by Kōji Suzuki
The house was the last on the hill. Saeko looked down at the nearest house below, slightly off to the side. Slivers of light leaked through the curtains, forming faint white pools on the hillside, but there were no other visible signs of life. Still, she found that she could make her way without a flashlight. There was a strange quality to the darkness around the house, not like dawn or dusk—a faint light with a bluish tinge. Saeko craned her neck back to look up at the sky between a gap in the trees at the bottom of the driveway, trying to discern the source as she began making her way up to the house.
The glow seemed to be coming from two wispy bands in the sky, one white and reflecting off the clouds, the other greenish and coming from a different direction, crossing low in the sky. Unlike the aurora-like phenomenon at Atami, this green light was folded and flowed downwards in curtains. In the spaces between the clouds Saeko could make out a number of stars, and below them, the silhouettes of branches moving in the wind, hanging low enough to almost brush against her hair. Saeko could only see a narrow portion of the sky above, but she got the feeling that there were fewer stars than she remembered seeing in the past. She was sure the impression was not simply due to the bands of light in the sky. Somehow, it really looked as though there were fewer stars.
She looked back down the hill, towards Lake Miwa beyond. The twinned reflections of the aurora and the stars flowed together, creating an image of a whole new, separate universe. She looked back at the house looming dark before her. In the past, Seiji had come to air the place every now and again; now, having lost its caretaker, it was all but abandoned.
Saeko pulled out the key that Seiji had given her and opened the front door lock. She stepped across the threshold and ran her hand across the left-side wall, feeling for the light switch. She was relieved to find it quickly, and when she flicked it, a dry, brittle sound reverberated through the corridor as the lights came on. Saeko scrunched her nose up against the smell of the place. It was unpleasant but different from the pungent odor that had greeted her the last time she visited. She guessed that the dryness of the season had helped clear the musty smell. Any food left would have long decomposed, too. The smell was less intense, whatever it was.
She closed the door behind her and sat down to take her boots off before stepping up from the entryway. Her fingers felt oddly numb, making the process take longer than usual. The whole time, Saeko couldn’t shake the feeling that something was there with her. Her spine tingled at the feeling, her senses heightened by the fact that she had her back turned to whatever it was she felt, out of sight.
Something was wrong. The smell that had been so distinct when she came in had changed. It seemed as if it originated in a certain place, weakening as it spread through the rest of the house. It was as though she could trace its path to its origin.
The area immediately behind the door consisted of an open square of concrete in the traditional style, a place to take off your shoes before stepping up onto the flooring. A wooden shoebox lay to the side, under which sat a couple of pairs of identical sandals. Saeko had noticed that things tended to come in pairs in this house, although she wasn’t sure why that should be the case. She looked at the four sandals, lined up next to each other, and noticed another pair of sandals nestled up behind them, hidden away. It sat by itself, a couple of sizes larger than the rest. Saeko scrunched up her nose, realizing that it was the source of the smell that had been bothering her. The pungent smell hinted that they had been recently used. The smell of sweat was out of place in this house where all signs of life had dried up. It had been empty for almost a year now.
Saeko froze halfway through the process of taking her boots off. She felt her pores open, like sensors striving to search out any irregularities in the air.
When she was a kid, Saeko had loved staying over at her grandparents’ old house in Atami. The one thing she’d hated about it, though, was the toilet, an outhouse built separately from the main building. She remembered the fear she’d felt in the middle of the night when she’d had to go out there by herself. The toilet itself was the traditional kind, a porcelain fixture in the floor that you squatted over. As she crouched to do her business, Saeko’s imagination would take over, blowing her fears out of all proportion until she became sure that she was surrounded by a motley crew of spirits and ghosts waiting outside for her to come out. The wind would blow in through cracks in the wood, brushing against her skin, further stimulating her imagination. Her mind would forge images for each of the spirits. Eventually, she would pluck up enough courage to open the door and peek out, knowing that she couldn’t just stay in the outhouse all night. Of course, there were never any ghosts awaiting her.
Seated at the threshold, her back to the corridor behind her, she focused on the dark shape of her shadow thrown against the front door, illuminated by the light behind her. It was only her shadow. There were no other flickers of movement.
Saeko had finished taking her boots off but sat rooted to the spot. Her heart beat violently in her chest. She had to take control before her imagination took over like at the hospital and completely paralyzed her; that was the last thing she needed. She turned slowly to face the corridor and stepped up to the wooden floor, taking loud, deliberate steps, flipping on every light switch that she passed. Almost running now, she stumbled into the living room and switched the lights on as quickly as she could. What a contrast to when they had filmed Shigeko Torii entering the house—the cameras had followed her slowly, purposefully playing up the atmosphere of suspense. Saeko came to a standstill and tried to calm herself, taking deep breaths. She scanned the room. The open-style kitchen space, the dining table, all the kitchen utensils, and other household items were stacked neatly, functionally, on the series of shelves lined against the wall. The small aquarium sat on the sideboard. Above it, the red bandana pinned to a corkboard.
It was all as she remembered, there was no doubt about it. But Saeko was still unable to shake the feeling that something was out of place. She thought back to when she had been knocked unconscious when the earthquake had hit—a month ago now. She saw the scene unfold in slow motion, the images having been carved into her memory. One of the shelves had tipped sideways, spilling its contents down from above. It had all happened at once: the crack to her head, the crashing reverberations of sound as countless plates smashed against the floor.
The sound of crashing—that was it. Saeko remembered seeing the shattered remains of plates and cups on the floor, bits scattered everywhere. Looking around now, she saw no sign that it had ever happened. The shelves were all back in their original place, the crockery neatly stacked inside behind closed glass doors. She looked down at the floor. It was clean, probably cleaner than it had been before the earthquake.
Had Hashiba and crew cleaned up afterwards? Even if they had, everything looked just too neat, too perfect. Saeko picked up the TV remote control from the dining table and pushed the power button; she hardly realized what she was doing. She waited as the screen came on, rubbing her eyes. Her chest felt tight, her breathing labored.
Saeko stared at the images on the screen. Her eyes had gone blurry from the rubbing and the volume was too low to hear anything. It looked like something from a foreign drama—searchlights flashed up and down; a chase scene through the desert perhaps—but there didn’t seem to be any actors. She watched the searchlights drag across a barren-looking landscape. Then she saw the object of their focus: a black abyss, a huge rift in the ground. The chasm was so deep the searchlights were unable to penetrate its depths. Saeko turned up the volume on the old set and started to flick through the channels. Each and every channel was showing the same set of images. She held her breath; if all that was broadcast was news, something really huge had happened.
Saeko switched the TV back to the first channel. The viewpoint was bearing downwards, closer to the ground. The roaring of helicopter blades filled the room as the camera’s line of sight came level with the edge of the chasm. It continued to descend
until it eventually stopped, hovering just above the top. The image below the edge was pure black.
A reporter was shouting commentary over the roar of the blades:
… reporting from the desert between Route 101 and the Interstate Highway Route 5 here in California. Here, you can see the spot where the state highway linking the two routes has been ripped apart. If anyone is listening to this in their cars, please exercise caution driving. Those driving down state highway routes 58, 46, 41, 198 … The roads are now considered dangerous … Repeat, it is extremely dangerous to be on those routes …
The camera panned across the landscape, following the descriptions of the female reporter. The screen traced the line of asphalt, up to where the road met the chasm’s edge. The edge looked unnaturally straight, as though it had been cut out of the land with a sharp knife. The reporter continued:
No one knows at this point what has caused the appearance of this gigantic rift in the ground. It has been reported that it appeared yesterday, sometime between early evening and the middle of the night. The exact time of its appearance is as yet unknown. No seismic disturbances were reported around this timeframe. It is highly unlikely that this is the result of seismic activity …
Using sonar-based measurements scientists have already ascertained the rift as being up to 2 kilometers deep. It is almost impossible to convey the scale via camera. What power is capable of creating such a vast rift through the earth? Is it something beyond the boundaries of human comprehension? All that’s left is this edge. The earth that was here has just vanished without a trace. Could this be the wrath of an angry god? There’s something eerie about the silence here.
Saeko immediately recognized it as the same phenomenon she had seen earlier back in Atami; there, a crater had just appeared out of nowhere. Now the same thing was happening in California, and the only differences were the scale and the shape—a crater-like hole in Atami compared to this canyon-like chasm in America. It was as though a second Grand Canyon had just appeared overnight. Saeko suspected that the chasm was actually larger than the Grand Canyon.
She gathered her thoughts. The mechanism and its significance were the same as for the crater in Atami. The reporter could only suggest that it was something beyond human understanding, and she sounded terrified. Saeko stood, surprised at the sense of calm she now felt as she watched the chaos unfold on the screen.
2Despite having had a few drinks, Hashiba had yet to feel the effects of the alcohol. Someone had suggested having a drink and at that point everyone in the room seemed to suddenly realize just how thirsty they had become. Hosokawa had pulled a couple of bottles of beer from the fridge and poured them into glasses to hand around. Everyone downed their glass in a single draught, prompting Hosokawa to pull out another couple of bottles. The alcohol had been necessary to calm the tension in the room.
Eventually, Hashiba asked the question that hung on the minds of the rest of the film crew. “I guess you’d better let us know just what this ‘phase transition’ is.”
There was no way to decide what to do next without understanding the basics of the situation. Someone had muted the volume, but the images of the gigantic chasm continued to loom on the screen.
Isogai first translated the English phrase into Japanese for the rest of the crew. Only Hashiba and Kagayama seemed to recognize the term even in Japanese, but they too had scant idea what it meant.
“The best way to explain a phase transition is to take the example of water.” Isogai held up his glass to drink his beer but saw that it was almost empty. Instead of moving to refill it, he raised up the glass. “Let’s say this glass is full of water. Water, as we all know, is defined as being in a liquid state. If you heat it to 100 degrees centigrade, however, it boils and becomes gaseous. Conversely, if you cool it below 0 degrees, then it freezes and becomes solid. In other words, water is said to have three ‘phases’: a gaseous phase above 100 degrees, a solid phase below 0 degrees, and a liquid phase in between. That’s the basic meaning of the word. Phase transition is simply the transition from one of these phases to another.”
That was easy enough to follow. The properties of water, H2O, changed between the three phases of solid, liquid, and gas depending on the temperature of its molecules. These states were known as phases. Isogai’s appeal to everyday experience allowed Hashiba to quickly grasp the fundamental concept.
“In the same way,” Isogai continued, “the universe itself also has a phase. Our perception of space is three dimensional, and time flows in a single direction. Our universe is founded on the balance of the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. A particular set of physical constants is required to support the balance and constitutes a phase.
“However—and this is key—if the phase changes, so do the laws of physics in play. Going back to the example of water, we know that the speed that sound waves travel through it differs depending on whether it’s in its gaseous, liquid, or solid phase. The same is true for light; the angle of refraction depends on the current phase of the matter it travels through. A phase transition means a change in physical constants and a shift in the mathematical structure underpinning our world.”
Hashiba felt his body grow increasingly tense as he listened to Isogai’s explanation, immediately taking in the implications of what he was saying. If true, then the shift in mathematics—the appearance of a pattern in the value of Pi, the collapse of the Riemann hypothesis—would no doubt express itself in ways that they’d seen.
Until this point Hashiba had been willing to dismiss the idea that a shift in numbers could have tangible, real-world implications. If the irregularities they had witnessed were some sort of prologue to a phase transition … He shuddered at the idea. Hashiba had conceived of the world he inhabited in terms of gas. Fish inhabited the world of water. Worms, the solid world of earth. If such an order were to be suddenly flipped on its head … It would be as though people were suddenly cast in concrete, or shackled and dropped out at sea, left to drown. Hashiba finally came to understand why Isogai and Chris had been so agitated. He understood the fear in their eyes.
“You don’t mean to say that a phase transition is actually about to happen?”
Isogai coughed awkwardly and brought his head up to meet Hashiba’s stare. He nodded briefly. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what all this is pointing towards.”
“What’s gonna happen to us?” Kagayama and Hosokawa blurted out similar questions simultaneously, leaning forward.
“Right now there’s still a starry night out there. But even now, as we sit here talking, the stars are disappearing. So, what happens when the wave of this phase transition reaches our solar system? In a flash, we would become nothing. We will simply cease to be.”
Kagayama’s mouth hung open but no words came out. He crashed back into his chair and buried his face with his hands. Hosokawa’s expression was pained and twisted; he walked over to the window and stood looking up at the sky. Hashiba could tell from his expression that he wanted nothing more than to dismiss Isogai’s words as nonsense. It was plain that he couldn’t; the sky was already darker than before.
“Is there nothing we can do to escape the transition?” Hashiba asked, still unable to accept the truth that they faced.
“If it reaches us, then there is nothing we can do,” Isogai replied.
“Snow melts in the spring, doesn’t it? Won’t things just change back to normal?”
“Imagine being trapped in ice …”
“Can anything be worse than this?” Kato joined in, sounding disgusted.
“Listen, you’re probably all thinking of animals in water, right? Or little fish trapped in ice until the thaw comes, after which they become free again. Unfortunately, this is where the example of water no longer applies. The phase transition we’re looking at now is a completely different beast. We’re looking at the collapse of every single physical construct in the universe. Everything in the
universe. Including us. In scientific terms, what will happen is the instantaneous scattering of all matter at a quantum level. All structure as we know it will be lost. The four fundamental forces of nature and all physical constants will be transformed at the quantum level. To an observer, it would be as if everything just vanished into thin air. Think of it in terms of erasing all the data on a computer …” Isogai stopped there. He scratched his chin with his hand, looking strangely pleased with himself.
“Meaning?” Everyone in the room continued to stare at Isogai, waiting for him to continue, unwilling to accept what he was saying.
“It fits with the change in the value of Pi right? Think about it, computers record information in binary terms—huge rows of zeros and ones. The deletion of all the information on the computer’s drive would mean that these rows would be reduced to only the number zero.”
“And that’s what happened to the value of Pi?”
“That’s right. The zeros in Pi are simply a precursor to full phase transition.”
The delete button was not designed to just erase everything without warning. The signs had been there for over a year, the disappearances of people around the tectonic plates, the links to high levels of sunspot activity. These were the first opus, and now the momentum of change was stepping up a gear. The numbers of those going missing had begun to increase rapidly, and irregularities had appeared in mathematics. And now, huge swaths of land had begun to disappear. Even the stars were going out. The increase in scale and frequency of such abnormal phenomena suggested that the time for the complete deletion of the universe was getting dangerously close. Sooner or later the final curtains would come down and cast the stage into darkness.