by Kōji Suzuki
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.
4It 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 sq
uirmed 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 stunni
ng 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.
5Saeko 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.