely different world. If a human could be entirely unshackled from fate and destiny, what would they want then? That’s what I’ve been making the preparations to find out.”
Causality? Destiny? Sousuke didn’t understand it at all.
“My sister told you about the omni-sphere, correct?”
“A little,” Sousuke admitted carefully.
“And the TAROS?”
“A bit. It’s a machine that can access the omni-sphere, and it’s what makes the lambda driver work.”
“The lambda driver is entirely a side benefit... though a useful one, to be sure,” Leonard commented.
“That’s what she said, yes.”
“These ruins are where the world’s first TAROS was built. This is where it first lost control, and what caused the Whispered phenomenon to appear in children born at that time. The true importance of the omni-sphere is that a certain kind of wave permeates its field of influence, without restriction in time or distance. This lets the Whispered exchange information about the past and the future, and it’s why this world is different from ‘the original world,’ a place with an entirely different history and timeline. ASes shouldn’t really exist, you see, and neither should Mithril. Amalgam should most likely look different than it does.”
“What in the world are you—” Sousuke started to ask.
“You don’t have to believe me,” said Leonard, cutting him off. “But assuming I am telling the truth... how do you think we should rid ourselves of the world we’re currently in?”
“We don’t have to. We can just leave it be,” said Sousuke, who had no interest in the state of the world. History changed at some point? Who cared? Even if that were the case, it didn’t change the fact that what he existed in now was reality. He had enemies and allies, tactical and strategic objectives. The only things he needed to do, the only things he needed to know, were those things which he could see and hear for himself.
“You think things are fine the way they are?” Leonard laughed. “That’s absurd. Things that shouldn’t exist do, and things that should exist don’t. Humans that should have lived have died, and humans that should have died lived. The world is off the rails. Those with the power to restore it, should.”
“You’re the one who’s off the rails,” Sousuke retorted. “I don’t know what kind of reforms you’re proposing, but—”
“Not reforms,” said Leonard, in a mocking, annoyed tone from out of the darkness. “I’m not talking about some ridiculous political movement. Think of it in terms of the cataclysm that would result if the axis of the world shifted. You’d want to find a way to set it right, wouldn’t you? To return the world to the state it should be in?”
“Keep in mind that I’m not a genius like you are, so you can tell me the world is off the rails, but I just don’t feel it,” Sousuke reminded him flatly. “When you talk about ‘restoring the world,’ are you talking about rejecting everything around us? Enemy and ally alike? I don’t entirely understand, but I don’t think it sits right with me.”
“A new question, then,” said Leonard, switching tactics. “You’ve lost people in battle, haven’t you? Friends and family, various allies?”
“Of course,” Sousuke answered. Comrades in Afghanistan, mercenaries he’d met after... too many to count. The allies he’d gone on operations with for Mithril. Matt Shade, in the intelligence division. The original Uruz-1, Gale McAllen. Liang Xiaoping of the PRT. Eva Santos, the pilot of Gebo-9, and her crew. Those whom he heard were lost in the attack on Merida Island... Castello, Speck, the dozens of West Pacific Battle Group officers. And... Nami.
Some of them he didn’t care about, but some had only died because he wasn’t strong enough to save them. In particular, the thought of Nami back in Namsac stung at his heart. Nami, he thought regretfully. I’m sorry. If I’d acted one second sooner...
“No doubt there are. Countless people have died on your watch,” Leonard noted. “You don’t regret it?”
“I don’t need to answer that.”
“But you do regret it, I’m sure. In the original world, you see, most of them would still be alive,” Leonard pointed out. “The black technology that the Whispered brought about changed the nature of war, and had remarkable effects on the destinies of those in its orbit. You’re denying them the lives they should have lived, coldly telling us to ‘leave them dead.’ Which one of us is ‘off the rails,’ then?”
“I’m not leaving them!” Sousuke said, his voice becoming labored. He knew he was playing right into his opponent’s hands, but was unable to stop himself.
“Could you say that to their faces?” Leonard countered. “‘Sorry you all died, but that’s just your bad luck. I know a way to save you, but I’m not going to try it’?”
“You’re talking nonsense. There’s no way to raise the dead. Babbling on about the past and future and timelines won’t bring them back to life.”
“Hmm, that sounds like mere stubbornness to me. Why don’t you elaborate?”
“I’ve killed people myself,” Sousuke said, staring at Leonard. “Over a hundred, like you told Chidori before... I don’t know the exact number, but how could I? I never knew how many people were on those Soviet military trucks I blew up in the valleys of Afghanistan. What matters is, I’ve taken more lives than I can count. So I know. I’ve felt it.”
“Hmm. Felt what?”
“That human death is final. It can’t be undone. Even if you find some way to bring a person back to life, they won’t be the same person.”
“Why not? If their body and memories and environment are the same, aren’t they the same person?” Leonard questioned.