Chapter 4

9 Minutes of the 23rd Japan-US Military Research Findings Report (excerpt) Report date: Year **** Month ** Day ** Venue: Yasuda Auditorium, University of Tokyo Report made by: Tsuneo Tomisawa, Wartime Special Strategic Information Processing Laboratory, Aomori Army College “…As you can see, it’s possible to predict the future with extremely high precision by detecting the deviation in the branching multiverse ahead of us. That is the ultimate goal of my laboratory. This is not a conventional theoretical model or probability theory. It is merely information based on real future results—real in the sense that they have actually occurred in a branch universe. It’s knowing in advance what will happen after we turn the page. The influence this will have on political and military decisions is not incalculable… “But frankly speaking, we must assume that the level of the Union’s practical quantum gravity theory technology is already incomparably more sophisticated than our own. If the situation remains unchanged as we advance, the Union will be the one to realize practical quantum prediction.” Four photographs displayed on screen. Aerial photo of central Hokkaido from 1974 (omitted) Aerial photo of central Hokkaido from 1984 (omitted) Aerial photo of central Hokkaido from 1994 (omitted) Aerial photo of central Hokkaido from 1997 (omitted) “The construction of that tower in central Hokkaido…central Ezo, began in ’74, just after the North-South split. We estimate that it began operating around ’96. In reconnaissance photos from ’97, there is already a clear phase shift around the tower. “In an ironic twist of fate for those of us in the alliance, Ekusun Tsukinoe, who is said to have played a central role in the tower’s design, is originally from Honshu. “…Now then, I’ll present several new technical efforts that are currently being conducted so that we can actually detect information from parallel worlds.” 10 A few days passed. During that time, Takuya made very good progress on his work. He stayed holed up in the grad students’ room, without going home, and completed two papers. When he got tired, he made a row of chairs and napped on them. After a full night in front of a monitor until morning, he was exhausted. He e-mailed his papers to Tomisawa, then passed the morning doing odd jobs. When his fatigue grew intolerable, he went to the parking lot and napped in the car. When he woke up, it was dark. He felt awful, as if he had been left out of the world and the flow of time. When he turned on his cell phone, he noticed that Maki had called twice. That made him feel better, if only a little. However, he wasn’t inclined to call her back. Instead, he punched in a different number. It was one he dialed often, but it wasn’t stored in the phone’s memory. He promptly erased records of all calls to or from it as well. “It’s Shirakawa.” “…Yeah.” Okabe always sounded so put upon when he called. “Could I meet you somewhere soon?” Okabe just happened to be in the city right then. Takuya brought the seat back up and started the engine. The old pub, run by a single elderly woman who was pushing eighty, was located by Aomori Port. As he crossed the modern, pure-white Aomori Bay Bridge from west to east, Takuya mused, If the Union Army did come ashore, this bridge would probably be their first target. When he opened the wooden sliding door and entered the pub, Okabe was already pouring sake for himself. Takuya sat down next to him at the counter. The aged proprietor was napping on the other side of it. “How was your business trip to Tokyo?” he asked Okabe, pouring himself a drink. “Hunh?” Okabe grunted dubiously. “Well, a business trip around this time wouldn’t be Uilta-related.” Okabe snorted. “Forget that. What’s Hiroki up to? Thought I’d pay him a quick visit while I was in Tokyo, but I couldn’t get ahold of him.” Takuya could feel his expression souring. “He’s… I don’t know what he’s up to. Doesn’t matter to me anymore.” “…Hmm.” “When are you hitting the tower?” Okabe gave up on the other thread of conversation. “Actually, we got our hands on a PL-coated bomb.” “PL…” “You know about those?” “No… I’m not familiar with those.” “I dunno much about it, either, but they said something about a reaction with palladium and deuterium.” “Damn…” Takuya knew what that meant. “That’s incredible.” “How so?” “I can’t be sure without seeing the specs, but it’s probably the rough equivalent of an ultrasmall nuclear weapon.” “Ah. Okay. It’ll make for a hell of a show, then.” Okabe lit a new cigarette. “So the question is, will it work on the tower?” “It should…,” Takuya answered promptly. “That tower isn’t built to be sturdy. You need a certain type of flexibility for a structure that tall and delicate. The exterior will evaporate instantly, and intel says interior is filled with nanonet ribbons; those will burn away. My money says it’ll all disappear without a trace.” “It will, huh?” Takuya lit a cigarette of his own. “But no average terrorist group would be able to get a bomb like that.” “Sharp kid.” “What is the US Army trying to do? Once a mini-nuke gets involved, everyone will know they were pulling the strings.” “No idea. Maybe they’ve got a solid cover story all ready to go, or maybe it’s connected to some internal power struggle… Or maybe they’re assuming they won’t need a cover story.” “War.” “Yeah, probably.” “You think they’re trying to make it happen?” “Could be.” “But it won’t matter to Uilta either way, will it? Your goal is reunifying the North and South; if taking down the tower speeds that up, you’ve done your job. It’s got everyone under its spell—people on the mainland and the US Army. The Union seems untouchable because of the image it creates. Powerful and insubstantial. That’s why you’re knocking it down.” “You’ve got that all figured out. You always did have a brilliant mind.” “Please stop.” Takuya stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Mr. Okabe, say you’ll let me join Uilta now. Please?” “Don’t do it.” Okabe drained his sake cup. “You’re already too involved as it is. And do you even understand what it means? Being active with us means giving up all hope of normal life. Worst-case scenario, you could spend the rest of your years skulking around in the darkness.” “I know that. I’m asking you anyway.” “I’m telling you this for your own good. Forget everything you’ve heard, straighten up, and become a consultant or something.” “No way. I can’t do that. If you won’t let me in, then I’ll leak everything I just heard to Public Safety—” He didn’t get to finish the sentence before he’d been hauled up by his shirtfront and shoved back against the wall. Two wooden stools fell over. On the other side of the counter, the old proprietor didn’t wake up. Maybe she’d intentionally decided not to. “I don’t think you understand what you just said.” His voice was so low it was almost a whisper, but it packed the force of a physical blow. From inside the pocket of his jacket, Okabe pressed something hard into Takuya’s stomach. Takuya realized just how peaceful his life had been until now. He was just a spoiled, naive kid. Takuya could feel himself shaking. He tried to speak and heard himself stammering until he managed to get the words out. “I still want to do it. I want to be the one who does it, no matter what it takes. I’m angry. I hate that it’s still standing there. I hate that I have to keep looking at it. And that feeling will be holding me down as long as it’s still there. Nothing will change.” “…” Okabe held him there, half-suspended, and for a little while, neither of them moved. All Takuya heard was his own ragged breathing. Okabe’s hands relaxed on Takuya’s shirt. Before Takuya could catch his breath, the man took the handgun out of his pocket and pressed it into his hand. “Hang on to this.” It was heavy, and the weight of it seemed to wake him up. Okabe took a handful of spare bullets out of another pocket and poured them into the pocket of Takuya’s jacket. “Find somewhere and practice. Don’t get any ideas about trying to hit anything. Just get yourself used to the weight and the recoil. Don’t drop it and don’t hit anybody on your side.” The sensation in his hand was hard and cold. Takuya shivered. He found the dry riverbed when he was driving down Route 4. He stopped the car and went down to it; the steel bridge for the Tohoku Main Line ran overhead. He went under the bridge, and when he looked up, he could see the sky through the gaps in the rails. The bridge seemed as though it might come falling down if a train went over it. He scanned the riverbed from right to left. There was a soccer field a little ways away, but no goal posts. He could see a few people on it, here and there, but there was no real reason to sneak around. Takuya stepped out from under the bridge into the sunset light. Across the river, in the distant sky, he could see the tower. On reflex, his eyes narrowed—or it might have been more accurate to say that his expression hardened. He lit a cigarette and waited. He kept going through them faster year by year. And every year, his environment became harder to smoke in. If he’d been able to smoke in the lab, his efficiency would probably have gone up by about 20 percent, but… When his fifth cigarette was nearly ashes, the sound of a railroad crossing signal reached him from far away. He tossed the butt and put a hand into his pocket. He felt hard, cold steel. Taking two or three steps forward, he pulled out the gun, disengaged the safety, and racked the slide. He didn’t especially care if anyone was watching. He faced the tower, pointing the gun straight at it. The train came. When the noise had gotten loud enough, he pulled the trigger. The gun kicked in his hands, and he tightened his grip, keeping it under control. He shot again. And again and again. Cartridge cases jumped from the chamber, and he felt fine cinders on his cheeks from the gunpowder. The steel bucked in his hands. The acrid smell intoxicated him. When the train had passed, he let his hands fall to hang limply. No one had noticed. Even if they had, no one would ever think it was a real gun. The idea made him sick, and so did any thought of the person he’d been until the day before. When Takuya put away the gun and turned on his heel, both his eyes and his heart were hard and cold. 11 “I was at the top of a tower—a cold, hard, strange, twisted tower.” There was a forest of them, and they looked like the ruins of a fallen civilization. They’d half crumbled, eroded by the wind, their ceilings gone. At the top of one of them, Sayuri was hugging her knees. “The wind up there was cold and deep, like it came from a distant world. The air smelled like it wasn’t from this universe,” she murmured a little at a time. She was speaking to someone, some imaginary companion she’d created inside herself. If she didn’t, she’d never last. The opaque surface of the sky looked rough, as if it had been scraped with pumice. The wind wasn’t unpleasant, but something about it felt wrong. She could sense noise, too high to hear at first until it finally dropped low enough for human ears. It was a metallic whine from somewhere in the sky. Realizing it was the sound of a distant jet, Sayuri gave a small cry. She looked up. She stood. And the tower vanished. The view changed. Now she was standing in the center of the athletic field of a concrete school somewhere. The school was in ruins. Weeds grew thickly on the ground. All the tiles were cracked and broken, and so were the walls of the school building. It must have been abandoned for at least a decade. Sayuri looked around, dazed. She could see a town in the distance, but there were no signs of life in it. Everything had crumbled. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed red light. It was a gentle red, like fire or a sunset. That light was coming from a classroom on the third floor of the school. Several white doves had gathered at the window of the red classroom. Living things. Life, when everything else was dead. Warmth. Desperate to get close, Sayuri broke into a run. There wasn’t a single pair of shoes in the main entrance, and dust had settled over it. She stepped into the corridor without taking off her shoes. She stopped and looked around. Stairs. She ran up, right past the second floor to the third, and emerged into a perfectly straight hallway. Sayuri held her own, running down it. In front of a classroom with a sign that read YEAR 3, CLASS 3, she stopped, hesitating for a moment. Warm light filtered out. Then she flung open the sliding door. The source of the warm light was a desk by the window. The shining desk was the only one there; all the others had been pushed away from it. It was surrounded by a completely empty space, as though the other desks were avoiding it, shunning it. The sight was sad, and yet she felt a sort of kinship with it. She took a step into the classroom, and the light disappeared as abruptly as a candle being blown out. As if it had avoided her. She would never be allowed near warmth again… She could tell her face was crumpling. Unable to give up entirely, she slowly stepped forward. Through the window, she could see the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, now in ruins. It looked as if there’d been a war. She touched the lonely desk, its light gone dark. It was completely cold. She leaned against the wall by the window, then slid down into a crouch. The lonely desk was right in front of her. She hugged herself. “Why am I here…? Somebody… Please, somebody, anybody…” She hid her face. “Takuya… Hiroki…” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was back on top of the tower. She couldn’t hear the jet anymore. Only the wind. In the distance, the white, inorganic Union tower was hazy. From time to time—depending on the wind—she could see that tower beyond the clouds from here. The authoritative clack-clack of chalk woke me up. Apparently, I’d lost to the sandman during class and drifted off for a bit. The sound of writing on the blackboard echoed impassively in the still air. That dream again… I’d seen Sayuri wandering again and again. She often roamed through the landscapes of the destroyed city. She was searching for something. Year three, class three. That was my classroom. I glanced at the window. All I had to do was shift my gaze a bit, and I could see the scenery outside. That red desk was my desk… The weather was clear. A wind blew in, and the thin curtain rippled. Days like this were depressing. Over the course of my three years living here, I’d grown more and more aware of it. When the wind blew like this— Fortunately, this window didn’t face that direction, but still. If it had, I know what I would have seen outside. When I opened my mailbox, there was another letter. Only one person ever sent me letters. I climbed the narrow wooden stairs, returning to my room, and tossed the letter onto the low table. I put on the headphones that had been lying on the floor, closed my eyes, and played the violin. I carefully avoided looking at the envelope. I spent about an hour like that, trying to clear my mind completely, but then I gave up and opened the envelope. Every time I got one, I promised myself I wouldn’t read it, and then I read it anyway. I knew I’d regret it afterward. I almost knew why I did it, but I was trying hard not to think about it. For the most part, it was a report on recent events. Aomori was tense, and US soldiers and military vehicles had started showing up all over the place. War with the Union wasn’t far off. At the earliest, it would come this year, and even if it didn’t, there might be war next year. Either way, Mr. Okabe’s opinion was that it might be inevitable if we wanted to reunite North and South Japan. Due to the North-South split, the military had forced many families and friends apart, so they couldn’t see each other even when they wanted. Forcing that pain on people was wrong, Mr. Okabe explained in his letter. It was rare for him to volunteer his opinion when no one had asked him. He wrote that Takuya had become a special researcher at Aomori Army College. His specialty was quantum physics. That came as a surprise. I hadn’t expected him to skip over college and just become a researcher like that. Was he just that smart? He’d probably been allowed to skip grades because it was the US Army College. The letter said that the change in environment had wound him up a lot, and it suggested that I get back in touch and give him somebody to talk to. As soon as I finished reading it, I put it back in the envelope, stuck it between the pages of a book, and shoved it into the back of my cheap storage cupboard. That night, Sayuri was in my dream again. She was trudging down a street full of muted colors, probably somewhere around Kita-Shinjuku. The narrow street was lined with a mix of shops and houses, but all the buildings were falling apart. The telephone poles leaned, and the wires were warped. Beyond them, in the distance, I could see the crumbling high-rises. The town was in ruins. There wasn’t a single person around, and the solitude left Sayuri in pain. She stumbled ever forward, looking for someone. But not just anyone would do. She was looking for somebody specific. But who it was, she didn’t know for sure; a lock on her mind prevented her from picturing them. She walked around at random, searching, growing more and more exhausted. I caught the scent of a wind that blew in from the far edge of the universe. Sayuri was endlessly, infinitely alone. My eyes opened, and I sat up in bed. That was vivid, I thought. The sight of Shinjuku in ruins felt very familiar to me. It felt right—and that was frightening. I wondered whether that was the aftermath of a war. Did that mean I wanted war? I didn’t think I did, but there was no telling what I wanted deep down. The smell of the wind in that dream still lingered somewhere. Old, dusty air. The scent stirred up a sense of nostalgia, and it eased my mind quite a bit. The phone rang. After listening to it ring three times, I reached for it. Even before I picked up, I knew it was Rika. There weren’t many people who called me, so I generally identified them by what time they called. She was the only one who’d call me on a Sunday morning. “Oh, you’re there,” Rika said. “Get a cell phone already, sheesh. Just about everyone has one these days.” “No, I’m good,” I told her, the way I always did when the topic came up. “Not having one hasn’t caused me any problems so far.” “It’s caused problems for me, okay? I can’t get ahold of you. I called you last night, too. Where were you?” “I didn’t go anywhere.” I cocked my head, wondering whether the phone had rung last night. “I think I was probably asleep.” “Living alone must so be nice. You get to sleep and wake up whenever you want.” I could vividly picture her sarcastic expression. “Can we meet up?” she asked. “Of course we can. You know there’s no supplementary lectures or electives today.” “So you’ve got nothing to do outside of lectures? Don’t you have any other plans, Fujisawa?” “Nope,” I said, without giving it much thought. “Sometimes I just can’t tell: What kind of person are you? If I wasn’t around, how would you end up spending your days off?” “I’ve never actually thought about it,” I mumbled. “I think I just live, like everybody else.” She sighed loudly. “Can I go over there?” “Come after I’m finished cleaning. I think it’ll take me a few more months.” “There you go again. Wanna come over here, then?” “Sure. What about your parents, though?” “They’re never here. Don’t worry about them.” “Okay. I’ll be there in about an hour.” “Pick up a gift for your lovely hostess on your way.” With that, she hung up. I got dressed, walked to Shinjuku Station, and picked up an assortment of fruit jellies at the European sweets shop just outside the station. I boarded the Yamanote Line, got off at Ikebukuro, then walked to her house. She’s always in a bad mood these days. We were in our last year of high school, the year we’d take our entrance exams. Rika was trying to get into a certain women’s college that was famous for its wealthy, well-bred students, and I figured she’d get in for sure. (And later on, she did qualify—and easily.) Still, she’d fallen victim to the prickly exam-season mood, and lately, she was very nervous. She’d called me out of nowhere, after midnight, more than a few times. Whenever she did, I just kept agreeing with her on the other end of the line until morning, letting her know I was listening. That was all she wanted, and it was all I could do. Her reliance on me felt pretty good. I liked the rapid-fire way she talked and the unconventional way she felt things. Thanks to her, I started to suspect maybe I wasn’t actually worthless. You could have said that we complemented each other. However, recently, I was really spacing out a lot of the time during our conversations. It wasn’t her fault; the problem was completely on my end. I was rapidly losing interest in the reality in front of me. Rika lived in a Western-style detached house on a quiet residential street. It had almost no yard, but that meant the house itself was more spacious. Since it was on a hill road, there was a little flight of ten stone steps from the gate to the front door. It was a nice, neat house. When I pressed the intercom button, she told me to just walk in. Rika was on the living room sofa, leaning back into it limply. Notebooks, university entrance exam workbooks, textbook guides, and the school’s carefully curated practice problem collection were spread out on a big, low table. I set the white hostess gift box on top of it, then sat cross-legged on the floor, facing her. “Drinks are in the fridge,” she said listlessly. I went into the kitchen without asking, made iced coffee for both of us, then brought it back. “Guess it’s not going so well.” Rika sat up. “You always just call it like you see it, don’t you, Fujisawa?” “Is that not okay?” “It’s not not okay. You do it on purpose, though, right?” “Not really. Everything I say is boring, because I’m a boring person.” “See, that right there. You say stuff like that, too, even though you know you aren’t.” She was grumpy today, although that came as no surprise. Rika abruptly changed the subject. “Listen, have you read ‘Flowers for Algernon’?” “Yes. Why?” “Sometimes I think, ‘I wish I’d just end up like that.’” “Like what…?” “I mean, then I would have other things to worry about than exams, you know?” I understood what she was getting at, and that’s why I couldn’t let her get away with it. “That’s disrespectful.” “I know that. The thought just occurred to me. I can’t help it; don’t blame me.” “All right. I’m sorry.” “Don’t you think about it, too, Fujisawa? Don’t you ever get so anxious you don’t know what to do? Don’t you start wanting to just give up on everything?” “About as much as the next guy.” “You don’t look like it, though.” “That’s probably because part of me just gives up and stops caring what happens. If I take enough exams, I’ll probably get in somewhere. And if I don’t, it’s not like that would kill me. It’ll work out somehow. Or maybe it won’t, but that won’t matter.” “It’s terrifying how you can think that way. I mean, I just can’t…” She leaned back into the sofa again. “Come on, come sit here.” I sat down beside her. “I need a little of your energy, okay?” Rika said. Her head came to rest on my shoulder. One of her pigtails tickled my neck. The weight of a person’s head doesn’t feel quite like anything else. She was resting on me the weight of her memories and thoughts and emotions; that trust made me a little tense. For a fraction of a second, I considered putting a hand on her cheek, passing my other hand around her waist, laying her back on the sofa, and taking off her clothes. If I wanted to, I thought I could probably sleep with her anytime I liked. Of course, that might have been a hugely arrogant assumption, but…I could tell she wouldn’t mind if it happened, and she might have been wishing that it would. I couldn’t work up the desire to do that, though. Some people might call me spineless, but…doing that to her when she was in this emotionally vulnerable state felt wrong somehow. That wasn’t the only reason, though. Everything looked hazy to me. I didn’t even register Rika as fully real anymore. I didn’t say anything about it, but the weakening of reality around me was just a little terrifying. This wasn’t how life was supposed to feel… It really was bizarre. When I was with her, it wasn’t as though her short, swaying skirt and her slim legs and her white cleavage didn’t do anything for me. And yet that impulse always got summarily scattered by the frosted glass between me and the world. Deciding to get lunch, we left the house and boarded the Yamanote Line. Rika said it was kind of far, but there was a Western-style restaurant in Kanda that she wanted to go to. When we went outside, Rika’s color visibly improved. Spending most of her time alone in that big house, battling exam pressures, was bound to be taxing. At the restaurant she’d had in mind, she ordered spaghetti with porcini mushrooms, and I had an omelet and fried foods set meal. The food there was really good. After that, we decided to take the Chuo Line into Shinjuku. The train was empty, and we got a full row of seats all to ourselves. Rika read my palm and predicted a long life for me, but not wealth. That sounded about right. I was drifting through my life in this nebulous world. Just then, I saw something. It was through the window, outside the train. We were stopped at Ochanomizu Station, and there was a platform out there. I’d seen something on the platform for the line that went the opposite way. The haze covering the world blew away. Just for a moment, my vision grew sharp and clear, and I reflexively leaped to my feet. I sprinted for the train doors. That’s— It’s Sayuri! I’d seen Sayuri. The doors were closing. The gap would be too small to slip through. Without hesitating, I shoved my elbow in between the doors, then tried to pry them open with brute force. I wasn’t enough to budge the train doors, but the sensor responded, the compressor hissed, and they opened for me. I dashed out onto the platform. I stared at the platform on the other side of the tracks. She wasn’t there. I’d lost sight of her. A station employee came over and said something to me, but I wasn’t listening. I ran up the stairs, then down, and then over to the spot where Sayuri had been. I remembered to keep an eye on the people around me so we wouldn’t pass each other by accident. I walked from one end of the platform to the other. I stared at the people streaming through the ticket gate, coming and going. I stubbornly waited for about thirty minutes. Sayuri wasn’t there. As I was walking around, for a little while, I thought I caught the faint scent of old air, but it might have been my imagination. And then I remembered Rika. I’d just left her without a word. I dived for the public telephone on the platform, called her cell, and hastily made excuses. I told her I thought I’d seen an old friend that I hadn’t been able to contact in ages, and I’d dashed out before I knew what I was doing. She told me it was fine. “Yeah. It happens.” On the other end of the line, she might have been crying. 12 Winter came again, my third in Tokyo. School was more exam-obsessed than ever. Like the last sprint at the end of a run, everyone around me attended the special extracurricular lectures. I was on the science track, so practical classes were important, and I attended as many as I could. However, eight or nine hours of class in one day built up a lot of fatigue, and sometimes I’d fall asleep while taking notes. At home and at school, I often dreamed about Sayuri. To be accurate, I dreamed I was wandering around looking for her. I ran through ruined streets, looking around restlessly. Every so often, I thought I caught a glimpse of Sayuri’s hair or the hem of her clothes as she turned a corner, but whenever I looked, no one was there. Finally, I reached the decaying high school. I was sure Sayuri was there. I could feel her presence; I could smell a different universe. I knew she was somewhere cold and lonely. When I looked up, sunset-colored light was filtering through a classroom window. I ran into my own classroom. My desk was glowing with red light. The light promptly disappeared, and that sense of her presence and everything else vanished with it. I stood there, transfixed, panting for breath. Those were my dreams. Sayuri was calling. I was looking for Sayuri, and she was looking for me. I was sure of it. From a rational perspective, this was a dangerous mental state. Still, I didn’t think it was strange. It was only natural that we’d look for each other. When Sayuri’s presence vanished in the dream, my heart felt like it was tearing apart. The days passed as though I was holding my breath in cold, deep water. As though the world had left me behind. I woke to the sensation of someone ruffling my hair. “Class is over.” Rika, who’d been taking a different supplementary lecture in another classroom, had come to pick me up. “Tired?” “Yeah. Haven’t really been sleeping lately.” “Huh. Kind of a relief to hear you get that way sometimes, too, Fujisawa.” “Of course I do. I’m not a cow.” As I escorted Rika home, we decided to walk toward Ikebukuro for a while. When we left the ticket gate at Ikebukuro Station, we leaned on the guardrail and talked and avoided the topic of exams as much as possible. We listened to the title track of a new album I’d copied to my music player, each of us using one earbud. Rika closed her eyes, swaying lightly to the rhythm. Maybe the clear winter air was why I noticed it. I could see the tower in the north. It had come out of nowhere today. I usually steeled myself first so the impact didn’t hurt as much, but today was a solid hit. It was as if a transparent bullet had come flying at me. I was being overtaken by dark feelings, and I struggled to pull myself together before Rika noticed. As she lightly went through a crossing for the Metro Streetcar Arakawa Line, Rika asked me a question. “You’ll be going to college here, right, Fujisawa? Are you going to move back home once you graduate?” “No… I’m not planning on it.” “Hmm. That’s too bad.” “Why?” “I want to see where you were born and raised. Maybe try living there,” she casually commented out of the blue, and I panicked a little. “There’s nothing there,” I answered carefully. “Just ocean and mountains and farm fields. You’d have to get a car. The transportation system is one single-track local line, and everybody who lives in the area uses it. Up there, you might get to know someone from seeing them on the train, even if you don’t know their name. You’d probably get culture shock.” “It sounds wonderful.” “No, you’re just romanticizing it,” I said, laughing. “Time passes about twice as slowly there. Give it two or three days, and you’ll be saying you’ve had enough.” “I’ve had enough of this, so I bet I’d be fine. The thing is, I really don’t want to live in a place like Tokyo forever. It’s busy and noisy, and everything’s so nebulous. It’s like there’s nothing definite here. Like the longer you stay here, the less solid you feel… Have you ever felt that?” “Hmm. That’s a good question.” I avoided making a clear statement. “I was born and raised inside the Yamanote loop, so I don’t have a hometown. It sucks, y’know?” “No, I don’t. Why?” “I mean, you’ve got nowhere to go. When it comes right down to it, and I tell myself, ‘Okay, I’m gonna go somewhere else,’ I don’t have any specific place in mind. In the end, my only option is to stay here, live here. No hope of anything else.” Despite the gravity of what she was saying, Rika was using the same tone she did when she was telling a joke. Her words sunk in even more deeply. “Do you get the urge to go somewhere else a lot?” “Yeah. Didn’t you know?” “I didn’t. I had no idea.” “Tell me more about where you lived, Fujisawa.” “Let’s see…” I spoke indifferently so as not to stir up any real emotions. “It’s pretty much the northern edge of Japan. It gets a ton of snow. This time of year, everything’s buried in it. If you want to go outside, you have to shovel the snow in front of your house every day. It’s cold, of course. And silent. The snow absorbs sound.” “That sounds pretty nice.” “I lived in a place called Minmaya…” “Minmaya?” “Right. It’s written with the characters for three stables. There’s a fairly famous temple nearby called Gikei-ji that’s dedicated to Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Legend has it that when Yoshitsune fled there, pursued by Yoritomo’s soldiers, Heaven sent him three fine horses to help him escape. That’s why it’s called Minmaya. In the legend, those horses flew, and Yoshitsune rode them across to Hokkaido and survived…” I wasn’t able to finish the whole sentence. “Well, that’s about the size of it.” “That’s so cool.” We’d been walking as we talked, and that was when we stopped at a closed railroad crossing. A long, long freight train rolled slowly past us. The train was carrying Type 90 tanks. More than ten of them passed right in front of us. They were probably headed north on the Tohoku Main Line. War really was just around the corner. “These tanks are going to your hometown, right, Fujisawa?” “Yeah, that’s right,” I managed, barely. “Say, these things move really slowly. Doesn’t it look like we could just jump on? Want to steal a ride to Aomori together?” I tried to smile and felt my face twist. I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I covered my mouth with my hand, looking down. Something was working its way up, and I desperately tried to shove it back. I swallowed and held my breath; little by little, the calm returned. Trying to make myself breathe normally again, I straightened up. The tower seemed to leap out at me. In the red sunset, it felt unbelievably close. Slowly, the tower’s aura leaned over me. Claiming I wasn’t feeling well, I went back to Nishi-Shinjuku alone. There was an iron fence on the way home, and I let my fingers run along it as I walked, making noise. When I got back to my lodgings, there was another letter from Mr. Okabe in my mailbox. I picked it up and headed for my room. I couldn’t possibly open it now. I closed the door behind me, returning to the gloomy space that was mine to be alone in, let my bag slip off my shoulder and fall to the floor, then leaned against the door and slowly slid down it into a crouch. I hurt all over, as if all the bones in my body were poking through my skin. The source was in my heart; why was I feeling it in my body? When had this feeling come to be inside me? By the time I’d found the strength to stand again, it was already dark outside. I took off my school uniform, changed into a sweater and jeans, then sat on the floor and leaned against the edge of the bed. I put on my headphones, closed my eyes, and played my muted violin. It was calming, the way the sounds I played were for my ears alone. Like creating a convection current in my mind to repair me on the inside. I played with single-minded focus—all the songs I knew, in order. Somewhere along the way, I found myself playing over and over again the melody Sayuri had performed for me once. By now, that song was exclusively mine, played by me for me alone to hear. I didn’t intend to share it with anyone else. Quite a long time passed that way, I think. My neck and arms had gotten stiff, so I put down the violin and sighed with relief. From the shared area beyond the door, I heard a sound and sensed that someone was out there. The wooden door was thin and poorly fitted, and at some point, it had come open. Rika was standing under the light of the dim, worn-out fluorescent bulbs. She’d changed into her street clothes. Her fingers were pressed to her lips. Her eyes were wide, and she looked startled. She wasn’t crying, but she looked ready to. “Um, I—I was worried, so…” I went to the door and spoke to her very gently. “What’s the matter?” Rika faltered. “The door was open… You were by yourself, and I was watching you. I got really scared…” “Scared?” I asked. “Fujisawa, you looked…awful. Are you always like that when you’re at home…?” I reached out to softly touch her elbow. “You’ll catch a cold standing out there. Come in.” “No.” She backed away from me. “I mean, you don’t actually want me in there.” Silently, I lowered my outstretched hand. “That’s not true,” I said. “Liar.” What in the world is this? I thought. What an insane leap… The problem was that she was entirely correct. “Why are you like this, Fujisawa? Why are you all alone? I’m here, but you’re still…” “…If you’re going home, I’ll walk you back.” “Don’t.” “It’s dark around here, and the neighborhood’s not all that safe.” “No!” She turned on her heel and left, almost running. Wordlessly, I listened to her footsteps going down the stairs. For a little while, I just stood there. I didn’t want to be inside anymore. I picked up my jacket, put it on, locked the door, and went out. The cold winter air soothed the pain inside me as I wandered aimlessly through the old, dingy residential district around the dorm. Maybe because there were a lot of old wooden houses, there was usually reconstruction going on somewhere in the neighborhood. While I wasn’t paying attention, another house had been knocked down and turned into a vacant lot. The high pile of debris hadn’t been carted away yet; there was a chain-link fence around the property. With the house that had been there gone, there was nothing to block the distant view. Through the fence, I could see the high-rises of Nishi-Shinjuku straight ahead. Green buildings and luxury hotels shone in the darkness, using exorbitant amounts of energy. There were lights in almost all the windows. I thought it was a beautiful view. Irritating, but beautiful. This fence is in the way, though. Suddenly, a current of intense emotion ran through me. I grabbed the fence. What the hell? Why is this thing even here? That’s why everyone leaves me behind. I’m all alone because of this stupid thing. Why do I always have to be cut off from everything? Why can’t I go over there? I shook the fence violently until it rattled, swaying backward and forward. I hit it with my fist. This thing is why I can’t stay close to Rika. I knew the answer, though. The fence that separated me from the world hadn’t been imposed on me from the outside. It wasn’t out there at all; it was inside me. The world hadn’t shut me out; I was shutting out the world. I was the one who was shutting out Rika. This city was trying to include me, and Rika had wanted to accept me. I was just rejecting them. The Velaciela. I thought of the white airplane and its power to overcome boundaries. If I wanted the ability to leap over this fence, I would find it there. I’d poured all my power into it. When I’d decided not to fly it, I’d locked myself away in a little box. I knew I’d made a fatal mistake. I should have flown that plane, no matter what it took. I’d poured into the Velaciela everything I’d need in order to live my life, and then I’d thrown it away. Snow began to fall. 13 It would be snowing outside. To preserve confidentiality, though, the Aomori Army College had no windows, so anyone in the grad students’ room at the Tomisawa Lab would have no idea. Takuya and Maki were the only ones in the room. Takuya lived a good distance away, so he often stayed at the college overnight. The lab had a proper nap room and shower, so it was decent place to stay for a few days if he needed to. Maki lived nearby, so she always stayed at the school until late. There were hints that she was intentionally making sure her hours lined up with Takuya’s, but Takuya politely acted as though he hadn’t noticed. When Tomisawa stopped by the grad students’ room, Takuya was making coffee in the attached kitchenette. “Maki, they’ve decided to transport the patient. I imagine they’ll be running you off your feet with odd jobs, but do help us out.” “Oh, really? Congratulations,” Maki said cheerfully. “I tell you, ever since the mainland laboratory kept butting in and being a nuisance, it took us all of half a year after we discovered her to get her transferred up here. It’s awful, bringing such an important test subject into such an unstable environment.” Even as Tomisawa complained, his tone stayed light. “Still, this may precipitate some rapid developments in the tower research as well.” Takuya poked his head out of the kitchenette. “Um, what patient is that?” When Tomisawa noticed Takuya was there, a bit of consternation entered his expression, although Takuya didn’t understand why. “Oh, hey there, Shirakawa… It’s the Sleeping Beauty.” “The Sleeping…?” “She’s a special narcolepsy patient. I told you about the 1996-type variant narcolepsy before, remember?” Maki said. “She’s amazing. Her brain waves wouldn’t be possible in a normal human. Even better, the changes in them are linked so closely to the activity of the tower that it can’t be coincidence.” “Huh…” “We found her in Tokyo in early autumn,” Tomisawa said. “It’s been nearly three years since the onset of her illness; she hasn’t woken once during that time. When we compared the records of her brain waves with records of the tower’s activity, I got chills. We may need to install some sort of shielding on our experimental facility as well…” “That’s an incredible find. I hadn’t heard anything about that,” Takuya said. “Well, of course not. Maki’s brain science team is in charge of this one. I’ll be in Tokyo again for a while to take care of the procedures.” Then he turned to Maki. “I hate to ask, but could you handle the preparations for the neurological ICU?” “Yes, sir,” Maki responded. In his pocket, Takuya’s cell vibrated. He checked and saw a text from Okabe. He wasn’t asking anything in particular; he was just asking how things had been lately. However, this was a code that signaled it was time to meet up. “Oh, is that Mr. Okabe?” Maki had leaned in to peek at the phone’s screen, and she sounded a little relieved. “Is Oka doing well these days, Shirakawa?” Tomisawa asked suddenly, and Takuya looked up in spite of himself. “You know Mr. Okabe?” “I certainly do; we go back quite a ways. I happened to run into him in Tokyo in September. He stopped by to poke fun at the research findings report.” “Huh…” “We were classmates in high school, actually.” “You go that far back?” “Yep.” Tomisawa gave a meaningful smile. “When you get to be this age, friends like that are valuable. Or maybe it has nothing to do with age at all…” The predawn ocean had a clinging, penetrating chill about it. Even in March, the weather in the Tsugaru region showed no sign of relenting. Takuya was in a fishing boat out on the Tsugaru Strait, with Okabe and three Emishi factory employees. The entire staff of Emishi Manufacturing belonged to the terrorist organization Uilta. The five of them sat in the cabin, listening to the ceaseless noise of the engine. The only one who was noticeably tense was Takuya. He kept lacing his fingers together, then releasing them. The fishing boat was about to land on Cape Shirakami, the southernmost tip of Union territory. This is Ezo. Hokkaido… His hands were sweating. The fishing boat had dropped anchor at the dock on the cape. “I dreamed of coming to Ezo someday. I had no idea it would happen this easily,” Takuya said, out on deck. Satou took a sip from his can of coffee. It was ice-cold from the chill air. “Yeah, but this is just the southern tip. Do you have family in the Union?” “No, it’s not that.” “Right. Your generation was born after the split.” Satou got to his feet and looked in the direction of where Honshu lay, invisible in the darkness. “The Union’s technologically advanced, after all. I get why you’d wanna go there. The president got separated from his family due to the North-South split, so I think he probably feels a bit differently about it.” “What? He did?” “Sure did. He hasn’t even been able to talk to his wife for over twenty years.” “Mr. Okabe…” Takuya looked at the luxury car that was stopped in a corner of the port. It was a good distance away, so he couldn’t make him out that well, but Okabe was slouched in the back seat, illuminated by the car’s small interior light. He was having a confidential conversation with the man next to him, a soldier in the Union military uniform and a Russian hat. The soldier was a member of the intelligence department—and a Uilta collaborator. They were talking about securing a route for an air invasion of the Union. “I didn’t expect that, though,” Satou said suddenly. “Expect what?” “That the president would get you involved in this.” “I forced him to. I told him if he didn’t let me help, I’d tip off Public Safety.” “Geez, kid. That was a damn risky move…” Satou gave Takuya a startled look. Naturally, what Takuya had risked was his life. Just then— Three dry, staccato sounds rang out in rapid succession. Goose bumps broke out all over his back, and only then did he recognize the noises as gunshots. Takuya and Satou reacted simultaneously, diving into the boat. The employee in the pilothouse began preparing to leave port. A spiderweb of cracks ran across the sedan’s windshield. The only reason the damage wasn’t worse was because the glass was bulletproof. The driver rapidly backed the car up, bracing for more bullets. As the car entered the shadow of a warehouse, Okabe jumped out of the back seat and sprinted toward the boat. The gunshots pursued him. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” A bullet grazed Okabe’s arm and left a cut behind, but he kept running. The intelligence department’s sedan fled in a different direction, and a large vehicle followed. They heard a grenade being launched, and an explosion erupted right in the middle of the warehouse street. Deep-red flames went up, mixed with the smoke peculiar to a gasoline fire. In almost the same moment as the explosion, Okabe jumped onto the fishing boat. “That officer was a damned idiot. They figured out he was the one who sold ’em… Get us outta here!” At Okabe’s order, the fishing boat immediately pulled out of port. Having disposed of the sedan, the attackers were driving their way again. The boat took a hail of machine-gun bullets, but the crew had all taken refuge in the cabin while the vessel raced south at full speed. Shots from a stubborn semiautomatic at the dock echoed vainly over the water without hitting anything. “This trip got a bit dicey, huh?” As he spoke, Miyagawa was bandaging Okabe with practiced hands. “At least now we’ve got the air invasion nailed down,” Okabe said to Takuya. “That means it was worth coming out here. Right?” Takuya was about to answer when a warning from the pilothouse interrupted him. “Boss! There’s a ship! A patrol boat!” “What?!” Okabe stomped into the pilothouse and looked out over the water. A military ship had come up and was sailing level with the fishing boat. An alarm sounded, and a warning was issued in Russian. Even if they didn’t understand the language, the meaning was obvious. The white patrol ship was several times bigger than the fishing boat, like an adult to a child, and the ship was fast. Okabe clicked his tongue in irritation. “Dammit. Now that there’s gonna be a war, they finally decide to do their job. Shake ’em off!” “Yessir!” the employee shouted from the helm, as if to boost his own morale. “Hold out for another three minutes, until we hit the border. Satou! Miyagawa! Get to the guns!” Before Satou and Miyagawa could prepare to attack, the patrol ship’s single-mounted gun spat fire. The heavy bass noise seemed as if it might tip the fishing boat from the sound waves alone, and the shell blasted a hole in the side of the boat. It wasn’t anything as courteous as a warning shot. After it came a machine-gun volley. The rain of bullets punched through the wooden boat like the hull was made of paper and ricocheted around the cabin, too fast to see. Takuya screamed and dropped into a crouch. Suddenly, his vision went black. He thought the lights had gone out, but that wasn’t it. Numbness came, then changed to cold, then pain. It felt as if his left arm had been blown off, but although his vision was dim, it was enough to show him that his hand was still attached. Apparently, either a ricochet of a bullet or a fragment of the shattered ship had pierced his upper arm. The space between his back and the wall was slimy with liquid. His blood-soaked clothes felt disgusting… Outside, machine-gun fire still rang out, the sound reminding him of a construction site. As if it was echoing from another world. Somebody called his name. “Are you okay?” they yelled. Who is that? He thought it was Okabe’s deep voice, but maybe it wasn’t. He felt himself slip down until he was lying on the floor. That attack had taken off most of the roof. In the center of his narrowing field of vision, he saw the first signs of dawn. The dark sky was faintly red. The sun hadn’t yet climbed above the horizon. High in the sky, no bigger than a grain of sand, a white seabird flew. “Dammit, you’ve got no right to fly…” At that point, he blacked out. 14 At first, she thought it was a bird. A pure-white figure flying across the cloudless, faded sky. A sign of life. Sayuri stood up. When she looked closer, she saw that it wasn’t a bird. It was a plane. A white airplane. “Those wings… I know them.” She broke into a run. The moment she started running, the landscape around her changed. The unglazed pottery towers vanished, and she was running through a ruined city—Tokyo. It was deserted now, and the buildings had all crumbled away. “Wait! Velaciela!” Sayuri had eyes only for the airplane. I was experiencing the same things, though, and what my eyes were drawn to was the town. It was so familiar, even in ruins. I’d walked through here often over the past three years. No matter how long she ran, Sayuri never got out of breath. But little by little, her body grew heavier. The weight started with her extremities, as if they were slowly turning into metal. Only her face was constantly turned toward the sky, and her body seemed to drag behind it. I shared the sensation with her. The Velaciela began to wheel, perhaps waiting for Sayuri to catch up to it. She stopped and stood still. The scenery changed again. The wind died. The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by a cream-colored floor and walls. It was a hard, cold, and lifeless hospital room. It was unusually large, maybe enough to accommodate six patients, but it was very nearly empty. There was just one bed, by the window. Beside it sat a monitor that checked vital signs and several other pieces of medical equipment, beeping at regular intervals. When she saw what lay on the bed, Sayuri was aghast. It was… …Sayuri herself. She was terribly thin, and her hair was quite a bit longer. Still, it was her own body. Her body was sleeping. Timidly, with her hand still covering her mouth, she went closer. The chest barely rose and fell, and she couldn’t hear any breath, so she wasn’t sure if it was breathing at all. The only indication that it was alive were the sounds from the monitor. My face, Sayuri thought. It was a little more grown-up than the face she thought of as her own. She stood by the bed, staring down at her sleeping body. Even she didn’t know how much time she had spent like this. She’d lost all sense of time. It might have been a moment, or it could have been several years. She heard the heavy sliding door open. Three men dressed in black wheeled in a stretcher from the hallway. They didn’t notice Sayuri. They unhooked the medical equipment from Sayuri’s body, then solemnly transferred it to the stretcher. While they were working, a man in a gray suit came in. It was impossible to tell how old he was, but he wasn’t young. He was also very gaunt. He watched the work from a distance. It wasn’t until much, much later that I learned the man was Professor Tomisawa. The casters squeaked as Sayuri’s body was wheeled away. She had been able to do nothing but watch the scene play out. Just before he left the room, Tomisawa glanced back and gazed steadily at us. Sayuri tensed. For a little while, time stopped. Tomisawa finally left. With an unfeeling sound, the heavy door closed, shutting out the noises and artificial light from the hall. The walls and floor and ceiling were cold. This time, there really were no living things there. Nothing was moving at all in this box. Once again, she was all alone. “What…was that dream…?” I murmured as I sat up. The gas heater was turned up too high, and it was sizzling. I’d been studying for entrance exams, and somewhere in there I’d slumped over the low table and fallen asleep. It was already light outside. The Velaciela. A hospital. And close to her, myself. In the dream, I had been Sayuri. No… That wasn’t quite accurate. In that place, I’d been a shapeless sensation hovering incredibly close to Sayuri’s eyes, a perspective that was able to feel things almost as if I were Sayuri. I couldn’t bring myself to think that it was just a dream. I had practically zero interest in dream-reading or revelations, but something about this one bothered me. My mind wasn’t fully functional, since I’d only just woken up, so I opened the window to get more oxygen. Cold, fresh morning air flowed in. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flicker of movement, and my heart skipped a beat. The object had been white, so for a moment I’d associated it with the Velaciela. It was the crumpled, unopened envelope from Mr. Okabe. The air currents had stirred it. I picked it up. I set it down on the table and gazed at it for a while. It was the dream that had made me feel like opening it. When I picked up the box cutter, though, my mood got heavier again. I got up, put the kettle on, and made coffee to calm myself down. When I cut open the envelope, I found a smaller envelope and a note. The note wasn’t on the usual stationary; it seemed to be on notebook paper that had been torn along the edge of a ruler. The message was brief. He’d stolen this from a friend, by force. It had been a job and a half. Come thank him in person. Below that, it said Hospitalized at:, followed by the address and hospital name. The National Railways General Hospital in Shibuya. Neurology department. Hospitalized at? I checked the smaller envelope. It had a stamp on it, but no postmark; it hadn’t been mailed. It was addressed to Aomori Prefecture, Tsugaru, Ookawadai, Mr. Okabe… Mr. Hiroki Fujisawa, Mr. Takuya Shirakawa… I had a bad feeling about this, and a chill ran through me. I turned the envelope over and looked at the sender’s name. I started to sweat. Hiroki. Takuya. I’m sorry for leaving you without saying anything. That was how the letter began. I wanted to spend summer vacation with you; I hate that I couldn’t. When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Tokyo, and I’ve been here ever since. The people at the hospital told me I should cut off all contact with people I’ve known and focus on my treatment; they said that would be easier on me so I could recover faster. I begged them, though, and so they’re letting me write this. The doctors may be right, but giving you an explanation is really important to me. I’m going to send this to Mr. Okabe so that the two of you can read it together. I don’t really know what I should write, though. I’m so confused. The doctors say I’m sick, but I just can’t get used to the idea. When I wake up in the hospital, the doctors come running; maybe they can tell from the machines. They say I’m sick because my sleep is “broken.” So when I wake up, everyone is surprised. Apparently, once I fall asleep, I stay asleep for weeks or months. I have the same dream, over and over. I’m all by myself in this empty, deserted universe. I’m so lonely it hurts—in my fingers and cheeks, my nails and heels, even the tips of my hair. That place where the three of us were together is already starting to seem like a dear, unreachable memory to me. It was so warm—but now it feels like a dream. So does the time we spent together. It’s getting harder for me to tell what’s a dream and what isn’t. Things like the color of the walls in the hospital room and the view of the garden from my window feel somehow indistinct. Sometimes I think I might be the one who’s a dream. I’m not really sure if the person I am actually exists. But when I have doubts, I remember that station, up on the mountain. It’s the only thing I want to remember. I’m sure that was the only time in my whole life I was ever happy. The times I spend asleep seem to be getting longer and longer. I don’t know when I’ll wake up next. I may never wake up again. Still, as long as I don’t lose that memory of the time the three of us spent together, I think that tiny thread can still keep me connected to reality. I’m not sure I even know what “reality” is, but to me, it means the two of you. Hiroki, Takuya. Did your beautiful white plane— I closed my eyes. I wanted to stop reading… But I knew I couldn’t do that. —make it safely across the ocean to that tower? It was dated three winters earlier. When I finished reading it, I drank my coffee. Then I read it through again, from the beginning. I was too keyed up, and I had to read it a third time before I understood it. When I finally absorbed what the letter said, I changed clothes, put on my jacket, and left the apartment. I walked the fenced hill road along the canal, intently conscious of every single step, then climbed the curving set of stone stairs. I boarded the Yamanote Line from Shinjuku Station. Once I was sitting down, I took out the letter and read it again. I’m so lonely it hurts—in my fingers and cheeks, my nails and heels, even the tips of my hair. That single sentence struck right to my core, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was as if she’d put my own feelings into words. I was lonely. Here, in this city of more than thirty million people, I was desperately lonely. It didn’t take long to reach Shibuya Station. From there, the National Railways General Hospital was a fifteen-minute bus ride away. I walked through the large front garden, entered the building, found a hospital floor map, and examined it closely. The neurology department was on the sixth floor. I got into an elevator. Visiting hours began in the afternoon, but I asked at the front desk anyway. “Sayuri Sawatari has been transferred to another hospital.” The nurse answered me immediately, without checking any documents. “Transferred?” I gripped the counter impatiently. “Yes, a week ago. If you’d like more information, please ask the hospital she was transferred to. Let’s see…” I didn’t have a notebook or anything to write with, so I asked her to copy the information down onto a piece of notepad paper for me. I thanked her, took it, then had a sudden thought and asked her one more question. “Um, the room Miss Sawatari was in… Would it be okay if I saw it?” The hallway on the neurology department’s floor was dimly lit, and the floor was very cold. It was as if that tension peculiar to hospitals had been concentrated into its purest form here. Did brains and nerves need the dark and the cold? I walked through the halls, before the doctors made their rounds, until I found the room I’d been told about. There was no nameplate next to the door. It was heavy, the same color as the walls, and it slid so that it could tightly seal off the room. I set my hand on the rod-shaped handle and gave it a good push to open it. I entered the room. The door closed automatically under its own weight, and then the room was a square box. The overhead lights weren’t on, so the only light came from the window. It illuminated a single empty bed. This was definitely Sayuri’s hospital room, the one I’d seen in my dream. Looking around slowly, I crossed to the very center. Even though the space was completely enclosed, I felt wind—the same wind that was in the dreams. I caught the scent of old air, as if it was blowing in from another world. I felt the presence of someone— Did your beautiful white plane— “Sawatari.” I murmured the name. In the dream, Sayuri had been here. —make it safely across the ocean to that tower? “Sawatari, are you there?” I reached out into empty space. Just then— Everything around me dissolved. In the blink of an eye, the four walls burned to ash, and I was no longer standing in a hospital. The world around me had been completely rewritten. I was standing in a vast, grassy plain. Where the abandoned station was. Everything was the way I remembered it. The pedestrian bridge, eroded by the wind and rain. The concrete platforms that had been discarded after they were built. The expanse of the sky, the low horizon over the ocean… A light shock wave swept through, scorching me on its way past. Across the sea, the Union’s tower was blazing red; the flames turned the air around it the color of sunset. The wind blew, and the undergrowth rippled. There was no snow; the ground was a vivid green. It was summer; the wind was alive. And right in front of me… There she was. The one I’d been searching for. Her long hair streamed… …and she took my outstretched fingers in hers. Sayuri was standing there. I could feel her fingers on mine. This wasn’t the usual, insubstantial dream. No, it must have been a dream—but I could feel her there as real as anything. The wind blew, the grass was damp, and I caught the scent of sunset from the far reaches of the sky. Sayuri was there, without a doubt, just a little ways beyond my fingers. “I looked for you…,” Sayuri said. Or maybe I was the one who said it. “I was all by myself, and…it was so cold, Hiroki…” “I know,” I said. She covered her face, sobbing silently. I gazed at the thinness of her shoulders, the fineness of every strand of her hair, the smallness of her hands. The sky was the same warm red it had been on the day Sayuri and I had last met. I could hear cicadas calling. Sayuri was there, right in front of me. I could barely breathe, and I sucked air into my lungs again and again. So this is what people mean when they talk about being choked with emotion… Still, I also understood that this was a dream. Or at least something very similar. The edges of her consciousness and mine had miraculously overlapped here. It was an illusion the two of us happened to be sharing, nothing more. Despite the knowledge, these few moments intoxicated me. I wanted to stay here with Sayuri at the far edge of the world forever. Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible. But… There was another way, and that was the one I should choose. My heart ached fiercely. Slowly, I closed my eyes and opened them again. When I did, Sayuri and I were standing side by side, up on the pedestrian bridge. This was the spot we’d fallen from. From there, we could look out over the ocean. There was mist on the water, so it looked like a sea of clouds, tinted by the red light from the tower. The tower was still burning, emitting pale-red flashes from its belly. But it remained standing, calmly, straight and beautiful. Sayuri and I watched it together. “I’ll go pick you up,” I said. “I want to meet you one more time, the right way. Not here; somewhere that’s clearer. I want to touch you. I want you to touch me. I want my own hands to tell me you’re here. So…” Sayuri looked at me forlornly. “I’m going now.” She said nothing. I’ll wake up from this dream. Once I’m awake, I know what I have to do. “Where?” Sayuri’s voice was quiet. “Where are you going to pick me up?” “Where you are now.” I pointed straight at the tower. “Over there.” Sayuri and I were linked by a promise. It was the only thing connecting us. “Sawatari, this time, I want to keep that promise. I’ll take you to that tower in the Velaciela. Then we can meet again, outside our dreams. Then we can know the other’s there.” Sayuri was silent. “I promise.” I was clenching my hands until they hurt. Sayuri had been steadily watching me as I spoke, but then she looked down and covered her face. She began to sob like a child, crying aloud, shoulders heaving. She scrubbed at her eyes with her index fingers, over and over, wiping away the tears. In a trembling, faltering voice, she agreed. “Okay…I promise…” “Let’s fly to the tower together.” I had a vision of the white Velaciela flying, just a tiny dot in that deep-red sky. It looked like a lost seagull. I hoped from the bottom of my heart that that lost bird would safely make it back to its flock. And then I was standing in the empty hospital room, all alone. Maybe it was just a daydream. But I could still feel Sayuri’s warmth where she’d touched my fingers. That faint sensation heated my whole body. I rubbed my face roughly with my sleeve. That day, long ago, we made a promise we couldn’t keep. Even now, the white tower I’d seen from the grassy plain by the abandoned station shone brilliantly in my soul.