Domesday

by Kei Urahama

  “Tomorrow.” His son said only this one word.

  “That’s… quite sudden.”

  “I told you before that I wanted to do this.” Ohizumi sensed his son’s anger.

  “Okay then. If that’s what you’ve decided…”

  As he spoke, Ohizumi was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth. If Yuko were here, she would object for sure. He thought this, but also that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea for Yuji to leave the apartment building and move to the Orion Garden. It was closer to the department store basement and restaurants where all the food was.

  According to Ohizumi’s calculations, there was only a week or so’s rations left, if the food and water was distributed equally. If the provisions in the building ran out then being in the Game Park would be more advantageous. Also the apartment building was facing the specter of an apocalypse cult forming above their heads. So far they had taken no kind of radical action but Ohizumi had a strong hunch that somehow the group would precipitate a major disaster sooner or later. They would invariably cause problems. Silly problems you might see while watching a B-grade disaster flick. Based on their devotion to the whole ridiculous religion mythology…

  “So I guess you have no objections then, Dad.”

  When Ohizumi raised his head to say yes, his son had already left the room.

  PART TWO

  The Chosen Ones

  (687 hours after the appearance of the Dome)

  Every event has a meaning.

  From the balcony of the thirty-first floor, Kosuke Mazaki examined the square through a telescope so tiny it could almost be called a toy. On the ground below, the youths who had brought about an accident in the pyramid square were being attacked by the reanimated corpses of suicide victims.

  The words of scripture surfaced in Mazaki’s mind.

  “…And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

  Daniel, Chapter 12, Verses 1 and 2. He often recited this section before his believers after explaining why suicide was an accursed act.

  It comes as no surprise that those who attempt to kill themselves are given a new life… Yes, but it’s a cursed life after all, in exchange for God’s temporary gift of life that was wasted. People have no right to play games with that divine gift of life. For this reason, as a true Christian, suicide is a blasphemy against God. For those who blaspheme God are shown no mercy. They are targets of hatred and shame for time without end. It is an eternal punishment. And now, those youths below who have been attacked by the cursed undead, what kind of sin have they committed exactly?

  Is it because they left the apartment that is now become a house of God’s believers? Or is it because they have attempted to move to that pleasure garden of Babylon that was once called an amusement park?

  In any case, the answer can be found in the Bible. Once I’ve seen the outcome of the commotion on the lower grounds I should immediately consult it. Then I will most definitely find a suitable verse. “Ask, and it shall be given you.” It is as certain as this Biblical verse.

  Mazaki actually didn’t know the Bible all that well. Before the “Rapture”, before the entire corner of the city had been pulled up to heaven, he had only read through the New and Old Testament once, and it was not out of faith but out of necessity.

  Many of the building residents thought of him as a religious fanatic. For Mazaki, the extent to which they were wrong was the biggest joke of all. Mazaki had never thought himself a “believer” in anything since the day he was born.

  He would often literally interpret the words of the Bible just as the ignorant American Bible thumpers did, but he couldn’t have anything less in common with such boorish fundamentalists. Of course that was a truth that his followers needn’t worry themselves with.

  Mazaki was now forty-two years old. He had been in the ‘industry’ since his early twenties. He started as a consultant in a pyramid scheme selling multifarious faith-based inspirational products for members of faiths ranging from Tantric Buddhism to conventional Buddhism and Christianity–basically good-luck charms and the like. Then he’d moved on to become a member of more than thirty different New Age groups, although not even once was he actually a true ‘believer’ in any. He’d always approached them as a businessman rather than an adherent.

  Since starting in the industry, he’d been careful to observe three rules of his own devising. These three rules were his only true faith and formed the foundation for his success.

  Number One: Never have complete conviction in the doctrine, which is to say never put yourself in the position of a believer.

  Two: Never directly get your hands dirty, which is to say never get involved in recruiting followers or in the direct indoctrination of followers. Be an executive, but remain behind the scenes, unexposed.

  Three: Always have an exit strategy, which is to say always be prepared to run if things get dicey with the organization. If it goes south, then abandon ship and prepare for the next project with as little hassle as possible.

  Only by strictly adhering to these three commandments had he been able to amass enormous wealth.

  Having said this, Mazaki had broken the rules at one point.

  Five years prior, when hired as a management consultant for a seminar on self-improvement, the temptation had been too much. Watching the participants of the seminar being so easily ‘reformed’ by simple brainwashing techniques, he couldn’t resist trying it out for himself.

  In this way he broke the second rule of not getting involved in directly indoctrinating believers and also the first rule of never believing in the doctrine itself.

  Mazaki never trusted the discipline of psychology much. In particular, he thought of psychoanalysis less as a science and more a religion. Yet he felt the one great contribution of twentieth-century psychology was the development of mind-control techniques.

  He believed that brainwashing was an appliance. What he meant by ‘appliance’ was that regardless of whether someone has used it against another or not, it would still provide an equivalent effect.

  For example a gun is an appliance. Whether it is a five-year-old child or an old man over ninety, a gun brings to that person the same effect by pulling the trigger at close range. No matter who pulls the trigger, the capacity for killing is the same.

  But those who are ignorant can’t see through to the fact that it is just an appliance. Like the tales of the savage natives who, in confusion, worship as gods the white invaders who operate guns. The ignorant assume that the power of the appliances lie with the people who wield them. The person who uses brainwashing techniques learned from a manual is like the armed invader who enjoys power over less sophisticated natives.

  Within one short month Mazaki had garnered a harem of women who would do whatever he asked. There were dozens of them who worshiped him and willingly had sex with him. Although originally he’d never suffered from a shortage of female attention, he found it was something entirely different to be worshiped.

  In a sense he had become infatuated with his own power over the fairer sex. Due to the constant bother brought about by their jealous rivalries, he remained distracted and occupied for about a year until he realized he’d been breaking his own rules, putting himself in harm’s way. It was a rare miscalculation on Mazaki’s part, but he wasn’t yet aware that this breach would lead to personal catastrophe in the future.

  At a time when successful companies still misunderstood it, it had been incredibly lucrative as they compelled all their employees to attend brainwashing seminars. Later on, sales declined. The ‘appliance’ of mind-control has one terribly pernicious flaw. The effect doesn’t last. In order to stay effective there must be repeated exposure combined with an element of isolation or limited contact with the outside world.

  Developed countries such as the Unite
d Stated first discovered this aspect of the appliance and about a decade later, Japanese companies picked up on it as well. At first the large corporations thought this appliance would help to revive their workers from the post-bubble recession. But Mazaki already knew by then it was high time to give up on that type of business. His initial plan had been to disappear as usual, like a pirate who’d boarded a foundering ship, grabbing all the best treasure then making a hasty escape.

  In fact his plan had already been in place. One of the American trainers he’d met at the seminar also happened to be a fundamentalist Christian. Mazaki kept a close eye on him.

  American evangelical Christians represented a booming new economy and also an easy target. Using the young trainer as a mediator, he’d secretly contacted organizations in the American Midwest. Soon it would be time to jump ship and embark into this new developing market. He had sufficient funds for it as well. He’d opted to tarry a bit too long in the seminar industry but still wagered he had a bit of time to make the necessary move. Or at least he’d over-optimistically thought so at the time. Mazaki embarked on the next project by first abruptly breaking it off with the women and the seminars.

  It has often been said that Japanese as a people are not accustomed to Christianity. Religious ‘consultants’ in the same business as himself warned against making such a move.

  Comparing various countries’ rates of religious growth via missionaries, neighboring South Korea boasted forty percent of its population converting to Christianity, whereas Japan had less than one percent. There were many reasons for this, according to Mazaki’s own analysis, the foremost being that Japanese as a whole particularly dislike strict precepts of abstinence.

  Even the institution of Buddhism, whose monks originally observed strict laws of chastity, morphed in Japan to allow the clergy to openly break without consequence mandates of sexual abstinence. If good people can be born in a pure land, how much more so could evil people be. In Japan the road to heaven is open to most any villain. To get there all that’s necessary is to chant, “Namu Amida Butsu”, a Buddhist mantra meaning “Lord have mercy upon me”.

  Historically, the Buddhist interdiction against fornication was broken with a bizarre justification. Eight hundred years in the past, a young monk named Shinran, who had suffered as a result of his interactions with women, saw an oracle in a dream while he was interned in a temple. The oracle, named Quan-yin, told Shinran that even if he slept with an unholy woman, Quan-yin would assume the sin and lead Shinran to heaven at his death regardless. In other words, no matter how many women Shinran violated, because Quan-yin would become the scapegoat, it didn’t constitute a sin of fornication–such a remarkably kind and gracious divine message!

  Thanks to that dream, Japanese Buddhist monks can get married freely and a hereditary tradition of monks begetting monks is also approved.

  So why hadn’t Christianity been similarly altered to suit Japanese tastes like Buddhism?

  Mazaki thought this was because of the presence of a Bible that is particularly hard to revise or add to so many years after it was written down. Buddhism doesn’t have core scripture per se, and thus there is room to advance new interpretations or teachings.

  Of course Christians themselves have been justifying the breaking of precepts for quite some time as well. The Old Testament commandment of ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and the teaching of Jesus to ‘Love thine enemy’ have been openly broken for a variety of reasons. Yet even though distortions can be justified, it’s still the text of the Bible which remains the point of differentiation from Buddhism.

  In the Old Testament, those hostile to God or His chosen ones are supposed to be forgiven no matter how enormous their brutality. In the New Testament this doesn’t change much. Reference to the severity of God’s punishment toward pagans is reserved for the Book of Revelations for the most part.

  Because of the description of the Apocalypse, during the Crusades or periods of witch hunts, Christians were able to massacre hundreds of thousands of a town’s inhabitants without worry as long as they were deemed pagans or witches. Dropping two atomic bombs on Japan was also justifiable for Christians for prophecy’s sake to end Revelation’s war. In other words, Armageddon.

  The American evangelical who Mazaki contacted was a fervent believer in Armageddon. His group was waiting for the arrival of Biblical Armageddon fervently. If it didn’t come, then Christ wouldn’t come either, and hence there would be no heaven on earth.

  All his brethren who were brokers or consultants for religious groups were all opposed to Mazaki’s plans. The Aum cult’s Armageddon gambit was still fresh in Japanese minds, so resistance against new religions and cults was quite strong at the time. Even if the Nostradamus prophecies of seven months in 1999 hadn’t created the confusion that some critics predicted, those who had gone along with such predictions would still have been searching for any excuse for them yet to come true. The final few years of the 1990’s did see one tragic incident after another on a world scale, and they were unlike any other period of the century. Yet numbed by the barrage of media reports, people became desensitized to such staggering events and nothing seemed monumental enough to call ‘The Armageddon’. Blind to the very real Armageddon around them, people rang in the year 2000 with a slight degree of disappointment. This was why Mazaki saw this particular period as opportune. Indeed, a general sense of disillusionment is great fuel for people’s nihilist tendencies.

  For example, look at the rapid rise of Christian fundamentalism in America after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As soon as people found the threat of communist aggression and annihilation via nuclear war to have abated, the forces of religion seeking ruination actually accelerated and expanded, growing to penetrate the heart of the U.S. government as well. The fact is, people become more frustrated when a much-feared crisis of catastrophic proportions doesn’t come to pass. They actually fall into a terrible depression after their excited anticipation of an end to their known world is replaced by something new. The crisis of the depletion of the ozone layer, the proliferation of virus-related plagues, the threat of toxic chemicals affecting genetics… In fact, a new crisis is unveiled every minute.

  Just as in post bubble-era Japan, Mazaki observed a vague sense of disappointment or frustration occurring on a mass scale. Japanese have a strong passion for ruination themes in their animation and dramatic films and are even avid enthusiasts of Nostradamus. There was, after all, still fertile spiritual soil in which to cultivate what Mazaki called an ‘Armageddon Industry’. Also, the resurgence of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. was an unexplored resource that no one else wanted to tap into. Mazaki saw great potential to be exploited over the long term.

  After preliminary investigation and one year’s preparation, Mazaki went to the United States and started negotiations with an evangelical group. Their charismatic leader was a rising Christian media sensation, good-looking and in his thirties. He even had a few rock groups dedicated to him at the time.

  Initially the young gentleman seemed more interested in having missionaries in China rather than Japan, so negotiations were more difficult than expected. Mazaki reasoned with him that Japan was on the eve of digitizing all television broadcasts with no software requirements, and so there was a thin window of opportunity to enter into this new Japanese media. Yet the leader was not interested.

  The world, however, had successfully made it through the millennium, and relations between the U.S. and China deteriorated. This worked in favor of Mazaki’s negotiations. The reason the end of the world hadn’t come was that the Gospel of Christ had not been transmitted to the Far East yet. With this logic Mazaki won him over.

  Of course he had to promise to convert to Christianity. Unlike Japan, the United States did not allow an ambiguous stance. Mazaki did not hesitate for one moment and embraced the conversion ritual. It had been included in the terms of the contract.

  The terrorist attacks occurred on September eleventh, and two days
later he became a Christian.

  In subsequent years the organization Mazaki had targeted grew quite rapidly as a money tree. The number of believers increased exponentially.

  Mazaki was given the title of ‘prophet’ after earning the leader’s respect through gathering hordes of believers along with their money. Ten years passed in America before he decided to make a triumphant return to his homeland Japan with a large sum of investment wealth.

  Yet, what awaited him upon return was not the spark of joyous reunion but the flashbulbs of a malicious media. The seminar organization he’d been affiliated with was now engulfed in scandal. In this regard his instinct to quit that group early had been correct.

  Unfortunately for Mazaki, some of his jilted lovers were among the accusing claimants.

  Thus began the worst trial of the man’s life. The person who had been the actual seminar guru had flown the coop, far beyond the reach of police and media. The new target for bashing became Mazaki himself. As his past was inexorably revealed, the mass media stoked the flames of hatred amongst those who had been victimized in the name of spiritualism by ‘consultants’ such as him. Even those in the same business who had once been his friends now teamed up with the media as informants, and on national television they exposed a number of his past misdeeds. While they hid their faces behind blurry mosaics, Mazaki was identified by name from the very moment the prosecution made their accusations.

  Fortunately the expensive apartment Mazaki had purchased was strongly secured against the rabid media assault, and reporters were unable to camp outside his doorway or incessantly ring his doorbell as they would have elsewhere. Instead, the building’s management association, hearing of the scandal in the press, made repeated visits to his door lobbying for him to willingly move out of his new home. Worst of all, the news of his scandal quickly reached the shores of America. Of course they were furious.

  Mazaki, who’d always managed to slip from hell’s clutches, realized this time he wouldn’t be so lucky. He would most certainly face social and financial ruin.