Every junior high school student in the Republic of Greater East Asia knew about the Program, which was covered in textbooks starting in the fourth grade. A somewhat detailed description appears in the government-compiled Republic of Greater East Asia Compact Encyclopedia:
Program (prōʹgrăm, -grəm) n. 1. A written list providing details of items or performers (names, order of appearance, etc.) [ … ]
4. A battle simulation necessary to our defense and conducted by our nation’s Ground Nonaggressive Force. Officially titled “Combat Experiment 68th Program.” First held in 1947, the annual simulations are conducted by fifty ninth-grade classes selected voluntarily nationwide (prior to 1950, the number of classes was forty-seven), with various statistics collected from the trials. The experiment itself is simple: the students in each class fight each other until only one remains, and the findings, including the elapsed time of the simulation, are determined. The last survivor (winner) in each class is awarded a lifetime pension and a personally signed autograph from His Majesty The Leader. The 317th Leader’s famous “April Speech” was given in response to protestors and agitators from an extremist sect during the first year of the Program.
The “April Speech” appears in the seventh grade textbook as follows:
My beloved comrades, who strive toward revolution and development. [Two-minute interruption for applause and cheers for the great 317th Leader] Comrades. [One-minute interruption] Throughout the world, shameless imperialists who seek to menace our Republic still continue to assemble. Observe what they do to their own countrymen. They exploit them, they cheat them, they brainwash them, the people who would otherwise have been our comrades, into becoming the advance guard of their imperialism, and then they use them at their whim. [Unanimous cry of righteous indignation] Given the slightest chance, the imperialists would invade the soil of our Republic, the most advanced revolutionary state in the world. By weaving their plots to bring ruin to our people, they lay bare the depths of their devious ways. [Scattered shouts of anger] With our nation surrounded by this state of affairs, the 68th Program is absolutely vital. In truth, I myself will be unable to hold back my bitter tears of remorse over the loss of the lives of thousands, even tens of thousands, each at the age of only fifteen. But if their lives serve to protect the independence of our people living in this nation of abundance, then will not their flesh and blood live on for eternity, becoming one with this land of beauty passed down to us by our gods? [One-minute interruption for a wave of applause and cheers.] As you all know, we do not have a military draft in the Republic. The Ground, Maritime, and Air Nonaggressive Forces consist of young volunteer soldiers who aspire to patriotism and burn with a resilient purpose of revolution and development. They risk their lives day and night on the front lines. Think of the Program as a kind of draft, one unique to our nation. To defend our nation [ … ]
Enough of that windbag. (Middle-aged Nonaggressive Forces recruiters could be often found right outside train stations, saying, “How about we get some pork and rice?” as their standard bait.)
Shuya had heard about the Program before he was even in fourth grade. It was after his parents died in a traffic accident and when he’d just begun to adjust to life in the House of Mercy and Love, where an acquaintance of his father had put him. (None of his relatives would take him in. Some said it was because his parents had been involved in antigovernment activities, but he’d never confirmed the story.)
Shuya must have been five at the time, watching TV in the rec room with Yoshitoki Kuninobu, who had already been well established at the House of Mercy and Love when he showed up. The latest episode of Shuya’s favorite giant mecha anime had just ended, and the director of the facility, Ms. Ryoko Anno, changed the channel. (The daughter of the previous director, at the time she was probably still in high school. Regardless, the kids used the honorifics with all the workers there, and Ms. Anno was no exception.) Shuya kept on watching the screen, where an adult man in a stiff suit was talking into the camera. The child recognized that this must be that “news” thing, that boring show that was on all the channels from time to time.
The man was reading from a script. Shuya couldn’t remember what the newscaster said, but it was pretty much always the same and was probably something like:
“We have received confirmation from officials with the government and the Nonaggressive Forces that the Program, run in Kagawa Prefecture for the first time in three years, completed yesterday at 3:12 p.m. The participating class was from Zentsuji Fourth Junior High, Ninth Grade Class E, of the city of Zentsuji. The Program took place at the previously undisclosed location of Shidaka Island, four kilometers off the coast from the town of Tadotsu. Three days, seven hours, and forty-three minutes elapsed before the winner was determined. Earlier today, the bodies were retrieved, and autopsies were held to determine the preliminary cause of death for the thirty-eight deceased students as follows: seventeen by gunshot, nine by edged weapon, five by blunt object, three by suffocation …”
The newscast displayed the apparent “winner,” a young girl in a tattered sailor-suit uniform, flanked by two soldiers, her face twitching as she looked into the camera. At the edge of her long, disheveled hair, her right temple was smeared dark red. But something peculiar about this image would remain fresh in Shuya’s memory: the corners of the girl’s mouth working in contorted flashes that looked like a smile.
Shuya recognized now that this was the first time he had witnessed the face of insanity. But at the time, he hadn’t distinguished it as such; he simply felt afraid, as if he were looking at a monster.
Shuya believed he had asked, “Ms. Anno, what is that?”
Ms. Anno shook her head and said, “It’s nothing.” Then she looked away from Shuya and whispered, “That poor girl.”
Yoshitoki Kuninobu, preoccupied with a tangerine, hadn’t been paying attention to the TV for some time.
As Shuya grew older, these local news reports, coming roughly twice a year with no schedule and no warning, felt increasingly ominous. With fifty ninth-grade classes around the country, and assuming forty students in each, it was a death sentence visited annually upon two thousand children—no, one thousand nine hundred fifty, to be precise. And this was no mere killing, but familiar classmates murdering each other in competition for a single survivor’s throne, like the most heinous game of musical chairs.
But there would be no resisting it. The actions of the government of the Republic of Greater East Asia were not to be defied.
So Shuya viewed the Program with dismissive contempt. That was how most of the kids in the ninth-grade “reserves” dealt with it. Okay, sure, a kind of draft unique to our nation? Our nation of abundance and land of beauty? How many junior high students were there in the Republic? Even with the declining birth rate, the odds weren’t even one in eight hundred or so. In all of Kagawa Prefecture, at most only one class “wins” that lottery in two years. Frankly, getting killed in a car accident was just as likely, and seeing how he never got the luck of the draw, Shuya never thought he’d get chosen. Hell, when the local shopping arcade held a raffle, he’d never won more than a box of tissues. So who gives a shit? Fuck it.
But every once in a while, someone in his class—usually one of the girls—would cry and say, “My cousin’s in the Program,” or something like that, and inside Shuya that black terror would return. And with it, anger. Who had the right to make that cute girl sad?
But then, after days of depression, that girl would begin to smile again, and Shuya’s feelings of terror and anger would gradually fade away. Only the faint, indistinct sense of helplessness and distrust toward the government remained behind.
That’s how it went.
And when Shuya entered ninth grade this year, he—and likely his classmates—believed Class B alone was safe. They had to believe.
Until this very moment.