Different regions within Yokohama Station generated their own identification signs, which contained multiple text types. Ordinarily, it would have the name of the location written in kanji, with smaller alphabetical letters below that, so that they looked like this:
前橋 MAEBASHI
高崎 TAKASAKI
太田 OTA
By carefully examining the letters on a few of these signs, it was eventually possible to discern that there were about twenty-four or so of those letters, and that they suggested the pronunciation of the place’s name. It started with the vowel sound of a, and eventually, you had a list of the whole alphabet.
Furthermore, when you saw a sign like 前橋 MAEBASHI, there was bound to be another sign farther away that said 前橋方面 FOR MAEBASHI.
Logically, this would suggest that the letters for corresponded to 方面, meaning “the direction of.” The problem was that, unlike the place names, this word did not relate to any proper use of Japanese that anyone knew of. There was no sound scribed to the letters fo, and no solitary r without a vowel sound of its own in Japanese. On top of that, the mysterious word preceded MAEBASHI rather than following it, as it would in proper Japanese.
At this point, a clever person would recognize that the location signs Inside generated actually contained two different languages entirely. The problem was that there was very little you could do after that. There were almost no reference materials to consult.
“They’re in a language called English,” Dr. Blue-Eyes explained. This happened on the very first day the bug-eyed, fast-speaking young man arrived from the west side of Mt. Asama.
“Caucasians used this language, from what I understand. For is something called a preposition, and it has many meanings, not just ‘direction.’ You have to discern which meaning it is through context.”
“Ahh, ahh!” Nijo marveled, jotting down notes on his laptop.
There were several English books in Dr. Blue-Eyes’s library. Some were dictionaries and other reference texts about using the language, while others were simply written in English. The majority were faded and discolored. A few were so degraded that it was difficult to turn their pages.
Using what his mother taught him, Dr. Blue-Eyes read them for intellectual stimulation when he wasn’t busy with work.
“Uh, so just to sum this up, your father had Caucasian blood, and your mother taught you English?”
“That’s right. My father died quite young, so I have no memory of him speaking it.”
Nijo made a truly bemused face. “But earlier, you said that English was the language of the Caucasians.”
“Right.”
“So does that mean language is not determined by genetics?”
“…?”
“I had heard that people in the past spoke different languages depending on the region. I suppose that isn’t an effect of their genes, then.”
“Well, of course not. Words are things we learn as we grow. A Japanese person raised in a place where Japanese isn’t spoken is going to learn the local dialect instead.”
“I see. The veil has been lifted from my eyes,” Nijo said delightedly. “If the station structure has learned this English, would that not suggest that in Japan before the station expanded, Japanese and the language of the Caucasians coexisted in some form?”
“Perhaps that’s true.”
“Then maybe the relative size of the letters is meant to indicate the ratio of the races among the population? But I must admit that I’ve hardly ever seen anyone with Caucasian blood like you, Doctor. Where did they go, I wonder?”
“Dunno,” answered Dr. Blue-Eyes.
Before Yokohama Station covered all of Honshu, there had allegedly been a long war, but very little was known about it. Several countries used satellite weaponry and combat robots, invading one another’s territories and leading to occupying forces and endless refugees. The conflict had been inescapable.
“Anyway, I now understand that for is a preposition. But what do these words mean, Doctor?”
Nijo showed him the screen of his laptop. There was a green text string on a black background.
FOR (HEADER IN PURGEDHEADERS) {
PREPAREDREQUEST.HEADERS.POP(HEADER)
}
“What is this?” questioned Dr. Blue-Eyes, his brow wrinkling. “For one thing, English sentences don’t use this kind of punctuation. Or they do, but not in this way.”
“Then is it possible that this is some third language, not the ones Caucasians speak?”
“What is this writing?”
“That’s what I was hoping to find out,” replied Nijo. He scrolled upward. The very top line read:
#!/USR/BIN/ENV CODAMA
“I found this text on Suikanet. Years ago, around the Great Seto Bridge, I found—oh, the Great Seto Bridge is a large passage far to the west, even farther than Kyoto. Anyway, I found a place where the network nodes were exposed and easy to scoop out. If my thinking is correct, this is the language that governs Suikanet. If we can decode this, I’m certain we’ll be able to control the network’s communications, and perhaps even the actions of the automated turnstiles.”
Another eccentric, thought Dr. Blue-Eyes.
It seemed he was due to receive a visit from some oddball engineer roughly once a year. Every one of them would say, “I’ve got this wonderful”—(in his opinion)—“invention, and I want your help in spreading it to the world.” As a local famous figure and doctor, they seemed to think that his Suika was simply bursting with funds.
Nijo, however, did not bring up the topic of money at all. He was more curious about the meaning of the esoteric writing.
“What do you suppose class means?”
“A school year, or a lecture session.”
“I see. So would class Connection mean something like ‘friendship among schoolmates,’ perhaps? Next question: What is import?”
“It means to purchase supplies from a foreign country and bring them into your own.”
“Maybe this text comes from a time when there was trade with foreign nations. I mean, it stands to reason, being written in this foreign language.”
With each uncertain answer Dr. Blue-Eyes gave, Nijo arrived at his own interpretation of the sentence. The doctor didn’t feel his knowledge was actually helping in any way, but the young man wasn’t bothered in the least by the process.
Eventually, a regular patient came by for a scheduled visit, so the doctor pulled down a dictionary (the easiest to read) and handed it to Nijo.
“Look up the rest on your own. It’s a family heirloom, so I can’t give it to you, but I don’t mind you consulting it here. Give it back when you’re done deciphering those bizarre messages.”
“You mean it?” Nijo asked, his already prominent eyes protruding even further. He bowed deeply.
Dr. Blue-Eyes’s error was in not realizing that Nijo’s mysterious text was actually thousands upon thousands of lines, and that decoding them would keep him in Hill Town for an indefinite length of time.
Nijo ended up staying in the cramped, recently built storeroom next to Dr. Blue-Eyes’s place. It had a metal door that had started out rusted, and it was damp and extremely dark, which made it unsuited even for storage space. He didn’t have any other use for it.
Usually, the young man worked alone, muttering to himself at all hours of the day and night, with the occasional outburst like “I’ve got it! I’ve figured it out!” or “This is truly confounding” or “The segmentation has faulted again. Well, now I’m at an impasse.”
Dr. Blue-Eyes’s home was also his office, so sometimes, he got complaints from the patients resting on the bed there, saying, “I can hear a voice behind the wall that sounds like the muttering of the dead.” The culprit was most certainly alive, and Dr. Blue-Eyes mused that Nijo was capable of causing much more trouble than the dead could ever dream of.