by Kōji Suzuki
“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.
6After 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 si
mple, 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.