by Kōji Suzuki
On the basis of what the cab driver had told him, Asakawa had started looking into sudden deaths. He soon uncovered the fact that along with the motorcyclist, three other young people had died at the exact same time, with exactly the same symptoms, but in different places. One was Asakawa's own niece. His curiosity was aroused. All four deaths had been recorded as the result of sudden heart failure, but his reporter's instinct detected something untoward going on. Given the utter improbability of four kids dying of the same thing at exactly the same time, he felt there had to be a more convincing explanation.
He'd decided to look for commonalities between the four dead kids. It turned out that they were friends, and that exactly a week before their deaths they had been staying in a rented cabin in the mountains. Asakawa decided to check the place out: he departed immediately for the site, a members-only mountain resort, guessing that whatever had caused their deaths, they'd picked it up there.
Evidently Asakawa had initially suspected a virus. He thought they might have all contracted the same illness at the cabin, and thereby been scheduled for the baptism of death a week later.
But to his surprise, what Asakawa had discovered in the cabin was a videotape.
At that point, Takayama broke in and said, "First why don't you let me have a look at that video."
Asakawa looked to be stifling his irritation. "I told you, if you watch it your life might be in danger."
Takayama took another piece of ice from his glass, put it in his mouth, and bumped it around a bit. Asakawa seemed to think he was being mocked.
But in the end, mortal danger or no, nothing was going to get done if he didn't see the video. Takayama decided to go to Asakawa's place and watch the video he'd brought home from the mountains.
Takayama sat in Asakawa's living room, eyes glued to the TV screen. Through his eyesight, the images on the tape found their way into Kaoru's brain. The images were chaotic and fragmentary. The tape started with an erupting volcano. Next up was a newborn infant's face in close-up. The sequence was fragmentary, and shifted quickly from one image to the next, but each scene left a strangely vivid impression, underlain by a baby's cries and other sounds.
The images were neither computer graphics nor the result of filming with a television camera. They were made some other way. One might think of them as shots of another, lower virtual world created by some sentient being within the Loop.
At length there appeared the face of an unknown man, shot from beneath at close range. A close-up of his shoulder showed blood streaming from it. His face was twisted in pain. He went away, and when he came back his face was transformed: the rage was gone, replaced by mingled fear and resignation.
The field of vision narrowed, until it was just a small round patch of sky, through which fist-sized black clumps were falling. They landed on something with a dull thud. Kaoru's body registered unexpected pain.
What's going on? he muttered.
No answer was forthcoming. The field of vision narrowed further, until it was perfectly dark.
As the tape came to an end, writing flashed across the screen. It looked like it had been written with brush and ink, but poorly: the characters were all of different sizes. This was what it said:
Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now. If you do not wish to die, you must follow these instructions exactly. ..
Then the screen switched to something completely different, bright images and voices. Fireworks on a riverbank, people in light cotton robes enjoying a summer's evening. The dark, creepy visions had been cut off, replaced by a healthful mundaneness.
A few seconds after that, the images stopped entirely.
Kaoru and Takayama looked up from their respective displays at the same time.
Boiled down, one thing became clear.
Those four dead kids had to have all watched this video. And a week later they were all dead, just like the video warns. So there's a video that kills people a week after they watch it, and the instructions for averting death have been erased. There was no saving those kids.
After watching that video in the cabin, Asakawa had been shaken, and now he was despairing, but Takayama was neither. He couldn't be happier than to be involved in this game, this death-wager. He was whistling a happy tune. Kaoru began to realize what a stout-hearted subject he'd locked onto.
He tried to take a step back from Takayama's consciousness so he could analyze things a little more rationally.
Common sense said it was impossible for an intra-Loop life form to construct a videotape that killed anyone who watched it a week later. Of course, it was possible to introduce something from the real world into the Loop that took that form-a computer virus, for example. That would explain everything.
Kaoru put his own doubts on hold again to rejoin the bold and fearless Takayama.
Takayama had Asakawa make him a copy of the tape so they could each apply their intellect to analyzing it.
It wasn't long before Takayama was informed that Asakawa's wife and daughter had watched the videotape, which had been carelessly left for them to find. So now Asakawa was driven by the need to save not only his own life, but those of his family.
Takayama began by trying to figure out how the images on the tape had been filmed. His research and guesswork led him to an unexpected conclusion.
The images on the tape had not been created mechanically, by a television camera or any similar device. Instead, the individual responsible had utilized his or her own psychological power to project them directly onto the videotape. Psychic photography, "thoughtography". Psychic power had imprinted those images onto a blank tape that had been left in the VCR by pure chance.
The Loop was a closed world. Going strictly by the physical laws that obtained there, such a thing was not possible. That wasn't the way the set-up worked.
Kaoru began to feel as if he were watching a movie-a well-made one, to be sure, but based on some pretty juvenile premises.
The two men investigated the identity of their paranormal thought-projector making full use of the information networks at their disposal. Finally, they settled on a name.
Sadako Yamamura.
At that point, based on what they knew, it was definite that the individual in question was female. They visited the island that had been her home, gathering as much data about her as they could.
What they learned as a result was that this Yamamura possessed power that far exceeded what was thought realistic. They ascertained her movements from birth through her graduation from high school and her move to the metropolis. But then Sadako Yamamura seemed to disappear some twenty-odd years ago, Loop time.
It was time for a new perspective. They decided to shift the focus of their inquiry to the question of why those images had appeared on that video, in that mountain cabin.
Takayama and Asakawa decided to go back to the cabin, but on the way they took the opportunity of meeting someone. They had discovered that before the resort was built the land was occupied by a treatment facility for a certain viral illness, and that a physician who had worked there was now in private practice nearby.
They called on him, and when they saw his face, Kaoru himself gasped. It was the man from the final scene of the video, the man with the bleeding shoulder, the man with the expression of terror and resignation.
Unable to withstand Takayama's interrogation, the doctor confessed to having killed Sadako Yamamura twenty-some years previously, and to dumping her body into a well. These days, they suspected, the cabin in question stood atop that well. So Sadako Yamamura, supposedly twenty years dead at the bottom of a well, had projected her rage and resentment straight upward, imprinting those mysterious images on a videotape inside the VCR inside the rental cabin. And it turned out that the woman Sadako Yamamura, in actuality, had possessed physical characteristics of both sexes.
Takayama elected that they crawl beneath the cabin's floor, remove the well cap, enter the shaft, and loo
k for her remains. The idea was to give her rest, in the hopes that it would release them from the curse on the videotape.
In Loop time, exactly a week had passed. Asakawa was still alive. The riddle had been solved. Asakawa fainted with relief.
But it wasn't over yet. The following day, as Takayama's own deadline came, he began to experience inexplicable heart failure. It appeared therefore that exhuming Yamamura's bones and putting her to rest was not what the videotape was after.
Just before Takayama's death, Kaoru unhesitatingly switched subjects, locking onto Asakawa instead. Death, even in the virtual world, was a draining experience, one that he'd rather avoid if he could.
The news of Takayama's death plunged Asakawa back into worry. They hadn't figured out the mystery of the videotape after all.
Why was Asakawa still alive? There could only be one reason. Sometime over the course of the past week he must have fulfilled the video's wishes, unbeknownst to himself. It was something he had done that Takayama hadn't. But what? Asakawa racked his brain. He'd been spared, but unless he could solve the riddle, his wife and daughter would die. What did the tape want?
At that point, Asakawa received an inspiration.
A virus lives to reproduce itself.
He'd stumbled onto it. The videotape was behaving like a virus. What it wanted was to reproduce. He'd had to make a copy of the tape, show it to someone who hadn't seen it, and thereby help it to increase in number. It all made sense. Asakawa had made a copy of the tape for Takayama. But Takayama hadn't made a copy for anyone.
Arriving at his conclusion, Asakawa grabbed his VCR, jumped into his car, and sped off for his wife's parents' house. His plan was to make copies of the tape, show them to her parents, and save his wife and his daughter.
The dubbing and playback went off safely, but a trial that would prove too much for Asakawa awaited him on the drive back home.
He was about to leave the expressway ramp when he looked in his rear-view mirror to see his wife and daughter collapsed on the back seat. "We'll be home soon," he said. He released one hand from the steering wheel and reached into the back seat to touch them. They were cold. Wife and daughter had both died of sudden heart failure at the appointed time. Even making copies of the tape hadn't dispelled the curse.
In despair and grief, Asakawa forgot himself. Confused, he failed to notice the stopped traffic ahead of him: he rammed the car into it head-on.
As the shock passed through his body, in the instant that he lost consciousness, he was asking himself: Why are they dead? Why am I alive?
The twinned shocks damaged Asakawa's body and mind beyond hope of recovery.
8
Asakawa's eyes were open. His gaze was mobile, describing a slow circle around a point on the ceiling. Images passed from his retina to his brain, but he wasn't actively seeing. He was simply moving his eyeballs passively, randomly.
But even through those unwilled eye movements, Kaoru was able to guess at where Asakawa was now. The white curtain separating his bed from the next, the gleaming I.V. stand-the whole scene brought back painful, yet sweet memories for Kaoru. He was recalling the setting of his passionate exchanges with Reiko. Asakawa was in a hospital bed.
He must have been transported there right after the collision on the expressway. He must have been unconscious most of the time since: the display had been dark for long periods. Asakawa's retinas were covered in blackness most of the time, but occasionally, like now, he'd open his eyes and gaze vaguely around.
Through Asakawa's eyes Kaoru registered the faces of two men. One he'd seen hazily several times. From the white coat he wore it was likely that he was the physician attending Asakawa. The other face was new to him.
This second man came closer and peered into Asakawa's face.
"Mr Asakawa," the man said, placing a hand on Asakawa's shoulder.
Most likely he was looking for some sort of reaction to the tactile sensation, but it was no use. Asakawa was wandering in a pit so deep not even Kaoru's consciousness could reach him; no touch on the shoulder was going to rouse him from this.
The man moved away from Asakawa's bedside and asked the doctor, "Has he been like this the whole time?"
"Yes." The doctor and the other man exchanged a few more words. From what they said it was evident that the other man had a great deal of medical knowledge, too. Maybe he was a doctor also.
The man bent over again, peering into Asakawa's face. In an emotion-filled voice he spoke again. "Mr Asakawa." His eyes were filled with the charity of one who has undergone the same experience and can sympathize.
"I don't think he can hear you," the doctor said flatly.
The man gave up, leaving the bedside. "I'd like to ask you to notify me if there's any change in his condition." Kaoru found the man's expression interesting as he said this. He seemed particularly concerned about Asakawa.
He'd learn nothing more locked onto Asakawa's point of view. As long as he lay in bed in this in-between state, Kaoru's chances of being able to gather information were all but nil.
It's about time to choose someone new to lock onto.
Something told him that the man with the charitable gaze was the best candidate. He'd never seen his face before, but still he felt an inexplicable closeness to the man. Plus, his conversation with the doctor had showed him to be deeply involved with the case.
Kaoru typed some commands and de-assimilated his sense perceptions from Asakawa's, instead locking onto those of the visitor as he walked out of the sickroom. From that moment Kaoru was no longer bound into Asakawa's mind: instead, he was privy to the sights seen and sounds heard by his new subject, Mitsuo Ando. But there was no ease in Ando's heart, either. Kaoru looked to be in for more vicarious suffering. He sighed inwardly. He'd had enough of loved ones dying on him.
* * *
It wasn't long before Kaoru realized he'd chosen the right subject to lock onto.
Ando was the doctor who'd autopsied Takayama, and, just as Kaoru had suspected, he was deeply entangled in the affair of the videotape. He belonged to the forensic medicine department of a university hospital, and together with a pathologist friend he was determined to get to the bottom of things.
As far as they'd been able to ascertain, the number of people who'd died after watching the video was seven. In addition to the original four young people the total now included Ryuji Takayama and Asakawa's wife and daughter.
In each body they'd detected the presence of a new kind of virus. Ando was quite surprised when his friend told him about the virus; so was Kaoru. He was certain this virus was related to the one ravaging the real world.
Kaoru grabbed a nearby memo pad and started taking notes.
Need to analyze DNA of virus in Loop.
It was too much to hope that it might be the same sequence, but there could be similarities. It should be relatively simple to analyze the genetic information of a virus in the Loop world.
The world as seen through Ando's eyes was one of unrelieved misery. Kaoru didn't know why, whether it was simply due to Ando's personality, or whether there was another reason. Sometimes without warning his retinas would cloud over with tears. No, there must be some deep-seated cause, some incident in the man's past that had brought this sadness. Kaoru caught glimpses of it in Ando's present solitary life.
He was interested enough in the nature of the man's grief to want to search through his past, but there was no time for that now. Ando had just learned of the disappearance of a young woman he cared about, and he was searching for her.
The woman who'd disappeared was Mai Takano, a student of Takayama's. She lived alone in a studio apartment. He'd been unable to make contact with her for the past week.
She'd been connected to both Takayama and Asakawa, and now Ando suspected that something bad had happened to her, too. He decided to visit her apartment-there was always the possibility that she too was infected with the new virus.
Her apartment was empty. But the video, the
one that killed its viewers in a week's time, was in her VCR. She'd evidently watched it. And all but a few seconds of it had been erased.
Ando wasn't sure how to interpret these findings. If she'd watched the video, there was no hope for her. She was probably already dead somewhere. It was just that her body hadn't been found yet.
So far the only person who'd seen the video and survived was Asakawa. He'd been spared because he made a copy of the tape. But his wife and daughter had died even though they'd made copies. Just what did the video want? It seemed utterly arbitrary about who it killed and who it let live. If there was a logical thread, it had yet to be found.
As he went to leave Mai Takano's apartment, Ando sensed the presence of a being he'd never encountered before. Something small and slippery that laughed like a girl.
Kaoru could feel it too, as he sat glued to the display. Something touched his ankles-he could feel something slimy against his Achilles tendons.
Impelled by fear, Ando opened the front door.
Something's here.
He felt sure of it as he stumbled out of the room.
Meanwhile, at the university, the work of analyzing the virus proceeded apace.
Ando was contacted by a newspaper reporter. He consented to meet because the man said he was a colleague of Asakawa's.
The reporter informed him of the existence of a floppy disk that contained an outline of the events of the case, written by Asakawa himself.
Ando had an idea of where the disk might be, and he managed to get his hands on it. There had been a word processor in Asakawa's car at the time of the accident. Asakawa's brother had it now. The disk was still in the word processor.
Ando opened the files on the disk and started reading. The document was entitled Ring, and it was well organized. Kaoru was already familiar with the events it recorded; its account matched up well with what he'd experienced through Takayama's and Asakawa's eyes and ears.