Loop

by Kōji Suzuki

  "So let's assume that the story you just read, Kaoru, has some element of fact in it. Okay? Now the Talikeet were part of the Okewah people of western Oklahoma." She pointed with her pinky to a point on the map representing the current residence of the Talikeet tribe.

  "It says in the story that the brothers went due west from here." She began to move her finger to the left of the page, but then stopped. "Where were they heading? According to the story the hilltop they stood on was at a southern gap in a great mountain range, at the source of two rivers, one flowing to the great western sea and one flowing to the great eastern sea. Geographically, those mountains have to be the Rockies."

  She moved her finger along a north-south line, stopping at a point where the Rockies ended their long march down from Canada. The point was directly west from the Talikeet homeland, and just to the south of it stood a mountain of some twelve thousand feet. Which meant that the spot Machiko was pointing to was a huge valley supporting a bow-shaped strip of land. In the desert.

  She traced an X over the bow-shaped rise with her finger. Just to the left of that spot could be seen the thin line of the Little Colorado River, which fed into the Colorado River, which flowed into the Gulf of California-the Pacific Ocean. Just to the right of that spot could be seen the uppermost reaches of the Rio Grande, which flowed into the Gulf of Mexico-the Atlantic Ocean. The sources of these two rivers flowing into the world's two great oceans came together at this point, divided by this ridge, part of the Continental Divide.

  It was the Four Corners region, where the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado met. Site of the negative gravitational anomaly, where a longevity zone might, conjecturally, be located. Not far from the research labs at Los Alamos. Near where the deformed and swollen trees had been found. Right where Kaoru had drawn an X on his gravitational anomaly map ten years ago.

  Kaoru felt dizzy. If he stood on that hill and looked west, he'd see water bubbling up from the side of the mountain that would eventually reach the Pacific Ocean; if he looked east he'd see a similar sight. Glittering water slicing its way through a desert wasteland.

  The landscape presented itself before his mind's eye. He was standing unsteadily with one foot on either side of that ridge. He'd never been there, but from the contour lines on the map he could imagine it with clarity. But what shook him wasn't that. It was his own guesswork… The longevity zone he'd speculated about was now taking on the air of reality. Something was waiting for him there. The thought struck him with awe. Kaoru no longer cared whether the myth was just a made-up story. What was important was how much of his own hope and desire he could pack into the myth he himself was making. His father wanted it. Reiko wanted it. And now his mother did, too.

  Machiko put her hand on Kaoru's knee and spoke to him. Her voice was a whisper, but it was full of assurance.

  "You'll go there for me, won't you?"

  But there were things he still wasn't sure of.

  "You're positive this is where Franz Boer went, are you, Mom?"

  "This story, 'Watched by a Multitude of Eyes,' exists in many variations, and the one included in this book is just the most basic. In one version, it's an older brother and a younger sister who meet the Ancient One and are granted immortality. In another version, Rainier has trouble recovering from childbirth, so Talikeet visits the Ancient One and brings back spring water which heals her. Some of the stories have different titles, too. But the description of the place is always the same. Right here. This place has the power to heal illness."

  Machiko tapped the point on the map several times. "That's why Franz Boer went there."

  "That place…"

  "Kaoru, didn't you once show me a map of gravitational anomalies? You'd made a mark in the desert in Arizona or someplace. Can you show me that map again?"

  Kaoru wanted to make sure himself. He knew without looking that it was the same place, but still he wanted to check. "Wait a minute," he said, and went to his room.

  He hadn't looked at that map for years, so he imagined it would take him a long time to find it. He searched his bookshelves and desk drawers with no luck. It was just a scrap of paper-the proverbial needle in a haystack. But it wasn't a problem. All he had to do was access the same database that he had ten years ago and call up the same information.

  He turned on his computer, realizing what an old model it was now. It was on this very screen ten years earlier that the gravitational anomaly map had been displayed.

  Kaoru searched his memory for the exact paths he'd taken that night. First, he'd accessed the database on-line. But how had he searched it? First, the category: scientific and technical information. Then, gravity. Under that, gravitational anomalies. Under "area" he chose "worldwide".

  Next it asked for a date: what year's gravitational anomalies did he want? He wanted the same map he'd seen ten years before, so he searched for the appropriate year.

  Finally, a map appeared on the display. He enlarged the area he'd checked before, the North American desert.

  His jaw dropped. The contour lines showed no anomalies in that area whatsoever. Ten years ago, when he'd looked, the negative numbers had gotten larger the closer they'd gotten to that point on the map. The gravitational anomalies had zeroed in on that very spot.

  But the map before him now showed no such characteristic. His mother and father had both seen it, he was sure. All three of them had held the maps up to the living room light and seen for themselves that the low-gravity areas contained longevity zones.

  Kaoru started again, repeating the same procedure as ten years ago. He did it over and over, but each resulting map held only an unremarkable arrangement of contour lines, a meaningless array of numbers.

  He couldn't have misread the map ten years ago. That was impossible. His father's and mother's memories could not be doubted, never mind his own. Looking at that map had led his father promise them a trip to the desert. Kaoru still had the signed agreement in his desk drawer.

  So where had that information come from ten years ago?

  Kaoru got a pain behind his temples. What had his computer been connected to ten years ago? The thought made the blood rush from his head.

  He turned off the computer and closed his eyes. His long-held vague image of the longevity zone in the desert began to rise again before his eyes.

  It has to exist. I know it.

  The world's outlines were fragile: one poke and it would all crumble into nothingness. But in the face of that fragility Kaoru found assurance. If he'd been able to call up the same information he'd found ten years ago, perhaps he wouldn't have felt this way-perhaps he wouldn't have been able to make up his mind.

  He saw a bow-shaped hillock, and rivers swallowed up by the gentle rise of the land. In his imagination he could command the perspective of hawks circling overhead. The deep-carved valleys, the cool green of the trees cradled within them. Maybe the Ancient One still kept watch over the world, flanked by springs that fed into the Pacific and the Atlantic, water that circulated throughout the world like blood or lymph through the body. Incurable illness and ageless immortality; the rising and falling of the tides caused by fluctuations in gravity; life and death. All the contradictions fused into one and rose out of the desert sands. Everything suggested it. Everything whispered to him that he should go there.

  Suddenly Machiko was standing behind him. Kaoru turned to look at her, and said, "I'll go, Mom."

  "How will you go?"

  "I'll have Dad's motorcycle flown to L.A., and then I'll ride out into the desert."

  She nodded over and over.

  PART III - JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE EARTH

  1

  Darkness filled his rear-view mirror. The eastern horizon was gradually brightening, but night still ruled the sky as a whole. At the moment, Kaoru was nothing but a figure making its way through darkness toward the dawn. The few clues he'd found had led him to this mission, this burden, to search out a way to combat the Metastatic Human Cancer Virus
. All around was blackness, and he had to chase the faintest hint of light.

  There were few cars on the interstate highway crossing the Mojave Desert at night, so for a long while he didn't need to glance in the rear-view mirror. But as signs of dawn began to press in upon him from the front, he checked it more frequently. The sky was definitely escaping night's dominion now, embracing the dawn. The landscape's transformation was beautiful to Kaoru's eyes. The brown earth received the corroding rays of the morning and in turn stained the darkness behind him red. On either side of the highway mountain ridges began to appear in silhouette.

  Both hands gripping the handlebars of the XLR, the 600CC off-road bike his father had bought ten years ago, Kaoru turned his head to see his surroundings. He wanted to savour the landscape racing by with his own eyes, not through a mirror.

  He'd been dreaming of this desert wasteland since he was ten. And now he'd come all the way to America and ridden six hours straight to see it.

  It had been late yesterday afternoon when he'd picked up the XLR. He'd shipped it to America air freight. Then he'd had to pack for this race across the desert. It had been nearly ten when he'd finally left L.A. He'd considered getting a good night's rest in a hotel and departing the next morning, but when he contemplated the vast desert to the east of him he couldn't contain himself. He simply had to set off immediately.

  But it was dark when he left, and had been dark ever since. Though he'd known he was traversing the Mojave desert, he might as well have been riding through mountain meadows for all he could see. But all he had to do was point the bike down the highway leading straight into the darkness and keep the handlebars steady. Now the sun was rising, giving him his first glimpse of the land.

  Kaoru was glad he'd set off when he had, and glad he'd kept going. This change in the landscape was not to be missed. That, and he'd avoided wasting a day. There wasn't much time left. Today was the first of September: he had to come up with some sort of conclusion within these two months, or it might mean the life of not only Reiko, but her newly-conceived child.

  For six hours straight he'd been submerged within the thick hum and vibrations of the four stroke OHC two-cylinder engine. The road was nicely sealed, but still he maintained perfect riding form, never loosening his knee grip. His father had drilled proper biking technique into him. Whenever he'd lapsed into an unsightly splay-kneed pose, his father would slap his knees and yell at him. Keep your knees tight around the tank, kiddo.

  And he had, all the way. Shoulders relaxed, weight nicely balanced on the footrests. Kaoru's father had taken him riding even after his diagnosis, and on those trips especially his father's words of instruction had sunk deep into his heart. He tried hard to ride with precision.

  The trip meter showed he'd come three hundred miles. The XLR's huge gas tank held thirty litres, good for three hundred and fifty miles of highway driving. Which meant it was about time to fill up: much farther and he'd risk running out of fuel. This highway had stretches of two hundred or more miles with no gas station, so he had to be careful. The luggage rack held a spare polyurethane gas can, but it was empty. He'd meant to stop at a hotel somewhere and lie down on a bed; now he might have come too far.

  I'll stop at the next town and have some breakfast, he told himself. He knew if he didn't force himself to stop he'd ride his father's bike until it was out of gas. It frustrated him to have to stop. Watching the change from night to day had proven to Kaoru that the world was revolving on its own; he felt that if he stopped it would go on revolving without him, and he'd be left behind.

  Just as the last traces of night disappeared from his rear-view mirror, leaving the land completely covered with light, a town appeared in the distance ahead. It should have a gas station and a place to eat.

  Kaoru checked into a motel a little after noon, and then immediately showered and lay down on the bed. He tried to sleep, but the engine vibration had accumulated in his body to the point that his very cells were shaking: he felt itchy and restless. Even as he lay there his body felt like it was still on the bike. The flesh of his thighs in particular, where he'd been squeezing the gas tank, felt like it wasn't his own.

  How long was I riding?

  He counted on his fingers. Six hours from LA, then he'd dismounted and waited for the diner to open so he could have breakfast. He'd filled up the tank, then ridden for another three hours. Altogether, then, he'd been riding for nine hours. Another nine hours on Interstate 40 would get him to the vicinity of Albuquerque.

  His plan was to turn north on Route 25 before Albuquerque, heading through Santa Fe to Los Alamos and Kenneth Rothman's last known address. Of course his final destination was the Four Corners region. But before that he figured it was best to find out what had happened to Rothman, and what his last words meant.

  Kaoru reached for his rucksack by the bedside and groped around inside it for his billfold and the two photos he should have inside it. He took them out and studied the face they showed him. Still flat on the bed, he held them over his head and spoke to the beloved figure.

  Needless to say, it didn't answer.

  Before leaving Japan, Kaoru had visited his father's sickroom to tell him he was going to America. He'd explained why he needed to go, and his father had nodded and said:

  "I see."

  Kaoru had told his father everything, not even concealing the situation with Reiko. It was possible that his father might die while he was away from Japan: if he was going to tell his father at all, this was the time.

  Hideyuki had laughed out loud upon learning that he had a grandchild growing within the womb of this woman Reiko.

  "Way to go, kiddo." For a moment the old, healthy Hideyuki was back as he asked with an undisguised leer about Reiko's appearance. "Is she a good woman?"

  "To me she's the best," Kaoru answered.

  "Can't leave you alone for a minute!" Hideyuki trembled happily. Then he spoke earnestly. "I'd like to live to see my grandkid."

  When he heard that, Kaoru was glad he'd told his father about Reiko.

  He averted his eyes from Reiko's photographs and put them away in the rucksack again, by touch, not rolling over. His heart beat wildly. Just gazing at her seemed to increase his loneliness.

  To distract himself he looked around the room without getting up. On one wall hung a garish round tapestry, and from the ceiling hung a fan, blowing lazily. The sound of the fan bothered him less than the noise of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

  All of the furniture and appliances were old, just like the motel itself. He could hear something-a cockroach, maybe?-crawling around under the bed. He'd found one on the kitchen floor earlier. Maybe it was the same one.

  Kaoru disliked cockroaches to an unusual degree, perhaps because he wasn't used to them: he'd never seen one in their twenty-ninth floor condo overlooking the bay.

  When he'd checked into this motel, he'd figured on falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow-he was that tired. More than the all-night ride, it was the sun beating down on him in the morning that had exhausted him. But unexpectedly, sleep eluded him. Maybe he was too excited: it was his first time in a motel outside of Japan.

  It wasn't supposed to be like this, this trip. When he thought of the vacation he'd dreamed of ten years ago, the difference nearly brought tears to his eyes. His problems were too many. He had to save his dying father's life, he had to come up with answers for Reiko, he had to prove to his child that this world was worth living in-the child who was now just a cell starting to divide…

  He listed his goals in order to bolster his courage. He felt excitement, sentimentality, fatigue, vibration, a sense of mission, fear, and heat all wrapped into one sensation; he felt as if an army of ants was crawling around inside his body. If he didn't find a way to calm his heightened emotions he'd never be able to get to sleep.

  He suddenly remembered that there was a pool in the courtyard of the U-shaped motel. Maybe a swim would wash off this creepiness. He got up and changed into sw
im trunks.

  He dived into the empty pool, and then turned over underwater and looked up at the sky. He loved the feeling of moving suddenly from air to water, from one medium to another. Looking up through the water at the sky, he could enjoy both layers at once. The blazing sun looked warped seen from underwater.

  He thrust his head above water and stood in the centre of the pool. The motel surrounded the pool on three sides, but on the fourth he could see the desert stretching out into the distance. Submerged in water as he was, he was even more struck by how parched and unforgiving the land looked.

  He thought he could feel lumps of heat dissolving inside his body. When the last one had melted away, he got out of the pool and returned to his room. His body was telling him he could finally sleep.

  2

  The sun's rays just got stronger and stronger. He was wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt and leather gloves, and his jeans were tucked into his boots, and the only skin on his body exposed to the sun was the back of his neck below his helmet. Even so, as he rode he could feel the burning sun all over his body.

  He had no street address for the place he was headed. Wayne's Rock, on the outskirts of Los Alamos, New Mexico, was all he knew. Just before leaving Japan, he'd contacted Amano again and asked him to look up Kenneth Rothman's last known address. Amano said he'd been living in an old house that doubled as his work space. He had reason to hope that Rothman was still living there, and had cut off contact on purpose, for whatever reason. But even if Rothman was gone, the house at least should still be there in some form. It should at least furnish him with new clues.

  On a desert highway with little traffic, it was possible to make travel time estimates that were exactitude itself. He arrived at Albuquerque right on time, took Interstate 25 northward, and after a time turned onto a state road heading toward Los Alamos. Wayne's Rock should be this side of Los Alamos.