My elderly neighbors were chatting noisily. A mobile market had been set up in the parking lot of the Hometown Center, and everyone was here doing their grocery shopping. Hometown Centers are local activity centers that sell local specialty items and stuff like that. They’ve got them in villages all over the prefecture, but they’re run independently by each community. They sell food, too.
Today the whiteboard menu read LUNCH SPECIAL: ¥400.
Hiro and I had set up camp in the back of the cafeteria. She’d been a huge fan of this place ever since I took her there for the first time. She held up two fingers like she was a regular.
“Hi, Mrs. Tsutsui. Two lunch specials, please.”
“Coming right up,” Mrs. Tsutsui said, walking off to the kitchen, her back hunched as always. She’s the best cook. Once, in elementary school, I asked her how old she was and she said 85. She says the same thing when I ask her now. She’s so energetic I can’t even second-guess her.
While we waited for our food, Hiro showed me a news video on her phone. Jelinek was speaking solemnly to a large crowd of reporters.
“It’s absolutely not a publicity stunt. I lost the love of my life in an accident and I’m still grieving. I got my tattoos in the same places she was injured.”
Weeping, he kneeled in front of a gravestone and covered his face. A flock of cameras were trained on him.
I remembered the photo of a graveyard on his website. This was the same place. The picture of the awful car accident must have been where the woman with the glasses died. I stared in surprise at this unexpectedly sentimental man.
“Wow, seems like everyone’s got big secrets,” I said, meaning it. But Hiro rolled her eyes.
“You’re so gullible. He’s just saying that to hide an even bigger secret.”
“You’re such a skeptic.”
“Of course I am. The question is, what is he hiding?”
“Everyone has secrets.”
“Including you.”
“And you.”
“Me? I’m an open book.”
“Then what about the wallpaper on your phone?”
Hiro suddenly turned bright red. “Hey, that’s not fair!”
“That picture of Mr. Terada from physics class?”
“Shhh, someone might hear you!” she whispered, hugging her phone to her chest. Just then, Mrs. Tsutsui arrived with our meals.
“Here you go, ladies.”
Hiro’s wallpaper was a photo of Mr. Terada standing in front of a blackboard covered in solved physics problems.
“I’m a nobody to him,” she said, her hands pressed to her flushed cheeks. “You better not tell my parents. They think I’m such a good girl.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“My mom would keel over if she knew. The other day—”
She stopped suddenly.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine.”
“I’m really sorry,” she repeated guiltily, her hand over her mouth.
“Seriously, it’s fine. I was just thinking about how you actually talk to your parents.”
I stared at my lunch special. There was some vegetable tempura, simmered beans and tofu, a bowl of vegetable soup, and some greens. A full meal.
“I’m the total opposite. Ever since my mom died, it’s just been me and my dad, but we hardly ever talk to each other.”
I avoided looking at him whenever possible. He kept his distance, too, out of consideration for me. But was this really what we wanted? To eat separately even though it was just the two of us?
Hiro stared at me, then mumbled, “I know… That’s why I’m here with you.”
Then she picked up her chopsticks and started wolfing down her lunch. Very loudly.
“Hey, stop moping and eat your food,” she said.
I picked up my chopsticks and nibbled at my meal. Her mouth crammed full, Hiro turned around, raised two fingers, and called, “Excuse me, ma’am! Two orders of somen noodles, please!!”
“Of course,” Mrs. Tsutsui called back, sticking her head out of the kitchen. Her somen is out of this world.
Hiro’s AS caught wind of some new information.
If you leave U’s riverlike Main Stream and head up toward the sea of clouds, you’ll see lots of little floating islands. People say they’re units that operated in U’s early days, the wreckage of old internet services that were shut down. One of them is supposedly the Dragon’s castle.
I pulled my hood up and approached a suspicious-looking island.
“Yikes!”
Glimpsing several figures, I slipped into the shadow of a column. They were Justice troops. They seemed to be searching for something, but eventually they went off somewhere else. Maybe they’d heard the same rumor as Hiro and come searching for the Dragon. I emerged from behind the column and looked around.
“…Is there really a castle among these ruins?” I asked Hiro.
“This time I’m sure of it!”
“Then why won’t you come with me?”
Her AS had stayed behind.
“I’ve got an extra lesson with Mr. Terada. I’ll watch the video later. Seeya!”
“Gimme a break…”
Like the Main Stream, the units were made up of two basic elements, skyscrapers and parks. Of course, the parks didn’t have any real greenery. There were rows of conifer-like pyramids in a plaza paved with round tiles. They were missing in several places, which really chipped away at the whole 3D feel. Strolling through these ruins, I presently came to the gate of a skyscraper district and passed through.
“Looking for something?” a voice suddenly asked.
A form was peering at me from the center of the main street threading between abandoned buildings: a bizarre cross between a pretty girl and a white sea slug. It hovered gently in midair. I wasn’t sure if it was a sea slug with the face of a pretty girl or a pretty girl with the body of a sea slug.
“…Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m an AI. I know everything.”
She had a cute starfish clip in her pink hair. I guess you could consider her a mermaid.
“…I’m looking for a castle,” I asked experimentally.
The mermaid AI smiled, waving the feelers on her back like she was swimming.
“I thought so.”
“You did…?”
Suddenly, the landscape morphed around her. I found myself standing on the edge of a lagoon fed by a magnificent waterfall.
“…It’s here?”
This was where his castle was?
But the mermaid just waved her feelers and swam silently away.
“No, wait!”
I tried following only to quickly lose sight of her.
“Where am I…?”
It was nearly impossible to walk through the tangle of tree trunks and roots. They seemed to be blocking the way forward. I stumbled lost through the deep primeval forest.
I was panting and sweating beneath my heavy coat. My hood got caught on the branches.
Of course, there was no path. I had no idea where I would end up. But if I didn’t keep moving, I could never hope to escape this maze. My only choice was to move forward into the unknown.
“Huff… Huff…”
I emerged in front of a strange tree whose trunk and branches were intertwined around a huge rock. I didn’t know if the tree was embracing the rock or strangling it. I stopped, unsure what to do.
“May I help you?” a voice said.
“…Oh!”
This time the peculiar creature looking at me was a cross between a pretty girl and a squilla shrimp. Another mermaid. She had thick, curly green hair and a frilly tutu-like thing around her waist. Another AI?
“…I’m looking for a castle,” I tried venturing again.
The mermaid smiled, waving her six legs.
“I thought so. I will tell only you.”
“Um…”
Before I could say anything, I was whisked off to another place. This time I was at the seashore. As far as my eyes could see, there was nothing but the shallow, utterly flat edge of the ocean. A strong wind was blowing.
I stepped from the damp sand onto the water’s mirrorlike surface, dotted with reflections of clouds. I didn’t know which direction to go. Whichever way I looked, all I saw was the horizon dividing the sky from the sea and land.