The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

by Yasutaka Tsutsui

  THE BOY FROM THE FUTURE

  “I don’t know how to tell you this...” Kazuo said thoughtfully. “It’s going to take a little time to explain. But believe me when I say everything I’m about to tell you is the truth. And you should now have an easier time believing me because of everything you’ve been through. To put it simply, Kazuko, I am... from, er, the future.”

  “From the future?” Kazuko was shocked. She thought she was prepared to hear anything, but this was well beyond her expectations – well beyond common sense, or what she believed was common sense, anyway.

  “I... I can’t believe it,” said Kazuko, her voice trembling.

  “I thought you might say that,” said Kazuo with a nod. “It’s a bit like science fiction, isn’t it?”

  But Kazuko wasn’t in any mood to make light of the situation. “So how did you get here? In some sort of time machine or something?” she asked in a sarcastic voice.

  “No. I came just like you did. By time-leaping and teleportation.”

  As she struggled to take this all in, Kazuko felt a bit faint, and the room started to spin a little.

  “If you can’t believe what I’m saying, that’s okay,” continued Kazuo. “You can just listen to it as if it were a fairy tale. You’ve suffered enough, so you have the right to hear my story. But don’t blame me if you think my story is outrageous. I’m not going to lie to you. But it’s the only explanation I have.”

  “All right,” said Kazuko. “I’ll listen.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you. But let’s stop time before we start. We don’t want anyone interrupting us.”

  “What?” Kazuko yelled.

  Unruffled by her shock, Kazuo reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked like a transistor radio, and extended its antenna.

  “Okay. Now we are the only people moving and talking in this world. If you don’t believe me, take a look out the window.”

  Kazuko wondered if Kazuo might be losing his mind.

  “Go on!” said Kazuo. “Have a look, if you don’t believe me.” And with that, he took her hand and led her to the window.

  Kazuko allowed herself to be led to the window, noticing at the same time how cold Kazuo’s hand was and how much it felt like the hand of a woman. Then, when they reached the window, they both stared out at the road in front of the school.

  Kazuko was dumbfounded. There were cars on the road as usual, but not one of them was moving. Buses, trucks and passenger cars – they were all frozen to the spot. Even more amazingly, Kazuko could see people on the pavement and the zebra crossing arrested in mid-step. There was even a dog that must have been sprinting along, because it was now just hanging in the air with each of its paws a good ten centimetres off the ground!

  “Time really has stopped,” whispered Kazuko, noticing the silence all around them.

  “You could say that,” offered Kazuo. “Or, to be more accurate, you could say that we are backtracking at exactly the same speed as time is moving forward. So it’s only to our eyes that time appears to be standing still.”

  “But how can you do such a thing?”

  “It’s this device. It’s releasing a very strong energy field around us, cutting us off from the outside world and moving time backwards inside. It’s a barrier with all sorts of applications.”

  “I don’t think I understand...”

  “That’s fine. You don’t really have to understand how it works,” said Kazuo casually as he took her hand, and led her back to the middle of the science lab. “Okay then.” He continued with a smile. “Let’s start from the very beginning.”

  IN THE YEAR 2660

  Kazuo’s story went something like this.

  Throughout the twenty-seventh century, the Earth’s population had been increasing exponentially. There were colonies on both the Moon and Mars, and many people were forced to go there due to the extreme overcrowding back on our planet. At least that was the way it was for people who didn’t have so much money or social status. But for the people who did have money and status, they remained on Earth, where they were busy working on the development of a new civilization run by machines.

  By the year 2620, the peaceful use of nuclear energy had freed mankind to concentrate on other issues, and many bold new discoveries had been made in much shorter time than ever before. But because science was progressing so fast, the general public began to have difficulties in keeping up with it. In time, the various technologies surpassed the understanding of many scientists as well, who had become more specialized and had to delegate their work. So even though the scientists knew how to do their jobs very well, each of them concentrated only on one small task and they were not abreast of all the other technological developments. In fact, they no longer needed to know much about anything other than the one simple job they’d been allocated. Needless to say, this had a rather bad effect on society.

  In the beginning, it was schools and other educational institutions that suffered the most. In the past, they’d been able to teach a range of subjects to students at a basic level. But now such basic information was no use to anybody in such an advanced world. So schooling was extended. Kids were sent to elementary school from the age of four. Then, for fourteen years they were taught basic education. Then junior education followed this for five years, and that concluded compulsory education. Completing compulsory education, however, didn’t mean you were ready to take a job. Simple tasks and calculations were performed by machines and computerized brains, so no human with a junior-high-school-level education was much use in any work place. If one wanted to become an office worker, more specialized education was required in a specific field, so you had to attend high school or a specialized school for another five years.

  After all that education, graduates were finally fit to become just an average technician or to take a clerical role, but to become a medical doctor or a scientist would require even more training. So by the time one had graduated from an institution as a specialist, that person would already be thirty-eight at the youngest, or in many cases closer to fifty years old. This meant that people didn’t really have time to get married until after forty, which finally led to a much-needed decrease in the Earth’s population.

  “This is a disaster. If we continue down this path we’ll go extinct,” said those in the future. Kazuo explained that the doctors and scientists got together to try to find a solution. And in 2640, they succeeded in developing a truly revolutionary invention. It was a new kind of educational method called sleep education or subconscious-awareness education.

  “What’s sleep education?” asked Kazuko, mesmerized. In the beginning, she’d wondered if this was all made up, but it seemed too detailed and realistic to be only a story.

  “Sleep education,” explained Kazuo, his eyes lighting up with excitement, “is a method in which information and memories are planted directly into a child’s brain. A magnetic tape is loaded with information, connected to the child’s head with electrodes and played back. The human unconscious has outstanding capacities, and is able to recall this information whenever it’s needed. With this invention, it took a lot less time to educate people. So if this educational method is begun at the age of three, by the time the child is about the equivalent age of a first-year junior-high student they will have finished education through to current university level. I personally have been through this system too, so...” Kazuo’s voice trailed off.

  “So how old are you now, really?” asked Kazuko.

  Kazuo looked a little embarrassed before replying. “I’m eleven.”

  “What!?” Dumbfounded, Kazuko looked at Kazuo, who was at least ten centimetres taller than her. “But that makes you four years younger than me! Is that true?”

  Kazuo scratched his head and smiled. “The thing is, in 2660, children simply develop faster. So from my point of view, of course, the children in this time are suffering from growth deficiency.”

  “So you’re saying we’re underdeveloped?”
said Ka-zuko, sounding a little annoyed.

  “Don’t get angry. In 2660, all foods are super-nutritious. That’s how we maintain the balance between spirit and body. You understand, right? If we don’t maintain a kind of balance, we could end up with super-educated babies, and that would just be creepy, wouldn’t it?”

  “Are you telling me that you have university-level academic ability?”

  Kazuo nodded. “That’s right. I’m at university studying pharmaceutical science.”

  No wonder he was a good student, thought Kazuko.

  “But why did you come to this moment in time? And to this school? And why are you pretending to be someone from my time attending school? Don’t you want to go back to the future?”

  Kazuo tried to stop the flood of questions thrown at him by Kazuko. “Wait, wait. Let me explain one thing at a time.”

  AN UNEXPECTED CONFESSION

  Kazuo was born in 2649. Just like the other children he spoke about, he was educated with the sleep tapes from the age of three and entered university to study pharmaceuticals at the age of eleven. Right around that time, a great number of new chemicals were being developed, some of them designed to stimulate and bring out latent abilities in humans. It had already been scientifically proved that humans could develop physical, telekinetic and psychological powers, and so the last challenge remaining for scientists was to find a way to fulfil such potential.

  At university, Kazuo was involved in research relating to teleportation by free will. He’d been limited by his university to carry out experiments only at a safe level, but being as bright as he was, Kazuo soon began formulating a whole range of new experiments. One of the areas he’d started to work on was the combination of teleportation and time-leaping, or to put it more simply, the ability to transport oneself instantly to another place and another time. Kazuo felt sure this could be done. He knew that the stimulants for teleportation had already been developed, and that time travel was already possible. All he needed to do was to find a way to incorporate all such capabilities in one stimulant.

  After considerable experimentation, Kazuo found that by adding essence of lavender to the stimulant used for teleportation – known as Crox Zilvius – he could achieve the desired effect. And after many more trials and errors, he finally managed to blend exactly the chemical he needed.

  All he needed to do then was to run an experiment to test the effect, which he decided to do himself in secret.

  “That experiment was a big failure,” said Kazuo, scratching his head and laughing.

  “You could leap across time. But when you wanted to leap back, you couldn’t. Is that right?” asked Kazuko.

  “That’s right,” nodded Kazuo. “I didn’t know how effective the potion was going to be, so I drank a small amount. I was able to come here, into the past, but the potion was too weak to get me back to the future.”

  “You should have brought the potion with you.”

  “Yeah. I did think of that, and had it ready, but I forgot to bring it.”

  “For someone so advanced, it’s quite surprising to see you still have a scatterbrain side.”

  “That’s not it,” answered Kazuo with reddened cheeks. “I was thinking about which time to travel to, since I wanted a fairly peaceful time. But as soon as I thought of one, my mind initiated the time leap and I wasn’t holding the stimulant at the time.”

  “So that’s why you became a student of this school, and that’s why you sneaked into the science lab?”

  “That’s right. But then you walked in, surprised me and made me knock it over! Luckily, you didn’t drink the stimulant. But you did smell it, so it gave you powers to teleport and to time-leap, but in a limited manner.”

  “Does that mean my powers will fade away with time?”

  “That’s right, so you don’t have to worry so much.”

  Kazuko was relieved. “So were you able to make the potion again?”

  “Yes, I was.” Kazuo pointed at the bottle on the table, filled with brown, steaming liquid.

  “But why are you explaining all of this to me?” asked Kazuko.

  Kazuo thought carefully for a few moments before answering.

  “Well, you seemed to be having such a hard time with the situation, so I felt that I owed you an explanation.”

  “But from your point of view, I’m someone in the past. If you return to the future there will be no connection between us...”

  Kazuo started to look rather sheepish, and his eyes dropped to the ground. Then he took a breath and glanced up to meet her eyes.

  “Well, there’s a little more to the story than that,” he said. “You see, Kazuko, I’ve... I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  PEOPLE OF TOMORROW, PEOPLE OF TODAY

  “I guess confessing their love is not such a big thing for people in the future, huh?” said Kazuko, playfully. She knew he was a university student, but the fact that she was older than him in years gave her the confidence to make a joke.

  “So do you like older girls?” she quipped.

  “That’s right, I guess in a sense you are older,” said Kazuo, who hadn’t thought about that until now.

  “Oh you guess, do you?” said Kazuko, a little offended. “Well, I am older. I may be just a person from the past in your eyes who is both physically and mentally underdeveloped, but I can’t help that, and yes, I am older.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Kazuko,” pleaded Kazuo. “I just don’t think of you as being older, that’s all. Maybe it’s because, I don’t know how to explain it, but it could be because we’ve been studying for a while in the same class together, having fun times together – you, Goro and me. So I feel very close to you now. Like I’ve known you for a lot longer. That’s why I’m guessing I fell in love with you.”

  Kazuko felt her cheeks flush a little. No one had ever said out right that they loved her like this. He was just so direct, and Kazuko wondered if perhaps everybody would be like that in the future. For Kazuko, however, love was something quite new. She’d read about it in romantic novels, and there had been playground gossip about other kids falling in love. But it was always something people were teased about – as if it were something to be ashamed of. She’d felt such uncomfortable feelings when Mariko had teased her about liking Goro. But then, Kazuko had always felt that the boys her age were so immature, so she couldn’t really imagine having any romantic feelings for them. But now Kazuo was confessing his feelings for her, and it wasn’t a joke. It had thrown her completely off balance, and she didn’t know what to say. So instead she just stayed silent and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

  “It’s like you’ve known me for a lot longer,” said Kazuko to herself, in a daze.

  “That’s right. That’s how I feel,” Kazuo said, smiling. “But the time we actually spent together was just a month.”

  “Just a month?” Kazuko looked up in surprise and shook her head vigorously. “That can’t be! We’ve known each other for a really long time. It’s been... two years. Even before that, we weren’t really on talking terms, but I’ve known you since elementary school. I mean, we live in the same neighbourhood!”

  “Ah, of course. I forgot to tell you.”

  “Forgot to tell me what?”

  “I gave you, or rather everyone around me, false memories about myself.”

  “False memories?” Kazuko didn’t understand.

  “Yes. I actually arrived here about a month ago. But to be able to fit in here comfortably, I had to make it seem as if I’d been here for a long time. So I made a false history about myself and gave it to a lot of people as memory.”

  “Unbelievable! So you gave those memories to me, to Goro, Mr Fukushima, to Mariko...”

  “Yes. Everyone in our class and all the other people who should know me.”

  “But how were you able to do such a thing?”

  “It’s not as difficult as you might think. You know about hypnosis, right? If you get someone under hypnosis and tell them t
hey’re a bird, they will actually believe that. What I did was similar to that, although the technology involved is much more advanced. Plus, hypnosis is easier to achieve with a big group rather than just one person. It works like a sort of chain reaction, with one person’s belief rapidly spreading to the next and so on.”

  Kazuko had heard something like this from Mr Fuku-shima. “Group Hypnosis...”

  “Right. I did something similar to what you’re describing. In my experience the people of this time are extremely prone to hypnosis.”

  Well, I guess people of my time are all nothing more than barbarians to you! thought Kazuko to herself.

  MEETING KEN SOGOL

  “So that’s how I started my life here – as someone who’d been around for a while. I made it so that I was already a student here who had been living in that house for a long time...”

  “That house!” Kazuko suddenly thought of Kazuo’s parents. “So the people in that house – does that mean they’re not your real family?”

  “No. They didn’t have any kids. So I created a memory that I was their child. They are very good people, and they like plants too. That’s one of the reasons I chose them as my host family – because they have plenty of lavenders in their greenhouse. I was going to use them to make Crox Zilvius and then return home. And then, today, I finally finished making the stimulant!”

  “So if they’re not your real family, I guess that means your name isn’t really Kazuo Fukamachi, is it?”

  “No. Kazuo Fukamachi is a name I gave myself for living in this time. I have a different name in the future.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “My name is...” Kazuo fell silent. “It will probably sound odd to you. But my real name is Ken Sogol.”