Loop

by Kōji Suzuki

  Then, as if to proclaim the arrival of the appointed moment, the clouds parted in front of him and sunlight shone on the surface of the ocean. It was as if a window had opened in the sky, an interface. Takayama wouldn't be able to see anybody through it-no faces, no expressions-but they would be able to see him.

  Two o'clock on the button. He should be in view for them now. Takayama raised his head slightly and smiled at the people who would be watching him.

  He called them each by name, speaking to them, telling him about what he was up to.

  There were so many things he wanted to ask them, but he knew he couldn't. Had they been able to use the digital information they'd gained from his body to combat the MHC virus? He wanted to think they had: he wanted to think that his father's life was saved. His child with Reiko would be farther along now than when he'd spoken to Reiko on the phone. Had Reiko found the hope to go on living in her world? Takayama hoped that seeing him like this, she'd make up her mind once and for all to live.

  He had every intention of dealing with the ring virus and the mutated-video media that carried it in this world. If coming in contact with those media programmed one to die in a week's time, it should be simple enough to devise a deprogramming system. He had absolute confidence. He'd come all the way to this world from the other one determined to overcome. When it came down to it, he was godlike. He knew how this world worked. What cared he for viruses or mutant media?

  As he spoke these thoughts to the sky, he tried to imagine that other world recovering as the course of Loop history normalized.

  He remembered the hideous desert trees, disfigured by cancer. He remembered the dead rats he'd seen in Wayne's Rock, swollen bellies upturned.

  He remembered the single pink blossom on the hillside, the one tree that had escaped the cancer. Takayama concentrated on that tree, allowing it to expand in his imagination.

  He wished with all his heart for the moment when those trees would cast off their tumours and reassume their fresh greenness. He imagined those withered limbs heavy with beautiful blossoms. If the Loop recovered its biodiversity, those scenes would be reality.

  A breeze widened the gap in the clouds. The observers' faces flickered in and out of view.

  Takayama nodded. "It's going to be alright," he said.

  That hope was likely to be heard.

  THE END