February 198 (Station Year), Sanriku Coast, Iwate
“Why, if it isn’t Ao from the Kusanos. What are you doing here?” greeted the old man sitting at the counter. Behind him was an upward staircase with a door at the top adorned by a green light with EMERGENCY EXIT on it. Next to the door was a small sign reading YOKOHAMA STATION EXIT 7182.
Thanks to the power-generating parts of the station, the lower floors were warm even in the winter, but here, at the top level of the station, the air seeping in through the roof was cold. The old man had a winter overcoat on and an electric heater at his feet. The woman he called Ao, who was about thirty years old, bobbed her head.
“I was thinking of going to the Wall to bury my mother,” she said, holding out the black plastic box in her hands.
“Ah yes. I’d heard that she passed,” the man replied, closing his eyes sadly. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, but she was already fifty-seven. She lived a very full life,” said Ao, holding a hand to her mouth to hide a little smile.
“And your baby? How old is she now?”
“Three. She can’t go out with me, so I’ve left her with my neighbor.”
“Ahh, I see. Well, if you need anything, just say the word.”
“Thank you.”
“That’ll be twenty milliyen to go outside.”
“Of course.”
Ao touched the aged machine the old man held out to her. It made a sound to indicate a transaction had taken place. She donned the winter coat she’d just rented, then thanked the man and headed up the stairs. The emergency exit creaked open, and an icy draft raced through the doorway. Ao shut her eyes, and the man at the bottom of the stairs pulled the front of his coat closed tighter.
A fierce north wind was blowing toward the massive wall that loomed over the coastline. The sky was covered in thick clouds, making it gloomy even though it was midday. It seemed to Ao that it might snow that night.
Nearly two hundred years had passed since the Winter War’s end, and the temperature of the Earth had steadily risen in that time, but it was still plenty cold outdoors in the Tohoku region, and there was snow piling up on the station roof.
The local residents considered snowdrifts to be an ill omen of sorts, because when spring came, the melt would come pouring down through the Inside all at once. Rainfall made its way down the veinlike drainpipes all around the station and flowed out, but a massive deluge from snow would overflow the capacity and breach residential spaces. Yokohama Station had initially been a smaller public facility, but now that it covered almost all of Honshu, its seepage system was inadequate to deal with the entirety of rain and snow that fell onto it.
The station structure changed subtly from year to year, so there was no way to guess where the leaks would happen next. Ao’s home had suffered terrible flooding three years ago, and her newborn daughter nearly drowned where they’d left her to sleep. Ao fastened the buttons on her coat, praying it wouldn’t happen again this year.
Because the Insiders of Tohoku seldom experienced cold within the many-layered station structure, they virtually never ventured out onto the roof during the winter. The only reason to go out was the two rituals unique to this region. One was a rite of passage for children reaching adulthood, and the other was the burial of family members. Ao held a black plastic container in her arms, which contained her mother’s ashes.
One week ago, Ao’s mother had passed away in her sleep. After her cremation, the Suika chip that was extracted from her remains went to Ao, her primary heir. Locally manufactured Suikas had a small capacity and weren’t very good at serving as a lifelog, but based on the accumulated locational data, she had hardly ever set foot out of this town near the Wall.
In Ao’s memory, her mother seldom discussed her youth; perhaps it was because there was nothing worth saying about it. She was born an average Insider, lived an average Insider, and died an average Insider.
Ao placed the container on the ground before the Wall. Next, she prayed by placing her right hand on the surface of the Wall, adding her left hand to it, closing her eyes, and remaining still for three minutes. It wasn’t an exact thing; her father always told her that prayers were supposed to last “about three minutes.”
The first time Ao prayed here had been for her grandmother, and she’d made the trip with her parents. The second time had been for her father, when it was just her and her mother. Now she was alone.
The massive Wall that loomed over the roof of the coast of Yokohama Station’s Iwate region stood about a hundred meters tall, and it continued as far as the eye could see along the shore. There was no telling how far it went. According to a number of written records, the Wall had formed after an earthquake fifty years ago.
The shaking had been observed in the afternoon. There were seismometer readings, but because the station’s seismometers were affected by its growth, the actual numerical data held no practical meaning. According to the elderly members of the village, all the elevators and escalators stopped moving, and every bit of furniture that wasn’t nailed down to the station fell over. Several automated turnstiles collapsed and blocked the passageways.
People claimed that just afterward, a huge wall just started growing from the roof along the coastline, so quick that you could see it happen before your eyes. Not long after, a massive tsunami arrived, but the wall protected the Inside.
Perhaps some of the elders’ stories had been embellished for dramatic effect. Ao had never seen Yokohama Station grow in any way she would ever describe as fast. About the only thing she had witnessed for herself was the shape of escalator-covered mountains changing year by year.