Chapter Five
1.
NAOMI OPENED HIS EYES. Without rising from his chair, he lifted his head up to look around. Morning light leaked into the room between the blinds.
The sounds of the hospital room were the same as always. The air conditioner hummed faintly, and the medical equipment array let out quiet beeps, the noise indicating that she was still alive.
Unfolding his arms, Naomi pressed his fingers to his temples. He’d pulled an all-nighter. Sleep had seemed completely impossible.
Twelve hours had passed since it happened.
Everything had gone according to plan. Sure, a few unexpected developments had popped up, but he’d accomplished his main goal perfectly.
It would be fine. Of course this would work...wouldn’t it?
Logic and emotion fought for dominance in his mind. Any plan, no matter how carefully plotted and carried out, could end badly. There was no such thing as a guaranteed outcome, or so the cold, analytical scientist in him said.
The other part of him—the desperate, emotional part—just shouted “it’s going to be fine” over and over again, an argument based mostly on wishful thinking.
It was a pointless conflict; he could bash his feelings against his rational mind all day long, and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. All he could do was wait.
But if this doesn’t work…I don’t know what I’ll do…
An unfamiliar sound drew Naomi’s attention over to the medical machinery. This was a new sound—one he was sure he’d never heard in the ten years he’d been visiting this room.
Beep.
He stared at the monitor on the largest machine, at the long, flat line it always displayed.
It had just moved.
Naomi sprang out of his chair. His knees buckled under him as he rose, pitching him forward; he grabbed the rail on the side of the bed and pushed himself back up.
The woman sleeping in that bed had an oxygen mask strapped to her face. She’d been hospitalized for a very long time, and the effects of that stay were painfully visible; she was emaciated, with hollow cheeks and an unnaturally thin neck and shoulders. But her chest still moved quietly under her thin blanket.
Leaning over the bed, Naomi stared down at the woman’s face. The unfamiliar beeping of the machinery kept going.
It was the sound of life. Of brain activity.
The sound of a soul returned to its body.
He thought he could see her eyelids stirring just slightly. He watched intently as they slowly began to open. She flinched slightly as the light hit them for the first time in years.
Her pupils moved, first in one direction, then another.
She was looking at him. She was looking right at him, meeting his eyes with understanding in her own. She could see him. She knew he was there.
She was conscious.
“Oh God…”
Naomi heard himself speaking from what felt like a great distance. An overwhelming flood of feeling surged through him, moving his body against his will. He felt his face scrunching up and the tears running freely down his cheeks.
Collapsing forward, he wrapped his arms around the woman’s slender body.
“I missed you, Ruri,” he moaned, the words barely coherent. “I missed you so much!”
Her mouth moved slightly in response. But after all the time she’d spent asleep, her vocal cords couldn’t make a sound.
Summer, 2037. At Kyoto Chubu General Hospital, Ichigyou Ruri awoke for the first time in a decade.
2.
THE TIP OF A CANE tapped at a regular rhythm against the polished floor of the hallway.
Katagaki Naomi made his way past the front desk and left Chubu General Hospital. The world outside was bright and sunny, the hot summer day cut by a breeze for once that improved things considerably.
He’d honestly wanted to stay at Ruri’s bedside, but there wouldn’t be much that he could do for her until later. It was going to take a long time for her to recover from the physical effects of a ten-year slumber, and he had to leave her rehab in the hands of the doctors and nurses. He wasn’t a medical professional.
It might take a while, but in the full scope of things, it was nothing. She’d woken up. That was what really mattered.
Kamanza Street, a leafy avenue that ran past the front of the hospital, seemed more vibrantly green than usual today. Naomi turned down it, heading toward his work. He still had a few important things to do.
He led with his cane with each step, moving it cleanly and confidently with his right hand and forearm. Back when he’d first started using the thing, he’d struggled to walk even short distances with it. He’d never known that you used a cane with your right arm when your left leg was disabled, and getting the hang of it had been a challenge. He’d come to resent any building without a proper elevator.
But time and practice had gradually eliminated those problems. Now, he could move around as quickly as an able-bodied person.
As he waited for the light to change at the crosswalk, his phone started to buzz. Just as he’d anticipated, his job was calling. He sent a quick I’m on my way and picked up his pace as he crossed the street.
The numbers on the elevator’s screen ticked upward, the B next to them indicating that the car was plunging deep underground.
On the wall next to the buttons, an information panel listed every department and their floors. The names were technical, even indecipherable to a layman; one glance at the list would tell you this was a staff-only elevator. At the very top, in slightly larger font, were the words “Chronicle Kyoto Project Center.”
The doors slid open onto a short hallway ending at an oddly bulky metal door. Naomi stepped out of the elevator and strode through the door. A camera installed in the wall above automatically scanned the faces of anyone who approached and identified whether they were authorized personnel. A second after it spotted Naomi, the door slid open automatically.
Instantly, the sound of panicked voices reached him.
“The unrecognized region is still expanding!” someone yelled. An array of green-tinted overhead lights illuminated the space; in a sunken, octagonal central area, researchers in uniform ran back and forth among numerous computer consoles, their movements frantic. At its very center, a cluster of anxious people had gathered around an enormous table monitor.
This was the AllTale Control Center.