Edge

Chapter 5: Fissure

Two thousand years ago, a group of early Christians assembled at a cliff face overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and dug a giant cave into its walls. It was the site they had chosen to face the end.

A series of narrow gorges snaked off from the top of the cliffs, creating a panoramic vista of conical and pointed rock faces, a topography striving for the sky. Odd pockets of weeds growing through narrow crevices in the stone walls provided occasional accents of green across the otherwise dull and gray landscape.

The devout used ropes to suspend themselves over the cliff edge and dug away at the rock face until they had a cave large enough to accommodate all that had assembled. Once the digging work was completed, they began decorating the interior of the cave. Using chisel-like tools, they carved away at the inside walls, transforming the flat surfaces into an explosion of flowers.

Their work on the interior finally completed, the people gathered together in the cave and prayed as one to the barren land. Then they sat, piously waiting for the end, full of faith in the divine prophecy they had received.

Their vigil continued for days. Each morning, when the sun rose from the horizon below, the devout continued to offer their prayers. Each night, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below proclaimed the continued existence of the world around them.

To the devout massed, the idea of the end of the world was pregnant with exquisite beauty. They had resolved to stand and face whatever was coming, to be resolute and pious so that they might welcome the coming of a better world. The end of the world signified an end to their suffering, to the misery they faced in their everyday lives. It promised a new beginning.

Yet, no matter how long they waited, the sun continued to rise and the waves continued to sound. Eventually the people left the cave in a mixture of despair and relief. The vast cave was left empty, its intricate carvings and painted flowers abandoned.

The cave related to the modern world the state of mind of these believers as they waited for the end of the world, an eloquent testimony to their creed that the world they anticipated was a place alive with color and flowers.

Saeko’s father had taken her to visit this storied Mediterranean cave when she was young. She remembered feeling an intense disappointment when she finally saw the place. It had been much smaller than the cave of her imagination. The wonderful images of flowers she had expected to see looked like nothing more than clumsy red scrawlings.

Now, looking out of the window of the bullet train, Saeko found herself remembering the story of those people and their cave. Something about the countryside quietly streaming past outside the window was telling her something. She wasn’t sure how exactly, but something was out of place, and the feeling sparked the memory of this tale of the end of the world.

The shape of Mount Fuji loomed briefly in the distance before vanishing again behind the buildings in the foreground. The famous conical contours of the mountain had been clearly visible in the bright sky, devoid of snow despite the lateness of the season. The browned peak had seemed to shudder as the train sped its way between Tanzawa and Hakone.

When Saeko thought about the end of the world it was usually in the context of a conversation with a friend, usually just a fun premise to justify posing silly questions: “Who would you spend the last day with?” “What would you eat?” “What would you do on the last day of the world?”

Saeko sat back and let her thoughts roam. She thought of death. What was death? The end of consciousness, the end of feeling … Nothingness. She noted that the idea of nothingness precluded fear. She continued to contemplate the topic until the train began to pull into Atami. Saeko was scheduled to meet the physicist who was to become the new “advisor” for the program. They had arranged to meet at the station, after which Saeko would show him to the gardens.

After exiting from the station gates she called Hashiba to let him know that she had arrived.

He appeared to have regained some of the natural energy and intimacy he had shown her before. “Great timing. I just got a call from the physicist — his name’s Naoki Isogai. He just arrived at Atami, so you probably came on the same train. Could you meet him and come together in a taxi?”

Saeko had never met Isogai before. “How will I know him?”

“Hang on. I’ll give you his cell number.”

Saeko went to take a notepad from her rucksack but struggled to hold the phone while getting the pen. “I’ll memorize the number, go ahead,” she told him.

“Sure?” Hashiba sounded doubtful.

“I’m actually pretty good with numbers, you know.”

Hashiba gave her the eleven-digit number and Saeko repeated it out loud. At that moment she caught sight of a man emerging from the station. He seemed to be looking for a taxi but stopped short and started looking around as if searching for someone. He ended up focusing on Saeko, his look full of intent.

Saeko felt herself grow tense — why was he staring so hard? She met the man’s gaze but remembered that Hashiba was still on the line. “How are things going anyway?” she asked.

She was finding it hard to focus on anything but the man staring at her. He had a striking sort of face. His build was average, but Saeko could tell that he worked out and could picture a powerful and sleek body under his leather jacket. There was something about him that seemed very un-Japanese; he had deep-set eyes and a high nose, his skin was a dark tan. Interestingly, he had a goatee but a completely shaved head. It was hard to guess his age, but Saeko placed him in his early thirties. Now she saw that he had begun walking towards her, in strong rhythmical strides. He stopped so suddenly before her that Saeko took a step back.

The man spoke without smiling and apparently not caring that she was on the phone. “That number you just said is my phone number.”

Saeko felt her throat tighten but nodded quickly in his direction, finally understanding. “It looks like he’s just found me,” she managed. “We’ll come directly to the park.” She hung up and put her phone back. The man stood staring as she did so.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Saeko’s voice trembled slightly as she attempted to explain. “Dr. Isogai? My name is Saeko, I work with Hashiba.”

The man’s features softened almost immediately. “Oh, right, of course!” He smiled at her. “Thanks for coming to meet me.”

Saeko was relieved but couldn’t help wondering why he’d reacted so testily to someone repeating his cell number. They walked to the taxi line together. Saeko opened the door to the first waiting cab and gestured for Isogai to get in first. He stood back and shook his head, gesturing for her to go first. Saeko remembered that he had spent time living in America; he seemed to have picked up the custom of “ladies first.” She relented and shuffled into the rear of the cab, giving the driver the name of their destination. They were going to meet up with Hashiba and the rest of the crew outside the front gate of the herbal gardens.

Hashiba walked up the slope of the gardens with Kagayama, looking for places to mark for filming. The sun had been beating down at the entrance — so warm it was hard to believe it was winter — but the western slope was shaded, causing an abrupt drop in temperature.

Hashiba wanted to establish a detailed plan for the shooting tomorrow, to get all the scenes straight in his head. He hoped to get through it quickly as he only had today to finalize the scripts; as the show’s director it was always a race against the clock. Saeko and Isogai were already in a taxi on their way over. The TV announcer, Shoko Akagi, was scheduled to arrive the next morning. If possible, Hashiba wanted Isogai to see the area before she arrived. The scientist could provide the gist of his commentary so the basic flow of dialogue could be mapped out.

Hashiba realized he was looking forward to hearing Isogai’s analysis of the incident and began to stride up the path with renewed determination. Indeed, he felt a much greater personal investment in the program now that the focus was on science and not the occult. Finally, he was able to enjoy the sense of exhilaration that things were going his way.

Kagayama followed lethargically, a few steps behind. He’d been full of energy at lunchtime, but now he seemed hunched and withered.

“You okay there? You look pretty tired,” Hashiba asked, wondering what had brought about the sudden change.

Kagayama stopped and looked up, and even that seemed like it took effort. “I really hate this place. I feel nauseous every time we come.”

Hashiba knew exactly what he meant — the magnetic disturbance here did seem to have an adverse affect on the body. He remembered the time a couple of years ago when he’d visited an abandoned building to report on a succession of suicide cases. One of his cameramen had started to complain that he felt ill; the poor guy looked the part too. But Hashiba was sure that it had been a simple case of the man dwelling too much and convincing himself that because of the suicides there was something creepy about the place itself.

But this was different. Hashiba felt it too, a sort of crawling feeling under the skin. And there was a scientific basis for it, he was sure. They climbed a path up the middle of a small hillock of flowers, and from the top they had a clear view of the sea beyond. The path continued upwards, a shortcut to the top; they had almost come this way during the last visit. As it was their first time up this path, Hashiba stopped to take in the view.

The familiar shape of Hatsushima was visible ten kilometers out towards the horizon. The shadow cast by the hill stretched out across the sea, reaching towards the island. He had seen the same shadow on their last visit, but somehow it looked different this time. It wasn’t just the time of day — it looked strangely white, cloudy. Whereas a view of the sea usually helped calm him, today it seemed to further fan his nervous excitement. He looked back to Kagayama who was still treading laboriously up the wooden steps of the path. His close, tardy gait betrayed his desire to be somewhere else.

“Let’s just hurry and get this done before the sun sets,” he moaned.

Hashiba ignored Kagayama’s negativity and pushed on upwards. Where was this strange sense of excitement coming from? It felt as though something was spurring him on. Looking down he saw the snaking route of Route 135 towards the bottom of the valley, cars bumper to bumper. A few had their windows open, blaring loud Christmas songs that carried up the valley on the sea breeze. Hashiba recognized one of the songs: “Silent Night.” Someone was blasting the soft tune far too loudly. The melody blended together with the grumble of the engines, leaking through the trees around them as cacophonous white noise.

Ahead, there was a patio whose cobblestoned area lay beneath a wisteria-covered arch. If it were noon, the sun would cast a flecked mix of shadow and light on the ground. Passing through the arch, Hashiba came to a stop at the top of a small hill. The open space had a small wooden bench, a round table, and a small hut in the middle that resembled an oversized doghouse.

Hashiba walked around the bench and started to cross by the hedgerow at the edge of the patio when he stopped dead, frozen to the spot. He stretched his hand out in shock, almost forgetting to breathe. Only his eyes continued to move, darting around the edges of the thing that he saw. Hashiba thought to call out but was at a loss for words. How could he ever describe what he saw? Kagayama would catch up in a minute and could see for himself, but it was possible that he wouldn’t believe his eyes, his mind negating what his optical nerves were telling him.

Hashiba stood staring at the middle of the gentle valley, at the large gaping hole that had seemingly been hollowed out of the ground.

It was obviously not the work of human engineering.

It looked about 100 meters wide, maybe 50 meters deep. More appropriate to call it a crater than a hole, thought Hashiba. He strained his eyes towards the bottom. A dark, jagged fissure running northwest to southeast through its base gave the impression of a terrible force hidden below it.

Hashiba began to feel like he was looking down the caldera of a live volcano. He knew there were none in the area, although there were a couple of dormant ones nearby, Omuroyama and Komuroyama. Komuroyama had a caldera-like crater at its peak, and you could walk around the whole thing.

Of course, that crater had been the result of a volcanic explosion. This was something else entirely. Hashiba didn’t know what to think. He was sure that the crater hadn’t been there when they last visited three days ago. There hadn’t been any reports of disturbances over the last few days. Everything suggested that the crater had formed over the last few hours.

It was the overwhelming quiet that was the strangest. Just how could such a crater appear without any noise or fanfare? It was as though some consciousness was at work, reveling in the contradiction.

Why has nobody noticed this?

Hashiba looked up to the sky. Three days ago the sky above the park had been buzzing with helicopters, but today it was completely empty. Had people seen it and somehow lost interest, despite the scale of the thing? Or, more likely, had no one noticed it yet?

Footsteps approached from behind, Kagayama finally catching up. Hashiba kept his eyes on the mysterious crater. Kagayama drew up to his side and followed Hashiba’s line of sight, peering down. He threw his hands up in an exaggerated motion.

“I really do hate this place!” he exclaimed, laughing with a grimace.

This was the kind of thing you just had to laugh at. What else were you supposed to do?

One side of the crater reached as far as the Soga Shrine. Hashiba could made out the red of the torii gate standing before the stone steps that led up to the shrine itself. It was teetering over the threshold, one of the wooden legs hanging over the edge, the other still lodged in the ground. The red gate looked like a staple holding two disparate worlds together.

The silence in the cab was becoming unbearable. Saeko had some confidence in her ability to make easy conversation even when meeting someone for the first time. It was awkward to share the confined space of a vehicle with another person in complete silence; usually she would have found a topic of conversation by now. But the moment the taxi departed, without excusing himself Isogai had sat back and pulled out his laptop as though announcing that he was not to be disturbed. Since then he had shown no interest in speaking or, for that matter, acknowledging her presence.

He just sat, tapping away at the keyboard, occasionally rubbing his fingers against his teeth as though lost in thought. Now and then he would grunt, pause for a moment, and then recommence typing with even more vigor. He was so focused that Saeko found it hard to interrupt. At the same time, she knew she couldn’t handle the silence anymore.

She had never come across anyone like this. People were at the very least polite towards her, strange men included. Saeko was becoming increasingly frustrated and angry. She didn’t mind that he was busy — that was fine — but he could have at least told her that he’d have to work on the journey. That was simply common courtesy, and she wouldn’t think twice about doing so herself. This man was just ignoring her completely, and she couldn’t help but feel annoyed at his complete lack of manners. Saeko pulled the file she had on him out of her bag. Two could play that game.

The night before, Hashiba had sent her a file with Isogai’s profile. It was quite long, so she’d printed it out and put it in her bag to read later. She made a show of putting the file on her lap and flipped it open. If he was going to ignore her, she might as well find out what type of person he was. She wondered what kind of background would give rise to such a stark lack of manners.

Naoki Isogai was his parents’ eldest child, born soon after their marriage. They had met at the university where they both taught; his father lectured in acoustics, his mother in piano. By the time he was enrolled in junior high, Naoki Isogai showed a talent in mathematics and physics that far outstripped that of his peers and even his teachers.

After experiencing difficulties fitting into the Japanese school system, Isogai had transferred to a high school in the U.S. The next year he secured early admission into Yale University to study mathematics and theoretical physics. Before he could graduate, he started on a master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon University; before he could complete his master’s thesis, he enrolled in the doctorate course. That last one, he did complete. Because he hadn’t officially graduated from high school or college, his academic record officially showed him becoming a Doctor of Science after graduating from junior high. If he hadn’t finished his doctorate, his highest qualification would have been his junior high school diploma.

He specialized in a wide range of fields including mathematics and theoretical and particle physics. Saeko knew that many people in the States held more than one doctorate, say in chemistry and quantum physics, medicine and theoretical physics, number theory and biology. Isogai was one of those people.

At the age of twenty-four, Isogai had been recruited by a research institute run by the Pentagon. That struck Saeko as being very young, but the file explained that most recruits at such facilities were of the young prodigy sort and that their age upon joining generally ranged from eighteen to twenty-five, putting Isogai at the older end of the scale. He had spent three years working at an underground facility in the middle of the Arizonan desert.

Saeko tried to picture the image of the vast, arid space. She had never visited the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, of course. The scenery she was imagining was probably based on a movie she’d seen on TV as a kid. She couldn’t remember the name of the movie or even if it had been a classic western or something more contemporary, but one scene had stayed with her: a long-haired Native American sitting on a hill above a barren landscape and blowing into a wind instrument. The camera had taken in the macro view before panning forwards, zooming in to focus on a single man riding horseback through the landscape below. The man rode slowly, silhouetted by the sun setting behind. The camera had continued to zoom in, but the man’s face had been hidden in shadow. No matter how close the camera got, his features remained shrouded. She recalled the gentle, rhythmical sound of hooves on the ground, surrounded by so many cacti.

Underneath all that, hundreds of meters deep, was an enormous underground military research facility — Saeko found it hard to imagine. Such an ultra-modern thing surely didn’t fit with the old, timeless landscape of the westerns she had seen.

But this place must have been a paradise for a young, enthusiastic academic like Isogai. He would have been surrounded by other prodigies, with vast budgets and freedoms accorded to their projects. She imagined room after room of supercomputers lined up in air-conditioned rooms under the desert, lit by an electronic sun, ready to compute whatever the researchers demanded of them. Those years spent living underneath the Arizonan desert must have had an enormous influence on Isogai’s development as a young adult.

Saeko went back to reading the file. At twenty-seven Isogai had been called back to work for Carnegie Mellon while continuing his research for the facility in Arizona. He divided his time between the two places. Then, two years ago — at the age of thirty-three — the university had granted him tenure as an associate professor. At that point he officially terminated his relationship with the Pentagon.

Even so, his military research background seemed to afford Isogai preferential treatment at the university. Despite his associate status he was given the office space of a full professor and granted a high level of freedom in the application of funds. Yet, it was the size of his office space that would come to cost him his position.

Isogai somehow managed to partition the room into two parts using ceiling-height bookshelves, creating an area that was hidden from the view of visitors. He teamed up with a close friend and quantum physicist by the name of Chris Roberts and began to work on illicit experiments there.

During their first experiment, the two men had cut open the skulls of live chimpanzees and stuck electrodes into their brains to monitor the effects of direct electrical currents on brain activity. A colleague acted on his suspicions upon hearing rumors that the two were conducting live experiments, and word of their activities reached the ear of the university’s Committee for Ethical Conduct. An investigation was launched.

They were heavily censured by the committee, which ruled that it was unethical to treat chimpanzees like mindless guinea pigs. But the committee’s reasoning forced Saeko to wonder if the whole scientific community wasn’t mad. The committee had said that the ethical issue could have been nullified if the experiments had been conducted not on animals, but on humans. The crucial difference was that humans could sign an agreement to undergo experiments, whereas chimpanzees could not. Saeko let out a sharp snort of laughter.

What is wrong with these people?!

If consent had been obtained in the form of a signed document, they would have had legs to stand on in court. Using chimpanzees, who could not sign their consent, however, could be interpreted as a violation of the animals’ rights. The issue was whether the chimpanzees had been willing to undergo the experiments. This was unclear.

When the committee handed down its ruling, Isogai apparently remonstrated that the chimps had been willing since they obviously enjoyed the electrical stimulation. It was at that point that the whole debacle was picked up by and lampooned in the mass media. Moreover, it was also revealed that Isogai and Chris were gay lovers. The scandal grew in momentum as the media uncovered scandal after scandal, bringing other unfortunate researchers into the fray.

The media firestorm soon began to cause other problems for Isogai. A Californian animal rights group began protesting outside of Carnegie Mellon as Isogai became the focus for their ire. He heard wind of other, more extreme groups beginning to mobilize in the south and began to fear for his own safety. Given that doctors had been killed for conducting experiments on fetuses, he worried that he might receive death threats for the mistreatment of chimpanzees.

After the trouble with the university and the potential risks to his safety, he became convinced that there was no longer any reason to remain, and Isogai decided to sever his links with the United States and return to Japan. He returned in September and had been unemployed for the three months since.

For some reason, Saeko felt reassured by the file. She hadn’t been sure what to make of Isogai’s strange behavior towards her, and it was somewhat helpful to learn that he was gay and had no interest in women. Moreover, since he was obviously endowed with an extraordinary intellect, she supposed she could allow a certain degree of eccentricity in his behavior.

An exaggerated image flowed into her mind, the outré scene of this man and his lover happily cutting open the heads of chimpanzees. She could see the two of them poking electrodes into the live gray matter, the flesh steaming in response. They would whisper excitedly to each other, sharing their theories with smug self-satisfaction. She noticed that the file Hashiba gave her had no information on what the experiments had actually been for. Saeko couldn’t help but wonder whether the experiment had actually been important, or whether it was just an excuse for two sadistic men to have some fun. In her present malicious state of mind, Saeko was happy to entertain the possibility that it was the latter.

Saeko felt a puff of air against her neck. She looked up and saw that Isogai had moved right up to her, his face close to hers. She had been busy reading the file and hadn’t noticed him close his laptop and lean over. He made a show of sniffing close to her neck a couple of times, his eyes closed. He didn’t seem to mind that she was reading his file.

“You smell nice,” he said.

“Huh?” Saeko blurted a response, pulling away in surprise, hardly able to absorb the meaning of the words.

Isogai opened his eyes, put a hand on Saeko’s lap, and purposely closed the file with a smile. “If you really want to know about me that much, all you have to do is ask.”

His sudden shift into a familiar, almost flirtatious manner caught Saeko off guard, conflicting with the image she had put together in her head. She reeled away as though he had just stuck electrodes in her head. She turned to stare out of the window, desperately trying to control her breathing.

It wasn’t that cold yet; the sun was still high in the sky. Kagayama’s shivering was a reaction to the sight before him, something he could think of no possible explanation for. A chill snaked its way up his spine, and his bladder felt as if it might burst. The gaping crater that lay before them looked almost like a porthole into another world.

As Hashiba and Kagayama approached the void, the unstable earth around the rim of the crater crumbled inwards, making a dry, pattering sound. The shrine’s red torii continued to hang over the threshold, looking as if it might collapse any minute. Kagayama leaned forward and tentatively approached the crater’s edge. He craned his neck forward to get a better view of the base, but seeing the earth giving way he quickly jumped back several steps.

Looking back he saw the path they had come up leading back through a dense thicket of trees; there was a small sculpture of a bird by one of them. His bladder reaching bursting point, Kagayama ran back across the path, off into the undergrowth, coming to rest next to the statuette, overlooking another small valley to the side. The bird was made from some form of cane and stood with wings outstretched. It was a gull. Kagayama squirmed on his feet as he remembered the weird scene of three days ago, that immense flock of gulls that had taken to the sky all at once. He felt that his bladder was about to give and struggled to get his zipper open just in time to catch the gush, wetting his left hand in the process.

Fuck …

He wiped his hand against his coat and enjoyed the sensation of relief flooding through him. As he stood there, pissing next to the cane model of a gull, Kagayama began to put a theory of his own together. The sudden disappearance of ninety-one people, the sudden appearance of a giant crater — in his mind there was only one thing that could explain both phenomena. It had to be a UFO. To Kagayama, it was the most natural conclusion: four days ago, aliens had touched down and abducted the people from the gardens, leaving that giant pockmark of a crater in their wake.

But the timing doesn’t fit …

For his theory to work, the crater needed to appear before the people vanished. But as far as they knew, there had been no crater here three days ago. Of course Kagayama had no idea how a UFO might function, and at the moment he didn’t really care. The only thing he was sure of was that the whole damned thing was over his head.

Kagayama found his way back and began to lay out his theory to Hashiba: “It’s the only possibility, right? It has to be a UFO. There’s nothing else …”

Hashiba looked at the man. His hair was long except at the top of his head, where it had almost completely receded. The look reminded Hashiba of a vanquished samurai from an old print, somehow unhealthy, and also of a missionary from an old textbook.

Hashiba tutted. He was getting tired of Kagayama’s obsession with aliens. During his time in the industry, Hashiba had known one too many a camera hand get excited about the possibility of capturing a UFO on film. He knew of shooting trips to Australia and Canada but never heard about anything of substance being uncovered. There had been a show that had tried the alien line to explain the overnight appearance of crop circles in England. After the program had aired the crop circles had been exposed as the work of a couple of old people playing a practical joke. Needless to say, the station’s reputation had suffered tremendously.

Those programs had been aired by other stations, but the warning was clear. Stay away from UFOs. Psychic phenomena were acceptable, if just barely. But you had to be so careful with UFOs. You might get away with a subtle allusion to the possibility of something being UFO-related, but anything more was just broadcasting suicide. Why the hell was Kagayama so enamored with the idea?

“Lay off, will you?” Hashiba vented, but his words could have equally been directed towards the crater, the bizarre disappearances, rather than Kagayama.

“Come on, though, have you ever seen anything like this? What other possible explanation is there?” Kagayama persisted, taking a step towards Hashiba.

By now, of course, Hashiba had already given up on the idea that the disappearances may be something as mundane as a kidnapping. There were the strange changes in animal patterns, in plant growth. Everyone here had felt the strange feeling on their skin, a kind of bubbling cold. They’d experienced physiological effects; Kagayama wasn’t the only one feeling the need to relieve his bladder more frequently. Even Saeko, who hardly ever seemed to need to go, had suffered the same unbearable urge to urinate. They even had proof that the local magnetic field had been disturbed somehow — the magnetic display on a watch effectively spinning in a counterclockwise direction. He’d heard theories that, if UFOs did actually exist, it was possible that they used a form of anti-gravity engine for propulsion. He had no idea what that meant in real terms, but it seemed plausible that such a technology would interfere with local magnetic fields.

Still, to suddenly conclude that this was all down to a UFO landing was ridiculous. How big a ship would it have to be to hold ninety-one people? There had been no sightings of anything of the sort. Moreover, there had been no crater here just after the mass disappearance. And now, three days later, here it was. Hashiba wondered if perhaps the gods were toying with them.

“Anyway, more to the point …”

They had urgent business to attend to; finding the crater had been such a distraction they had forgotten themselves. They had to get this on film, and it was no time for the show’s director to be standing around idly. Time was of the essence, so he had to communicate the situation to the camera crew back in the hotel and get them up here to film it. Hashiba knew that if they missed this opportunity due to his tardiness then it would be his neck on the line.

He pulled his phone from his shirt pocket to call Hosokawa. Just as he was about to make the call the phone started to ring.

It was Saeko; her cab had just arrived at the garden’s main gate. There was no time to waste. Hashiba covered the phone and called out towards Kagayama, “Call the hotel and get Hosokawa and the crew up here.” Then he put the phone back to his ear.

“Is everything okay?”

Hashiba was caught off guard by the question, realizing he had no idea where to start explaining something he himself didn’t know how to process. The best thing was for the other two to come up and see for themselves. “Something big’s happened. It’s hard to explain … You just need to get up here and look at this yourselves. I’m looking forward to see what the professor makes of this.”

Saeko thought that Hashiba’s tone sounded distant, dreamy; it was as though he was describing some feverish dream. “We’ll be right there. But I won’t be able to stay long,” she told him.

“How come?”

“I’m going to go back to the Fujimura house in Takato.”

“Takato? What for?”

“It’s where you found my father’s notebook. I’m sure there’s something we overlooked. Do you remember exactly where you found it?”

“On the first floor, in front of the altar in the main bedroom.”

Just as she suspected. When she’d stopped off at Kitazawa’s office on the way, he’d shared his theory that her father had met — and traveled with — Haruko Fujimura during his visit to Peru and Bolivia. He must have given her the notebook himself.

But this was Saeko’s private business. It had nothing to do with the program, so she decided there was no need to explain it to Hashiba. Even if she’d wanted to, it would’ve taken too long.

“Well, make sure you come and see this first.”

“Of course. I’ve got to bring Dr. Isogai to you, after all.”

Hashiba laughed, “I guess so. Is the professor with you now?”

“He ran off to the toilet as soon as we arrived.”

“What’s he like?”

“I think I’ll leave that for you to decide …”

“Sure. Come as fast as you can.”

Hashiba hung up the phone and looked at the time, trying to work out the route to Takato. Saeko would have to take the bullet train to Tokyo and change to the Chuo Line, or she could change to the Minobu Line from Fuji. Whichever route she took, it would be dark before she arrived. Hashiba couldn’t fathom what could have caused her to suddenly decide to go back there, especially alone, at night. That place had felt strange even in the middle of the day, even with the crew; he remembered feeling cold the whole time. Was it just his imagination — knowing, as he did, that it was the scene of a whole family’s sudden disappearance — or was there genuinely something creepy about the place? He didn’t know.

A series of images from the house flickered through his mind: the empty beer glass, contents evaporated; the toothbrushes he couldn’t bring himself to touch directly; the wart-like flecks of toothpaste on the sink; the matted hair in the drain. He remembered the remodeled floor of the bathroom, covered in mold. Bits of dead skin turned to dust. His mind’s eye traced through the corridors of the house like a camera, reaching and entering the main bedroom, stopping before the photograph adorning the Buddhist altar. The photograph of the family’s deceased grandfather, with his bald pate and watermelon face. His skin was wrinkled but had a shiny, reptilian luster. The face bore a stunning resemblance to that of Seiji Fujimura.

Hashiba shook his head. No, he couldn’t understand why Saeko would want to go back to such a place, especially alone. He wondered if perhaps she was too strong-willed for him after all. Her behavior amazed him. At the same time, there was something about her strength of spirit that he found difficult to resist.

Saeko and Isogai emerged from the restaurant at the base of the gardens and began to climb one of the paths towards the Soga Shrine where Hashiba and Kagayama were waiting for them.

Isogai was in good shape, taking easy, measured strides up the path. His movements were fluid and athletic. Saeko followed a daily exercise regimen and was confident of her physical fitness, but there was no way she could keep up with his pace. Predictably, he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the fact that she was falling behind. He just raced up the hill, muttering under his breath to himself all the while.

Although Saeko knew that it was impossible to try to understand the character of someone she’d just met, she did her best to make sense of Isogai’s. It already seemed clear to her that he had two distinct sides: one where he seemed completely indifferent to those around him, and one where he assumed an unnerving familiarity. Right now he appeared to have forgotten that Saeko was with him. Not purposely, she suspected — he simply didn’t notice.

She decided to test her theory and came to a full stop halfway up a set of log steps. She looked up, watching and waiting. The area was completely silent, and there was no wind in the still branches. The moment she stopped walking she realized she was already sweating, and she felt uncomfortably hot. Despite the fact that it was already getting late in the day the air didn’t feel the slightest bit cold.

Isogai didn’t seem to have noticed her stopping. He continued up the steps and the distance between them quickly grew. Saeko bent forward, placing her hands on her knees. She took a few deep breaths of the fresh park air.

When the distance between them had grown to around twenty meters, Isogai came to a sudden stop, finally seeming to have sensed that no one was following behind. He turned straight around and, seeing that he had left Saeko alone, started to hurry back down the steps, moving at almost a full sprint. His slim black trousers and leather jacket gave Saeko the impression of a bat flying down out of the sky. The smooth rhythm of his steps suggested a history as an athlete, although Saeko couldn’t remember anything of the sort in the file. He stopped beside her, putting a hand around her waist.

“Are you all right?” Something about his look was so intense that Saeko found herself pulling away again. It seemed that he had the habit of coming closer than was comfortable.

“I’m fine, just a little tired.”

“I did it again, didn’t I?” He looked up at the sky in an exaggerated swing. “I’m sorry, really. Sometimes I just get lost in my thoughts. It’s this habit I have; I just forget that there are people around me. I don’t notice until someone points it out to me. I try to watch out but … Let’s just say it’s a steep learning curve.”

His tone was deeply friendly and earnest. Saeko was glad to see that her analysis had been correct, and she decided to be more tolerant of him in the future. “That’s how it should be, your job is to think after all,” she assured him. After all, she had a strong innate respect for people that took thinking seriously.

Isogai blinked, wide-eyed, then laughed, rubbing his head and propping up the collar of his jacket. He looked quite pleased with himself. “Do you want to rest and chat for a while?”

Saeko knew that Hashiba was still waiting for them at the shrine. “We’d probably better hurry, the others are waiting for us. Maybe we can talk while we walk?”

With that, she started back up the steps. Isogai tried to match his pace to hers but the effect was rather awkward. He started to joke about the time he’d spent working for the military facility. He seemed like a different person, as though he’d reassigned himself as her entertainer.

“You know the Pentagon is already using technology they developed based on analysis of captured UFOs. The stealth bomber, for one. Optical communications, another. We even have aliens held captive underground. They work as advisors for the government.

“Another fact: the aliens are DNA-based life forms, like us. Think about it. That means that, given the right circumstances, the creation of life is almost inevitable. They’re about a meter high with big heads, no hair whatsoever — just like me. You know the facility introduced Steven Spielberg to one of the aliens to help him put together a movie. You might have heard the rumor before. Do you know the film?”

Isogai asked this with such a good poker face that Saeko couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“So have you seen these aliens?” she asked back.

Isogai laughed and waved his hand back and forth. “No, no, these are all just urban myths — no such things as aliens. At least, I’ve never met one.”

He was attempting to lighten the atmosphere by telling tall tales that normal people could enjoy, but Saeko couldn’t help wondering what it was that had got him so caught up in his thoughts earlier.

“So, what’s got you so preoccupied anyway?” Presumably it was something fascinating enough to make him completely forget himself.

Isogai’s expression changed immediately. Saeko got the impression that whatever it was, it was pretty important. “Actually I find it a little hard to believe. Apparently, the value of Pi has changed.”

Pi. Saeko knew the basics; it was a number that continued randomly and infinitely beyond the decimal point, never revealing a pattern.

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028…

Had he meant that some new discovery had been made about the number?

“A colleague of mine called Cyril Burt — good friend, actually — was given a report by another mutual friend I used to work with at the facility, Gary. He researches number theory at Stanford.

“Just three or four days ago he was running some generic tests on some new computers they were having installed. One of the tests was to have the computer calculate the value of Pi to 500 billion digits. It’s a relatively standard computing test to check for errors in logic. We already know the value of Pi to a trillion digits, so it’s easy to tell if the calculation goes wrong on the way.

“Now, the value of Pi is such that no matter how long we were to run a computer, we would never be able to finish the calculation. Pi is an irrational number and can’t be represented as a fraction. Each number below the decimal point will be a number from 0 to 9, and at no point will anything resembling a numeric pattern appear. This has already been proven using mathematic theory.

“Anyway, Gary had set up the computer to sound an alarm if the calculation didn’t produce the expected numbers. As I said, a simple test to check the computer’s processing ability.” Isogai paused for a moment, eyes unfocused as though he were lost in thought.

“So the alarm sounded?” Saeko prompted.

“Exactly.”

“Meaning, a pattern emerged?”

Isogai shook his head, looking genuinely disturbed. “As I said, I find it hard to believe, but after a certain point, the numbers stopped. The computer just produced a succession of zeros.”

Saeko recalled part of her father’s writing — he had also written about Pi:

Irrational numbers continue ad infinitum as a chaotic concatenation of numerals with no point of destination. Imagine if I were to suddenly find a repeating pattern in a number that had heretofore been defined as irrational!

“That must have been pretty terrifying for Gary.”

“Terrifying, yes … That’s exactly what it was. He wasn’t afraid at first because he didn’t believe the results for a moment. I guess he swore at the computer for coming up with an error and set about reinitializing the test.

“But he couldn’t find any errors in the program. He called on some friends to help. Pretty standard researcher thing, always trying to remain objective. He wanted a second opinion, probably thought he was just missing something obvious.”

“But they didn’t find anything either, right?”

Isogai smiled a little, looking pleasantly surprised that Saeko was following the conversation. “Do you want to see it? I’ve got the data from the test in my laptop.”

Isogai stopped suddenly and pulled his laptop out from his shoulder bag. He sat on the edge of one of the steps and booted up the computer. Saeko sat next to him and watched as a succession of numbers appeared on the computer’s display. The stream of numbers quickly filled the screen. At a certain point, the numbers became a succession of zeros.

… 053944282039301274816381585303964399254702016727593285743666441109625663373000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 …

Beyond the decimal point, some numbers reached a point where they became periodic, endlessly repeating a given digit or set of digits. For example, 17 divided by 7 yielded 2.428571428571428571 … The 428571 pattern repeated endlessly. Numbers that terminated in a repeating decimal pattern were classified as rational. By contrast, numbers such as Pi or the root of 2 were defined as irrational since their decimal representation went on forever without ever terminating in a pattern. Yet, the number on the screen devolved into a clear pattern, a never-ending line of zeros.

Saeko scanned through the numbers on the screen. As she did so, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the dividing zone between the random numbers and the succession of zeros represented an abyss, something beyond the realm of her comprehension. It seemed like a dividing line between life and death. The random numbers were life, dynamic and vibrant. In contrast, the procession of zeros brought to mind a frozen world where all forms of life were precluded by a boundless emptiness. The random numbers were full of color and variety, the zeros monotone and dull.

Is it an omen?

She felt awe, sensing a will that pervaded the universe. If it was the will of a god, though, what was this saying? Was it a positive message? Or a warning? Saeko couldn’t believe that it was the former. She felt morbidly certain that this was not a good sign for the universe.

“Is it possible that the random numbers return later?” Perhaps it was just some astounding coincidence. Perhaps things just returned to normal.

“They thought of that and pushed the computer to continue the calculation. The zeros just went on and on, and the random strings of numbers never recurred. That was when they started to really worry.

“It wasn’t a problem with the machine. They had professionals check it and nothing was found. When the results of the objectivity tests came back, confirming that the pattern of zeros was real, Cyril said he started to shake.

“It’s happened everywhere, this is universal. Computers all over the planet are coming up with the same result once they hit 500 billion digits. The same pattern of zeros.”

So computers throughout the world were coming up with the result after exactly the same number of decimal points. Saeko tried to gauge the implications, yet each time found herself returning to the same basic question. Wasn’t Pi just a value? Did the change have any impact for the everyday world?

But she knew better than to ask. From all that her father had taught her about math and physics, she already knew the answer. Pi was fundamental in a number of equations used to describe various phenomena of the universe. If the value changed, then it necessarily followed that there would be real-world impact. When numbers went awry, when mathematic theorems failed, it was nothing less than a sign of a collapse in the laws of physics. But even with that understanding, it didn’t quite feel real. She had no yardstick; there were no precedents to help her contextualize it.

A chill crawled up her spine as she slowly became cognizant of the ominous threat. The revelation was so massive that it was simply impossible to process it all at once. Bit by bit, her physical reactions began to catch up with the information her mind had already processed, and she felt the hairs on her arms begin to stand on edge as fear began to penetrate the core of her consciousness.

Isogai closed the lid of his laptop and put it back in his bag, and they resumed climbing the steps. For a while neither spoke, concentrating only on the task of walking. A gust of wind blew across the path, strangely warm for the time of year. The wind died down as suddenly as it came, leaving the branches still and quiet.

There was a faint sound coming from above, like crumbling earth. The high sun was beginning its descent towards the west. Over the past few days, the dryness of the air had seemed to amplify the sun’s light, making it sharp and blinding. Today, however, the light seemed strangely muted, although it was still too bright to look directly at the sun. Scattered and diffused, different somehow from the warm glow of dawn or a dusky sun, it broke through the canopy in mixed shades of orange and crimson.

Saeko traced the path of the light through the trees until a point where it seemed to darken; she stopped dead as the view of the giant crater opened up before them. Isogai continued for a few more steps before coming to a halt at the crater’s edge.

Saeko stood speechless, unable to process the change in the familiar landscape. The crater stood vast and silent, exuding a suffocating odor of freshly uncovered earth. From where she was standing, the gaping hole looked exactly like the figure zero.

A small cry escaped her lips, but Isogai’s reaction was more muted. Never having been to Herb Gardens before, the gaping hole simply looked to him like the beginnings of a construction site for a vast underground facility.

Hashiba had walked a quarter of a way around the rim of the crater. Kagayama stood with one foot against a shrub, peering over the edge. When Saeko and Isogai appeared around the corner they waved them over, feeling strangely jovial.

Saeko stepped forward to introduce Isogai but couldn’t seem to find her voice. Fortunately, Isogai stepped forward and introduced himself, shaking hands with Kagayama and Hashiba — a quick perfunctory shake for Kagayama, a more enthusiastic shake for Hashiba. Still clasping Hashiba’s hand, Isogai stepped towards the edge of the crater and scratched his nose with his other hand.

“That’s a pretty strong smell,” he observed.

“What do you make of it?” Hashiba managed to get free of Isogai’s grip and held his hands up as though in defeat.

“I guess I would have to say it’s a giant bowl-shaped hole in the ground.” Isogai smiled. His cheeks looked slightly flushed.

Hashiba realized that Isogai needed to be brought up to date with events, including the sudden appearance of the crater. Judging from the calm, they were probably the first people to have found it.

The crater looked like a circle at first sight, but a more careful look revealed that it was more of an oval. Its walls were wavy and pleated, like the plastic casing of a caramel custard, the kind you unmolded onto a plate, though this crater was more triangular, pyramid-shaped.

Saeko remembered that she had seen something similar before, during a driving holiday through England’s Peak District with her father. There had been these hills off the side of the road. Her father had explained that they were called “mounts”; they were not naturally formed and had been constructed for some purpose by the ancients. They had reminded Saeko of the mound-like shapes of Japan’s prehistorical tombs.

Isogai stood up straight and put on a serious face, licking his lips. “It looks like a meteor impact, but that’s not it, is it?”

“No recordings of any impact, it seems.” Hashiba explained that they had called the meteorological agency and confirmed that no tremors or vibrations had been recorded, nothing to indicate a meteor strike.

“So it just looks that way,” Isogai said to himself, approaching the crater’s edge. He bent forward and put a finger to the loose soil on the surface. “No external pressure, then. When did you say this appeared?”

“We’re not sure,” Hashiba answered. “Perhaps just an hour ago. At most half a day.”

“So the question is how it appeared.”

“Agreed. We have no idea. As far as we know, it just appeared out of the blue.”

“Okay. So it doesn’t seem to be a meteorite impact. And it’s doubtful that someone turned up with a digger and just dug the thing out.”

“Right.”

“Are you really sure about this? I mean, if that’s the case then we’re all in trouble here.” Isogai took a step closer to Hashiba, pointing a finger at him.

Hashiba was surprised by the accusatory gesture and looked across to Saeko, questioning. “What does he mean, trouble?”

Isogai unzipped the front of his jacket and placed his bag on the ground, as though preparing himself. Saeko preempted him.

“E=MC².” Her voice was a whisper.

Isogai clapped his hands together and threw his head back; he was becoming increasingly excited by the developments. “Exactly! That’s the problem right there. E=MC². Einstein’s equation taught us of the vast levels of energy concealed in ordinary matter. If you were to convert even a single gram of matter into pure energy you could instantly boil a stadium full of water. We all know how this translates into weaponry. A nuclear warhead releases a vast tumult of energy through mass atomic fission. Atomic fusion works to the same principles. Nuclear weapons only use a small amount of mass, but we all know the terrifying results. Now, there’s actually another, much more efficient way of releasing this energy: collisions with anti-matter.”

“Anti-matter?” Hashiba repeated subconsciously. He had heard the word before but wasn’t sure of the details.

“Matter is made up of atoms,” Isogai explained, “while atoms, in turn, are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. We know that there are also a set of anti-particles that have the same mass but demonstrate exact opposite electrical charges. When the universe began, these particles and anti-particles existed in equal numbers. For some reason, however, the anti-particles have disappeared. Particles and anti-particles are like pairs of identical twins, if you like. They look exactly the same but have completely opposite personalities. In basic terms you can think of a particle as having a plus-one value and an anti-particle as having a negative-one value. If you put the two together, each cancels out the other and you get a clean slate: zero. In other words, if they meet, they cease to exist.”

“And the existence of these anti-particles has actually been proven?” Kagayama asked, frowning.

“Not just proven. They’re actually being made using a high-energy particle accelerator at the CERN laboratory in Geneva.” Isogai explained how the machine worked and how the particles were kept separate from each other. The others stood listening. “Now, the particle accelerators are not the only places where anti-particles are being made. They’re also formed naturally in space. Occasionally, the particles formed in space have been known to enter our atmosphere. If the anti-particles were to reach the surface through a complex route involving electromagnetic waves and the earth’s internal structure, then it’s possible that they could bring about disappearances of people. Or the formation of a huge crater.

“But let’s think about this for a moment. If this crater was indeed created through the mass disappearance of soil … Well, you can probably see what I meant when I said that we’re all in trouble. Let’s say the 500,000 tons of earth here was transformed through a collision with anti-matter. The byproduct of that would be the immediate and ferocious release of an enormous amount of energy. We’re talking about the destructive equivalent of around 500 billion nuclear warheads. In other words, more energy than if the world’s entire stockpile of nuclear weapons were all detonated at once.”

The horrific destruction that would tear through the earth was beyond imagination, a veritable depiction of hell on earth. The planet would literally be ripped to shreds.

“Of course, if that was the case, I doubt we’d be standing around like this. The world would have ceased to exist the moment this crater was formed.”

The Earth still existed, that much was clear. Saeko kicked uneasily at the earth around her. The soil was soft and warm.

“So you’re saying that the crater was formed some other way, right?” Kagayama’s voice wavered slightly, as though he was afraid to hope.

“Not necessarily,” Isogai warned. “Maybe the world has been destroyed. Maybe we just haven’t noticed yet.”

Saeko knew that it was a slippery slope. Once you began to entertain doubts about the stability of the universe, even the feeling of the ground beneath your feet could do nothing to assuage them. When it came down to it, there was no way to actually prove that the universe still existed.

A sharp gust of wind blew down towards the shrine. Saeko heard the wooden clattering of hundreds of wish boards. The group turned towards the shrine, following the sound. The torii still hung over the threshold, but as they watched, it creaked forwards, slowly at first and then with increasing momentum, beginning an inexorable slide into the abyss as the soil gave way from under it.

Somehow the crimson gate sliding down the browned soil felt like a sign of things to come. Kagayama took a few steps back, but Saeko and Isogai stepped forward, watching the torii until it came to rest at the bottom of the crater.

Then everything was still. The gate lay upturned and unmoving at the bottom of the crater. Occasional birdcalls broke the silence from above. To Saeko, the sounds only served to accentuate the feeling of nature’s incomprehensibility. It was getting late, but the sky seemed to be getting brighter.

After Hosokawa got all the shots he wanted, the group decided to head back down the path towards the hotel. When they reached the gate at the bottom and passed by the restaurant, Isogai pulled Hashiba to the side.

“Can we talk for a minute?”

“What is it?”

“Do I have my own room at the hotel?”

“Of course.”

Isogai looked embarrassed. In stark contrast to earlier he seemed to be having trouble stringing a sentence together. “If it’s not too much trouble … Er, would you mind if I called a friend to join me?”

“Hmm?” Hashiba looked up, intrigued.

“A good friend and quantum physicist, Chris Roberts. I don’t want you to hire him as an advisor, don’t worry. He’s a genius in his field, and I think he’ll be able to help us work out what this damn crater is. In fact, I think he’ll be more use than me. I need his advice if we’re to do this … I guarantee he’ll be of use.”

Hashiba already knew the name from the file he’d put together on Isogai’s credentials. Chris was Isogai’s colleague and lover, his partner during the chimpanzee experiments at Carnegie Mellon. When the experiments — electrocuting the chimps’ brains — had gone public, Isogai had faced the ire of animal cruelty groups and come back to Japan in fear of his safety. It made sense that he wouldn’t have just left Chris there. They must have come back to Japan together.

“No problem at all. Give him a call.”

Isogai’s face brightened. He pulled out his phone and started to call his friend. Hashiba walked over to the parking lot with Saeko and told Kagayama and the rest to go back to the hotel ahead of them. He tapped Saeko on her back and they walked together to the main road.

“Are you really going to do this?” Hashiba checked again.

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“Did something happen?”

“I just get this feeling, you know, that I’ve wasted so much time since my father disappeared. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“Even so, there’s no need to rush off tonight.”

“Listen, I’m sure there’s something we missed, something I missed out there. But it’s my problem, not the show’s.”

Hashiba looked at the time; it was already past three in the afternoon. “How are you going to get there?”

“I was thinking of renting a car. I saw a place near the train station.”

“It’ll be dark by the time you reach Takato.”

“They’ve still got electricity and water, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Then there’s no problem. I won’t have to wander around in the dark.”

“Where are you planning to stay?”

“I’ll find a business hotel or something in Ina.”

“Okay, good.”

“Good?” Saeko nudged him in the ribs. “You didn’t think I’d stay in that house, did you?”

“Sometimes I have no idea what you’re going to do.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised with a defiant look.

“All right, if you find anything let me know as soon as you can, even if it’s the middle of the night. Okay?”

“Of course.”

“And if you need me for anything, just call.”

He meant it — if she needed his help, he was ready to drop everything and go straight to her. There was something about Saeko that he just couldn’t pin down. She was both traditional and madly eccentric. She had this normal desire to settle down, to get married. On the other hand, she had an incredible streak of inner strength and independence. It was hard to reconcile the two. Hashiba knew that people generally struggled with an internal mix of conflicting attributes, but he worried that the trait was too strong in Saeko. He knew he was in love with her, but he couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t too independent for him. So he wanted the chance to help her; he wanted to see when, to see if she would turn to him for help. It was, in a sense, the only way he knew to test the closeness of their relationship.

The two of them ambled in the direction of Route 135. Once they got close, Saeko waved down a passing cab.

“At least let me drive you to the station,” Hashiba said, taking her by the hand.

Saeko shook her head. “You have lots to be getting on with. I don’t want you wasting any time.”

She was right, of course. He had to get back to the hotel and finish writing up the scripts for the shoot. Besides, the taxi was already waiting. “All right, please be careful.”

They stood for a moment, hands intertwined, looking into each other’s eyes. The fleeting reverie was broken by the sound of the cab’s horn rushing them. Hashiba stood back and watched Saeko climb into the back seat of the cab until all he could see was her boots. The automatic door closed and the cab began to pull away. Saeko looked back through the rear window; Hashiba waved and stood watching as the cab pulled into the distance.

Even after it turned a corner and was lost to view, Hashiba stood staring at the empty space. That image of her getting into the back seat, her legs slender and inviting — she had been wearing stockings but it brought back memories of how her silky skin had felt under his fingers. Rife with longing, he subconsciously took a step in the direction the cab had gone. The movement caught him off guard, and he momentarily lost balance, stumbling slightly. He recognized the feeling that burned inside him. He’d felt it before: an overwhelming urge to break free from the constraints of his own life.

Until now, Hashiba had always been able to reason with himself when faced with the desire to break free. He’d always managed to stay on track, through college, through his dream job. He had been able to knuckle down, keep his life ordinary. And his future was bright; he was almost in a position to reap the benefit of all that hard work.

But it was always there, ready to rear its ugly head, that desire to smash everything to pieces, to start over from the beginning. And it always started with lust. If there was ever a time to give yourself to such feelings, it was when you had foreknowledge that the world was about to end. In that case, Hashiba wanted to cast away all restraint and go out in a blaze of indulgence.

For God’s sake, pull yourself together …

Hashiba slapped his cheeks a couple of times, calming himself down. He started to walk the route back to the hotel. No one could predict when the world would end; fantasies of a “last supper” never led to anything.

Hashiba’s hotel room faced eastwards out to the sea. The lighting was dim even with all of it on. Hashiba finished flicking through his notes in the half-light and walked over to the window, where the horizon was milky white.

He had never been to those northern countries where the sun never fully sets, but he imagined that it must be something like what he was now seeing. The white phosphorescence rose independently from the moon that hung low in the sky, as though filtering upwards from the sea itself. It formed a long band of light across the water below. Hashiba felt that he had seen enough during the day and that he could take anything in stride now. He lay down on the bed in an attempt to concentrate and sort through his thoughts. As he sank into the soft mattress Hashiba found his thoughts drifting back to the feeling of Saeko’s skin, but this was not the time for indulging in fantasies. He pushed the image to the back of his mind and started to skim the half-written draft script. He had to do something to occupy his mind; he had to finalize the basic structure of the show.

The first problem was whether or not to treat the mass disappearances at the gardens as related to the other disappearances they were going to cover. Atami was situated close to the Tanna Fault Line, so that fitted. But he had to be careful not to jump to any conclusions; the disappearances here were on a completely different scale. The cases they had looked at so far had concerned at most only a few people. This time almost a hundred people had gone missing, and Hashiba was at a loss as to how to approach that. Should he argue the same causes but just apply them on a different scale? It was a difficult decision.

He decided to tackle that issue later and let his thoughts return to the files Saeko had given him. There was sufficient evidence in the file to suggest that the disappearances to date had a common link: periods of heightened solar black spot activity. According to Isogai, there was a hugely complex relationship between sunspots and the makeup of the Earth’s crust that could cause disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field. But Hashiba didn’t have the knowledge of physics necessary to either confirm or deny that contention. Moreover, he now had to decide whether or not to treat the sudden appearance of the crater as part of the same phenomenon.

He decided he needed Isogai’s opinion on all of this if he was to make any progress on the script and bunched the papers outlining his questions under his arm. It was getting close to six, and the crew and Isogai were scheduled to hold a meeting over dinner.

When they sat down to dinner everyone was too famished, so Hashiba decided to take the meeting back to someone’s room afterwards. A short while later, they gathered in Isogai’s room. Hashiba sat with Kagayama on a sofa next to the window, while Hosokawa and Kato sat cross-legged on the floor. Isogai was at the desk, booting his laptop.

Kagayama reached across to the mini bar and pulled out a large bottle of beer. He poured the contents into some glasses and passed them around the group. Then he picked up a saucer from the table before the sofa, spun it above his head, and said, “We’re going to roll with this, yes?”

Hashiba wondered if Kagayama was beginning to lose it. For some reason, Kagayama had been avoiding eye contact, as though he were somehow determined not to face up to the reality of what was before them. He wore an unconvincing smile of self-parody. Even the spinning saucer began to look ominous.

“Give me that.” Hashiba snatched it and put it out of reach.

“Come on, we’re going to roll with it, right?” Kagayama continued his appeal, mindlessly repeating the phrase, ignoring the fact that Hashiba had taken his prop away. Everyone knew what he was talking about, but no one took the bait. Kagayama still wanted to believe that a UFO had landed in the park and abducted the ninety-one missing people. Just the idea of basing the show around that was horrifying.

“We have to look at all the options, of course,” Hosokawa injected subtly.

Kagayama took a step back, suddenly defensive. “What other options, exactly?”

Kato sat frowning, listening passively. Hashiba’s thoughts wandered back to Saeko. He decided to give her a call to check if she was all right, but just as he pulled his phone from his pocket there was a knock at the door. Isogai jumped at his computer, emerging from his bubble and finally pulling himself away from checking emails from his colleagues and friends overseas. He called out and looked around the room.

Kato was closest to the door and pulled it open, revealing a short black man holding a briefcase. He looked nervously around the room, but as soon as he saw Isogai he breathed out and all tension seemed to melt away from his expression. Isogai smiled back and ran over, taking the man’s hands in his own and gazing into his eyes.

“Naoki!”

“Chris, you made it!”

Isogai introduced Chris to the people in the room, his face bright with pleasure. Hashiba found himself feeling awkward in front of such open, unreserved joy. Isogai began to boast to everyone in the room about how brilliant a scientist Chris was. For his part, Chris looked shy; there was something about him that seemed almost naïve. Hashiba knew that Chris was five years younger than Isogai, who seemed to be the protective one in the relationship.

Chris elbowed Isogai in the ribs. Isogai turned around, coming out of his reverie. Chris had tears in his eyes.

“Chris?”

“Something terrible is happening.” His tone was serious.

The two of them started to talk to each other in English. They spoke louder and louder, getting worked up to the point where they were almost shouting. Chris must have told Isogai something important, perhaps a new development. Hashiba put his phone back and waited for a lull in the conversation. Eventually, the two men seemed to finish their discussion.

“Could you let us know what happened?” Hashiba asked.

Isogai walked over to his computer and sat down, staring intently at the display. As he opened some file according to Chris’ instructions, his expression indicated some form of inner turmoil. Hashiba walked up to Chris and Isogai and peered over their shoulders.

The display showed a series of long numbers along with some English text and a lot of equations. Only Isogai and Chris could interpret the contents.

“Is this an email from someone you know?” Hashiba asked. If he knew who sent it, he might be able to guess at the contents.

“It’s from Cyril Burt, a colleague and good friend from Carnegie Mellon. He’s been kind enough to keep me up to date with the latest news from the research labs since I came back to Japan.”

“And what’s he saying?”

Isogai slammed his hands down on the desk, as though in response to Hashiba’s question. “Impossible!”

Whatever the content, Hashiba could tell that it was something big, something important. The room had fallen quiet in the wake of Isogai’s outburst; everyone sat poised, waiting for Isogai to explain, but he just sat with his eyes closed, muttering softly to himself, occasionally asking Chris the odd question.

“Could you let us know what’s going on?” Hashiba tried again, unable to bear the suspense.

Isogai took a deep breath and looked over at Hashiba, eyes slightly bloodshot. He stared up at the ceiling and began to explain.

“It’s not just Pi that’s changed. The Riemann hypothesis has collapsed.” His voice was a whisper. The words meant nothing to Hashiba. He had just managed to get his head around the idea that the value of Pi had somehow changed; Isogai had talked about that at dinner. Meanwhile, no one seemed to have heard of the Riemann hypothesis.

“Could you explain in layman’s terms?”

“The Riemann hypothesis collapsed …” Isogai simply repeated.

“And what exactly is that?”

“The question was first raised 150 years ago. It’s probably the most important question in all of integer number theory. Say you were to take all prime numbers — numbers only divisible by 1 and themselves — and laid them out in order. You would get a list that goes on ad infinitum: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43 … Now, the gaps between successive prime numbers get larger as you continue. People started to conjecture that there could be a pattern dictating the length of the spaces between prime numbers. To keep it simple, a genius mathematician called Riemann set out to find the mathematical proof, but the task was heinously difficult. Still, the existence of a pattern was considered almost certain since the Riemann zeta function of zero only appeared on the plane of complex numbers when S = 1/2 + ti. But now, checking Cyril’s report against Chris’ information, it looks like that’s been proven false. Frighteningly enough, a number of non-trivial zeros have been discovered outside 1/2 + ti, which means that the hypothesis has collapsed.”

Isogai was speaking too fast for anyone to process what he was saying. Hashiba was becoming increasingly frustrated at Isogai’s inability to spell out the problem.

“Right, okay. But doesn’t that just mean that he got the numbers wrong?” Hashiba still couldn’t see what the two men were getting so worked up about.

“Thousands of mathematical theorems depend on the Riemann hypothesis being correct. They were all based on assumptions it made. If it falls down, they all do, like dominos. It’s a disaster, a nightmare scenario.”

“So you’re saying, basically, that patterns have appeared where they didn’t exist before, and where patterns should exist they have stopped doing so,” Hashiba summarized as best he could regarding Pi and the hypothesis.

“Exactly! And in both cases there’s this ominous recurrence of zeros.”

Hashiba shook his head and sighed. “But even so …” He was still unable to fathom the terror that was obviously gripping Isogai. What possible repercussions could there be?

“Don’t forget that all of our physical laws are built on the foundations of mathematical theory. Our very existence relies on the stability of these laws, but in all cases there is no guarantee that they’re infallible. The fact that everything has the potential to be disproved is a fundamental principle of science.

“Don’t you see? The mathematical terms I’m talking about can be equated to elements in our physical universe. You can represent any number through mixing these elements. When mathematicians were studying the occurrence of prime numbers, they noticed that the behavior was mirrored in quantum theory. In other words, the conceptual, abstract world of numbers is somehow connected to our physical world.

“The collapse of the Riemann hypothesis, the appearance of zeros outside the boundary of 1/2 + ti … It’s possible that this is a precursor of a coming change in the number of dimensions in the real world. Just a possibility, that is. The world we know could cease to exist — all it would take is a slight warping of the numbers.

“If, for example, the strong nuclear force were strengthened in relation to the other natural forces — if the balance were to change even slightly — that alone would be enough to cause our sun to begin to expand and go supernova. Conversely, if it were to weaken — again, even slightly — then that would be enough to cause the sun to die out. The link is clear. A pattern has appeared in the value of Pi. Something has altered the base of our mathematical theory. There are bound to be repercussions for us. What I’m trying to say is that these changes will translate into physical changes in our world.”

As Isogai spoke, Hashiba watched Kagayama’s expression flit from open disbelief to frustration to something approaching fear. He was twitching slightly. Whether or not the implications of Isogai’s discourse had been grasped by the laymen in the room, the mood in it was significantly darker.

“Fucking nonsense.”

Kagayama finally seemed to lose his temper. He reached for the saucer at the edge of the table but Hashiba moved it out of his reach. Kagayama stood and marched to the window in a sulk.

Isogai frowned at the hysterics and waited for the moment to pass. After a moment, he continued, “I assure you, this problem is real. The President of the United States has already begun to gather a group of elite scientific advisors.”

Isogai looked over for Chris to back him up. Chris’ mouth quivered, and he looked like he might burst into tears at any moment. He nodded.

“One of the President’s scientific advisors, David Fontana, used to teach one of Chris’ good friends,” Isogai continued. “Just two days ago, Chris received an email from that friend claiming that the President was rounding up advisors from a number of fields. The list started with David himself and included other luminaries in elementary particle physics and quantum gravity theory. People like Dine Parker-Holmes and Landau are all being taken to Washington. The Director General of NASA is already there; I guess it was NASA that initially apprised the President of the situation. NASA must have come across some incredible information, that much is clear.

“As you know, I’ve worked with the U.S. government, and I know how the flow of information works. There’s a gag order in place, and no one’s allowed to talk about whatever is going on. They’re extremely thorough in this kind of situation. Communications with the outside world are under a blanket ban, and no one can use phones or email to discuss the situation.

“It’s pretty clear what’s going on. NASA must have advised the President of a potential security threat. Given this information, the President would have decided that he needed further input from his advisors and other top minds in physics. He would have called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. It’s terrifying to even consider what they must have discovered to merit an operation of this scale; this is a crisis-level response. The fact that there’s a gag order in place says it all. It’s in place because any leaked information has the potential to cause widespread panic.”

Even knowing Isogai could only speculate as to what the problem was, Hashiba couldn’t help but ask, “What is it that they’ve discovered? I don’t care if it’s just a guess, what do you think? That’s what you’re here for.”

Ignoring Hashiba’s question, Isogai exchanged a few words with Chris in English that sounded like an intimate exchange of endearments between lovers.

“Okay. We’ll need a little time,” Isogai finally answered. “We’ll try our best to get some information together.”

“Of course,” Hashiba nodded in agreement. He understood that they would have to search for more information in order to even come close to a possible answer.

Hashiba could see that reports that changes had occurred in mathematical theory were cropping up worldwide. Even so, it was still not clear to Hashiba why that should bring about such an extreme reaction. It was frustrating being unable to comprehend the full implications of the information.

Isogai had begun to sweat copiously, his jaw line distorted by the tension in his face. He looked as though he was trying his best to disguise his fear so as not to frighten Chris further. It wasn’t working. Hashiba just wanted to know what it actually meant. What happened to the world if a transcendental number revealed a pattern and the so-called Riemann hypothesis broke down?

Hashiba had studied some basic math in order to pass his university entrance exams, but his heart had never been in it. He was pursuing a degree in sociology, after all, and what good would differentials and the like serve him in the real world? For that reason, he’d covered just the minimum material necessary, never applying himself to a deeper pursuit of the subject beyond the equations he’d memorized for the exams. Tonight was the first time Hashiba had ever considered that mathematics could have dangerous real-life implications.

He understood the idea that Pi had changed, that a pattern had emerged, but the talk about Riemann’s hypothesis had gone completely over his head. According to Isogai, research on the patterned occurrence of prime numbers had shown a link between those properties and the physical world at a quantum level. Did that mean that the world of ideas, of numbers, was connected to the physical world by some sort of invisible thread? Isogai had explicitly stated that prime numbers could be equated to elements of our physical world. If that was the case, a change in the patterns of prime numbers was akin to the periodic table collapsing, and Hashiba had to admit that there could be repercussions in the physical universe.

He would just have to wait and see what information Chris and Isogai dug up. The two of them had stayed in Isogai’s room to continue their work while the others had dispersed. It was already clear that NASA had gotten wind of something important and that top scientific minds were being assembled in Washington. But the question remained as to exactly what the crisis was about.

Hashiba suspected that Isogai could already put together a pretty good guess, but he let the two men go ahead and gather as much intel as possible. Right now they were busy contacting acquaintances across the world, using their connections and networks to try and get access to some inside information. If they were able to gather enough snippets of information, then perhaps they could start to piece together the jigsaw. Together, they had the tools to find out exactly what it was that NASA was looking into. Hashiba was pleased with how hard the two men were working. It wasn’t like he was paying them that much; they were working purely out of scientific curiosity, throwing down the gauntlet at the boundaries of knowledge.

Hashiba thought about the scoop they would have on their hands if Isogai and Chris managed to work out what NASA was hiding. It was the biggest opportunity that had ever come his way, and it was hard to contain his excitement. All his hopes were riding on the work of the two scientists now. He just had to make sure the rest of the staff were willing to steer the program in that direction.

As Hashiba busied himself thinking about the program, images of Saeko continued to come and go in his mind. The more time passed, the closer she would be to the Fujimura house in Takato, and he felt his concern for her well-being looming ever larger in his mind. Deciding to call her, he pulled out his phone and flicked open the display. Immediately he saw that someone had tried to call him and that he must have missed the call in all the chaos.

0265-98-97xx

The call was from a landline; one glance told him that it hadn’t been Saeko’s cell. Whoever had called had left no message. Hashiba hadn’t been expecting any calls in particular, and the number was unfamiliar. He didn’t even know the area code 0265.

“Anyone know this number?” He read out the number on the phone’s display.

Kagayama was the first to answer. “That’s the area code for Ina.”

“Ina …” The exact place where Saeko was headed. There was only one place in Ina that had any possible relationship with them, and it popped into his mind the moment Kagayama mentioned the name: the Fujimura residence. “Kagayama, do you have the number for the Fujimuras?”

Kagayama shrugged his shoulders. “Why?”

“I just got a call from Ina.”

“Seriously?” Kagayama didn’t want to come to terms with what this could mean.

“Anyway, could you just look it up?” Hashiba persisted.

“You saw the place yourself and know nobody’s there. How could you get a call from there?”

“Maybe someone from the family returned?” Hosokawa offered, but no one reacted. It was obvious that that was impossible at this stage.

Hashiba stared at Kagayama until he gave up resisting and pulled out a notebook from his bag. He’d been the one originally assigned to set up the shoot at the house, so he still had all the notes. It looked like he indeed had the Fujimuras’ address in his notebook.

“I’ve got the address here … Not the phone number, though. There was no point, after all.”

That much made sense. There was little meaning in taking down the phone number of a house where all the inhabitants had disappeared.

“Well, take a look and see if the number’s listed — you can reference it with the address, right?” Hashiba requested.

Kagayama grumbled but made the call to information, punching the number and reading the address. As soon as he finished reading out the address, he tossed the phone to Hashiba as if it were diseased. Hashiba caught it and heard a female voice:

The number for that address is 0265-98-97xx. The number for that address is …

Hashiba hung up and tossed the phone back to Kagayama. He repeated the number out loud, letting Kagayama know that it was without doubt the number of the Fujimura residence. Hashiba could picture exactly where the phone was in the house. When Shigeo Torii had been inspecting the items they had laid out on the dining table, he had seen the gray telephone sitting on the middle of some shelves built into the wall, just above an empty vase. It had worn a light veil of dust, and there had been a small red light, blinking on and off. The phone line was still connected thanks to the automatic payments deducted from the family’s bank account.

Who would call from that number?

Hashiba had no idea, let alone for what reason. He saw an image of fingers pushing the buttons on the dusty phone but couldn’t focus on the rest of the details. The person’s body and facial details seemed to blend into the darkness of the room, ghostly and vague.

He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out again, hitting the quick dial for Saeko’s number. He realized he no longer cared if the staff found out about the two of them. The line went straight to her voice mail.

“Saeko, don’t go near the Fujimura house, there’s someone — something, there. I’m one hundred percent serious. Call me as soon as you get this message. Please, Saeko.”

In the heat of the moment he’d called her by her first name in front of the others.

Isogai and Chris were still in their room. The rest of the film crew waited around, increasingly frustrated and on edge, like patients waiting for the results of a cancer biopsy. On top of all of that, Hashiba had another problem to think about. No matter how many times he tried calling, Saeko wasn’t picking up her phone; she’d probably turned it off for the drive up in her rental car. Hashiba sat feeling helpless as the ringtone clicked to voice mail for the umpteenth time. Just as he was about to give up, someone knocked at the door. Hosokawa leapt up and opened the door to find Isogai standing there. All eyes turned towards him, eager to hear his news.

“Did you find anything out?” Hashiba asked.

Isogai shook his head and pulled a strange expression. “Not yet, but I thought I’d give you a report on how it’s going.”

“Oh. Sure, go ahead.”

“We’re making progress, getting information. Chris is working his way through his contacts, picking up on leads. I’m pretty confident we’ll get somewhere very soon. I want to show you what we’ve got so far. Could you come back to my room?”

Hashiba nodded and the group followed him back. Chris was working at the computer, engrossed in the screen, typing away furiously. He didn’t even seem to notice their arrival. Hashiba saw a couple of open duralumin suitcases scattered on the floor at his feet. On the desk were a couple of empty coffee cans. The desk had a mirror set into it, and depending on the angle it gave the impression that two versions of Chris were staring at a computer. Eventually, the American broke off his typing and looked up.

Isogai waved a hand. “Probably best to keep going, Chris. Thanks.” Turning to Hashiba, he said, “First, I want you to take a look at this.” He picked up his own laptop and turned it so the display was facing the group. Taking a deep breath, he continued, “As we know, a pattern has emerged in Pi and the Riemann hypothesis no longer works. Based on what we know, we started to field questions to various colleagues — physicists, mathematicians. At the same time we asked whether or not they knew of anything else happening, any other irregularities.

“Then something came our way, information on an accident concerning the James Webb Space Telescope. You’ve heard of that thing, right? The JWST is a giant telescope that was set up in orbit around the earth earlier this year. It’s a cutting-edge device designed to photograph objects in space from high up in orbit, reducing atmospheric pollution to a minimum. A research theme has been chosen for each year for the astronomers using the telescope. Every stage is carefully planned and monitored, and any usage outside of this mandate, any change of plan at all, would have to be for something very big indeed. This month, the telescope was scheduled to photograph a series of deep-space shots off the Big Dipper. But that wasn’t what happened.

“On the 13th of this month NASA suddenly announced that the telescope had begun to malfunction. They told the scientists working with the JWST that they would have to perform essential maintenance to fix the issue. Furthermore, all pictures taken by the JWST are publicly available on its website. Yet, all links to the public website have been down since NASA announced that the telescope was malfunctioning. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but get the feeling that this is all a bit fishy.”

“So you’re saying there’s a chance that the telescope captured something that the government or NASA doesn’t want the public to see?”

Isogai looked thoughtful. “That would be the result, perhaps. I think it’s more likely that NASA identified an emergency and commandeered the telescope to carry out their own observations. They made up the story of it malfunctioning and proceeded to override the planned agenda.”

“An emergency …” Kagayama stepped forward, butting into the conversation. “That’s what I’ve been talking about all this time!”

“Kagayama, shut up, all right?” Hashiba knew what Kagayama was going to say. He put a hand against the man’s chest and pushed him backwards. “Isogai, can you guess at the nature of the emergency?”

“Of course. The JWST isn’t the only telescope set up to photograph space. The National Observatory of Japan has a Subaru telescope set up at Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The Subaru telescope has a direct fiber-optic connection with Mitaka here in Japan and sends its photographs directly to the national observatory. A friend of mine called Urushihara works there, so I asked him whether he had noticed anything out of the ordinary over the last few weeks. He came straight back to me asking me how I knew, what my source was! I evaded the question, but, well, take a look at this. The link to the Subaru telescope is still up and running.”

Isogai tapped a key and a beautiful image of a starry sky filled the screen. As far as Hashiba could tell, it looked normal.

“What you’re seeing is an image focused on the center of the Milky Way, looking out towards Sagittarius.”

The mention of the Milky Way always reminded Hashiba of the summer and the festival of Tanabata, when Hikoboshi and Orihime were said to be reunited among the stars. The Milky Way was a stage for romanticism and dreams, a celestial corridor of light.

At the same time, our solar system was just a tiny portion of the Milky Way galaxy, which consisted of over 200 billion stars and was shaped like a saucer with a swelled center. The radius spanned 100,000 light-years, and the center was 15,000 light-years thick. At the edges, where the solar system was located, the galaxy was 5,000 light-years thick. A photograph of the center of the Milky Way from earth revealed the central bulge of the galaxy from a flat perspective, overlaying innumerable numbers of stars atop one another. It was because of this dense overlap that the galaxy was named the Milky Way — a veritable river of stars.

Isogai enlarged part of the image on the screen and played through a series, explaining that they had been taken over one-hour intervals. He played through fourteen images and then stopped.

“So, what do you think?”

The first to answer was Hosokawa. “It grows darker over time?” Hashiba sat back, impressed by his cameraman’s ability to pick up on detail. The pictures did seem to darken somehow. It was as though each successive image revealed a gradual fading of the light of the Milky Way.

Isogai nodded silently. He proceeded to enlarge the image even further and replayed the fourteen slides. This time, it was clear what he wanted them to see.

“The stars are disappearing,” Kato whispered in a flat tone.

One star had gone blank, then another, and a third. The phenomenon was plainly visible. That was why the images seemed to grow darker over time. Isogai closed the window and continued to explain.

“As you saw, stars have begun to disappear around the area at the center of the Milky Way known as the bulge, an area around 50,000 light-years away. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about that alone, stars are born and stars die. We’ve already observed and recorded the deaths of many stars as they burn out their own supplies of fuel. Our sun is a star, and in 5 billion years it too will burn out. The important difference here is the manner in which the stars are disappearing.

“There are essentially two ways for a star to die. Light stars, namely stars up to three times the size of our sun, first become red giants. They then become white dwarfs and die out slowly and quietly, without fanfare. Heavy stars, far larger than our sun, however, go supernova after becoming red giants, blazing out in a huge, showy explosion. We’ve been able to track such events from earth by observing the sudden disappearance of light that has, until that point, been constant in reaching us. In the case of a supernova, we would expect to detect the release of X-rays, gamma rays, and other forms of electromagnetic energy. We can, in other words, ascertain the mode of death through the use of radio telescopes. We can work out which of the two ways any given star met its demise.

“And here’s the problem. When the telescope in Hawaii attempted to record the electromagnetic emissions of the stars that had vanished, it didn’t find anything. Let me stress this: they were unable to find any emissions around the vanished stars. In other words, no one could hear the death cry of these stars.” Isogai looked as though he was listening for something and fell silent.

“So these stars died, but not in the way you would expect them to?”

“Exactly.”

“Then how?” Hashiba had to know the mechanism of the disappearance.

“All I can say is that they vanished. Quietly, suddenly. There’s no other way to explain it.”

The image on the computer had shown multiple stars disappearing as though the lights of the Milky Way were being switched off, one by one. If more and more stars continued to vanish, if they all did so without any trace of electromagnetic emissions, then it was clear that something out of the ordinary was happening. If it was strange to Hashiba, he couldn’t begin to imagine how strange it must be for the professionals.

Disappearing stars …

The possibilities of a link to the show were obvious to everyone. They had been investigating the disappearances of people around the Itoikawa-Shizuoka Tectonic Line, here at the park, and had witnessed the sudden appearance of a huge crater. Now they were being told that the very stars that made up the Milky Way seemed to be vanishing as if they were being eroded away by the very darkness surrounding them. Could that be put to simple chance?

Hashiba couldn’t be sure what kind of causal relationship was in place here. The scale was completely different: localized disappearances here on earth, the same happening to stars tens of thousands of light-years across the galaxy. Was a change in the whole disturbing the parts, or were anomalies in a part influencing the whole? Hashiba suspected it was the former.

A heavy silence descended as everyone struggled under the weight of what Isogai was suggesting. Whole stars were disappearing, one by one; the Milky Way was going out. The atmosphere in the room grew strained, the air stagnant. Isogai was dangling his legs off the table he sat on, lost in thought. Quite suddenly, he looked up as though he had remembered something.

“Chris, Chris …” His voice was tender, as if calling out to a beloved pet. “How’s it going? Have you found anything?”

“Faine Goes and Jack Thorne have joined the group in Washington.”

“Faine and Jack? Are you sure? No mistakes?”

“Certain.”

Isogai nodded at Chris’ decisive reply and turned back to looking at his feet as they dangled in the air.

“The national observatory hasn’t been able to work out the reason for the disappearance of the stars. They don’t know the cause, meaning they don’t know how to deal with it. On the other hand, NASA seems to have gained some level of understanding of the phenomenon. That’s why they’ve started to take steps to address the problem — assuming it’s the type of problem that can be addressed, of course. They’ve gathered the best scientific minds they could find and brought them together in Washington. The problem here is the exact lineup of these minds.”

Isogai stopped and glanced meaningfully in Chris’ direction. Hashiba realized that Chris was trying to find out exactly who had been summoned to Washington.

“The team has been assembled under top-secret conditions. The issue itself is being treated in the same way. But we have some leads we can follow. We know that one of Chris’ friends, David Fontana, has been called to Washington. Apart from him, we also know that Dine Parker-Holmes and Landau have been called up. So, how do we work from this?

“When people are summoned in an emergency, there’s bound to be some strange bits in their movements. If a university professor is called, for example, he or she would have to cancel lectures, probably without warning. If the same person is then seen in Washington, we can be pretty sure this person was among those called on by the government. Scientists have always liked to network with each other. If nothing else, it helps us to keep our research rational and objective. Thanks to our current technology, there is a vast library of mail bouncing around the internet. Fortunately for us, Chris here is not only a brilliant physicist but also a genius hacker. He’s currently hacking into people’s mail accounts to try and get us information on the situation.

“If we follow up on the leads we have already, it’ll only be a matter of time before we get a pretty good idea of the general composition of the team. Once we know who’s there, it will be much easier for us to take a decent stab at figuring out what exactly the problem is.” Isogai picked a printout off the table and read out some lines that had been underlined in red ink. “David Fontana, Dine Parker-Holmes, Landau, Faine Goes, Jack Thorne … We’re already quite certain that these five people have been called to Washington. And we know that they all specialize in fields within particle physics and quantum gravity theory. Jack Thorne’s specialty is in general relativity; more specifically, he studies anything to do with black holes. His inclusion seems a bit out of place. There’s also Dine Parker-Holmes, who specializes in pure mathematics and mathematical physics. Why would they include a pure mathematician? The only reason we can think of is that there is a link between the disappearance of the stars and the changes we’ve seen in Pi and Riemann’s hypothesis. I don’t get a good feeling from this.”

Hashiba still found it difficult to get a sense of reality for the whole thing.

“Let’s say, for example,” Isogai resumed, “that a giant meteor was approaching the earth and that there was a real possibility of collision. It’s a situation we’ve all seen in the movies. The U.S. President assumes the position of world leader and calls together an elite team of scientists to tackle the problem. The team would consist of specialists in rocket science, space exploration, nuclear physics, etc. If you add someone that can excavate oil, then you know which movie.” Isogai chuckled to himself. “Seriously though, if you looked at the composition of that team you’d be pretty sure that the crisis we faced was a giant meteorite collision.”

Hashiba understood what Isogai was trying to say. If anything, it seemed like he was now trying too hard to get his message across in simple terms. “So can you tell from the roster so far what NASA is trying to keep a tight lid on?”

Isogai wrinkled his nose as though he were about to sneeze. His eyes darted left and right, evasive, but he met Hashiba’s gaze for a brief moment. The hesitation he saw was enough for Hashiba to realize that the two scientists already had a good idea of what was going on. They just didn’t want to commit to anything until they found proof. No, that wasn’t it — he saw the tension in the two men, how Isogai’s hands trembled slightly. The goose bumps on their necks. It came to him in a flash: Chris was working so frantically because he was trying to find evidence to contradict the truth of whatever conclusion they had reached. As though to confirm Hashiba’s fears, Chris let out a cry.

“Shit. Jeff Adams has canceled a lecture at the Max Planck Institute. It was supposed to be on quantum cosmology.”

“Jeffrey too?” Isogai jumped off the table and rushed across to Chris’ side, leaning forward to read the screen. Impatient to learn more, Hashiba and the others followed and gathered around the two of them, craning to get a look at the computer.

“It’s basically unheard of for someone as stubbornly passionate about his research as Jeffrey to cancel a lecture. Especially if his talk was scheduled at the Max Planck Institute.” Isogai nodded his head, seconding Chris’ alarm.

Chris continued to type at a ridiculous pace. “It looks like he went to Frankfurt after canceling the lecture. He flew direct to Washington from there.”

“To Frankfurt, then Washington.”

“What kind of research does he do?” Hashiba cut in.

“He’s young and talented, only in his mid-thirties but already highly respected. His niche is Loop Quantum Gravity.” Isogai continued talking, but more to himself. “So that means his research is somehow related too … It must be, otherwise he would have told Washington where to go. There would have to be something in it for him, something he was hugely passionate about. Maybe something that could potentially confirm a theory of his …” Isogai seemed to be leading up to something. He turned to his lover. “Chris, didn’t Jeff present two papers in a row over the last couple of years?”

“I was just thinking the same. If I remember correctly, he published his research in Physical Review D.”

“Can you find out the titles?”

Chris was already searching for the publications and in a few moments pulled up a page that had two English titles. Hashiba leant forward to read them and saw that they had two words in common:

“Phase Transition.”

Both papers contained the term so they must have shared a common theme. Hashiba had no idea what the words meant in this context, but he had a sense that they would be key in working out the pieces of the puzzle.

Chris pulled up another couple of pages, this time from a different scientific journal, the Physical Review Letters. Isogai explained that the journal published summaries of new papers. The hope was that Jeffrey’s research would be available here in digest format. Having pulled up the content of the papers, Chris stopped typing and took his glasses off. He leant forward and made to read the small text on the screen. As though forcing himself to concentrate, he blinked rapidly for the thirty seconds it took him to read the document. All the while, a look of astonishment crept across his features. Isogai stood next to him, his face pale and tilted to one side. Color drained away from his face as he absorbed the content.

Finally, Chris closed his eyes. He sat back and clasped his hands together as though in prayer. Then he pulled Isogai closer and buried his head against the other man’s chest. His shoulders were trembling; after a while it became evident that he was crying. The sound of his sobbing filled the room. Kato and Hosokawa looked somehow offended by the sight of a grown man crying. Kagayama sat staring at his hands. The two scientists must have simultaneously come to the same conclusion, their two minds working as one.

Hashiba considered what he already knew: the mysterious disappearances of both people and matter near tectonic fault lines on days when high sunspot activity had been recorded. Astonishingly, the same phenomenon seemed to be eroding the stars of the Milky Way. Irregularities had appeared in the fields of physics and mathematics. And now Isogai and Chris may have succeeded in pinning down the cause of all of this.

“It’s some alien race attacking us with some unknown weapon, I tell you,” Kagayama blurted out yet another UFO theory. He sounded feverish.

Hashiba was about to respond but Isogai beat him to the punch. “Enough of that. UFOs and aliens don’t exist; they’re just figments of our imagination. However, we might end up wishing that Kagayama was right. Compared to what we’re facing, an alien invasion or meteor collision would be nothing. It’s hard to explain the potential impact of what might happen to us, to the solar system — maybe to the whole universe. Right now, I wish it was just an alien invasion.” As he spoke, Isogai continued to comfort Chris, holding his left hand over his shoulders, stroking his hair with his right.

Hashiba took a deep breath, readying himself for the answer. “Tell us, Isogai. What’s going on?”

Isogai was about to answer Hashiba’s question but suddenly leant over the keyboard and tapped a few keys. “Hang on, a new email just came in … It’s from Cyril Burt in the U.S.” Isogai enlarged the window to fill the screen. The email contained just a line of text, simple and to the point, an instruction to everyone in the room:

“Turn on the TV right now.”

Handily deciphering this one, Hashiba asked Hosokawa to do so. The cameraman leaned across and clicked the TV on. It was just after 8 o’clock, prime time. A young comedian appeared on the screen, presenting some kind of variety show, and the studio audience was in stitches at his routine. The sound of laughter flowing into the room seemed disconnected and echoed in stark contrast to the tense atmosphere of the hotel room. If anything, the laughter only served to worsen the tension. Hashiba reflected on his earlier conviction that numbers had no tangible effect on the real world. If anything the jokes on the TV seemed worse than ever — maybe that was the effect.

Hosokawa picked up the remote and started flicking through channels, hoping to find the broadcast that Cyril wanted them to see. He flicked onto a news channel, and the room fell silent. The sound of helicopters blared into the room through the speakers. A female Japanese reporter shouted excitedly over the noise. The image on the screen was of darkening twilight, and it was almost impossible to make out any detail. The reporter’s voice outlined the source of the commotion:

It’s past 3 a.m. local time here in California. I don’t know if you can see this … this gigantic tear in the earth … It seems to stretch all the way from Bakersfield in the northwest close to just south of San Francisco. The chasm appeared here in what was just desert until yesterday. The absolute quiet with which it appeared suggests the workings of a power beyond human knowledge.

Aerial searchlights flicked back and forth across the screen, conveying images of the scene through the TV set. A number of media-chartered helicopters seemed to be converging around the space, pitching a kinetic aura of artificial light against the almost vertical wall of the chasm. The reporter continued to convey details over the noise:

The chasm is thought to be 300 meters wide and 2,000 meters deep. Its length stretches for almost 450 kilometers. This is not the result of tectonic activity. I repeat, there were no reports of tectonic activity around the Los Angeles area at the time the chasm is believed to have appeared.

I don’t know how to describe it. It looks as though the earth has just disappeared, leaving nothing but an empty V-shaped chasm.

We have word that the chasm is continuing to grow in length. If it continues to grow in its current direction it is likely to cut directly through San Francisco …

Hashiba was completely absorbed in the images on the screen. Something on this scale would be on every station, news or otherwise, as soon as word got out. Just like after 9/11, the footage would be played over and over, all night through until the next morning. This was no everyday news. A chasm stretching 450 kilometers had just appeared overnight in California. And it was growing in size.

As the helicopters circled northwards their searchlights picked out a tributary of the Salinas River. It had been torn in half and water gushed downwards where the river wall met the chasm. As soon as the water touched the face of the chasm it was sucked into nothingness; the sheer walls were as dry as bone. The water at the edge of the river reflected the light from the helicopters, flashing like diamonds in the darkness. All along the rim on either side, miniature avalanches of loose earth tumbled down. The sight reminded Hashiba of the crater at the herb gardens. The only difference was the shape — the crater had been circular, like an inverted anthill.

The reporter seemed to have come across the perfect word to describe the chasm:

It’s as though a sharp blade has cut into the earth itself, leaving nothing but this … edge. An edge cut into the earth.

One of the spotlights landed on a car speeding towards the threshold of the edge. The screeching of brakes sounded but the car failed to stop. Everyone watched, completely dumbstruck as the car flew over the edge and plummeted into the dark void. The reporter’s scream carried over the commotion as one of the cameras hung over the spot where the vehicle had fallen. The news of the chasm’s appearance had obviously not reached everyone. As they watched, car after car went over the edge, accompanied by more screaming. One of the helicopters circled over to where the road met the chasm and directed its powerful lights to warn approaching drivers of the danger ahead.

It would probably be some time before the police arrived to cordon off the area and close the road. Hashiba stood, unable to process the information. The chasm had appeared along the San Andreas Fault. Even now Saeko was headed towards Ina, right on top of the Itoikawa-Shizuoka Tectonic Line. Considering the hour, Hashiba realized that she actually might have already arrived at the Fujimura residence.

Hashiba did not care whether the giant chasm on the TV was the product of a shift in mathematical equations or not. The meaning of the words “phase transition” was tabled. Faced with such an overwhelming disaster, it was clear at last that the script for tomorrow’s filming was no longer relevant. Everyone in the room knew it. They could no longer take for granted that the world would still be here tomorrow.