by Yusuke Kishi
“We can let the current carry us for now,” Kiroumaru said helpfully. “Please just make sure we don’t run into anything.”
How could I tell if we were going to hit something if I couldn’t see anything at all? I was annoyed at Kiroumaru, but resumed looking out the window anyway.
“I know, we just need a light source! If I make a small light in here, we’ll be able to see outside.”
“That won’t work,” Satoru said. “It’s too obvious if there’s something shining in the water.”
“So we’re just going to keep going blindly?”
“There’s no other choice, is there?”
Just as I was about to reply, I saw a faint ray of light outside.
“Huh? Look. There’s light.”
“Sh! Quiet.” Inui gripped my shoulders from behind.
We all sat unmoving. Eventually, the source of the light came into view.
“They’ve lit the river with torches,” Satoru whispered.
“Are they looking for the boat?”
“We’re probably okay,” he said without much confidence.
“Please don’t worry. They’re only paying attention to the surface of the water. The idea that a boat can travel underwater has never crossed their minds,” Kiroumaru said with certainty.
With the light from the torches, we started slowly rolling forward again. As Kiroumaru said, they didn’t seem to notice a thing. It probably helped that the light would have reflected off the water, making it all but impossible to see us.
In the faint light, I saw silhouettes of numerous rafts ahead of us on the surface.
“Satoru, look,” I whispered.
Leaving Inui to propel the boat, Satoru came forward and peered through the window.
“What?”
When he saw the rafts above us, he let out a long sigh. “I see. I didn’t expect them to have patrols all the way out here…”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve put obstacles on the river to stop boats from going through. There are probably archers on the rafts waiting to attack.”
This was a narrow part of the river, but it was still a couple hundred meters wide. It undoubtedly took a huge amount of effort to build enough rafts to create a blockade this large.
“It is the work of a paranoid coward. But even the cleverest schemer could not predict that we’d escape underwater,” Kiroumaru said, sounding satisfied.
The river was just deep enough for us to creep by under the rafts.
Once we slipped through the blockade, everything went dark again. We surfaced quietly and opened the roof to let in some fresh air.
“They should have put snorkels in here or something,” Satoru grumbled.
“We’re only a short way from the mouth of the river now,” Inui said encouragingly.
“So there’s no need to dive anymore?”
“Kiroumaru, do you smell any quee…of your kind?”
“I don’t know. The wind changes direction ahead and blows off the land.” Kiroumaru sniffed vigorously and pricked his ears. “I can’t hear anything either, but we should still be as quiet as possible.”
The boat drifted silently down the middle of the river. I stuck my head out over the roof and squinted ahead. The river was a lot wider here and I could barely see the banks on either side.
I was sure we were safe. My nerves began to settle. If we just kept going, we’d arrive at the mouth of the river. Once we made it to the Pacific Ocean, we wouldn’t have to worry about being captured. Just a little farther.
At that moment, I spotted two or three boats about a kilometer ahead.
“Boats. What do we do?”
“Wait.”
We stopped, rotating the wheels in the other direction to stay in place.
“…let’s dive. We’ll go all the way out to the ocean before surfacing.”
“Hurry and run!” Kiroumaru suddenly shouted.
“Eh? What?”
“It’s my kind and…it! I’m positive. The fiend’s scent!”
“But you said the wind changed…”
Then I realized that the fiend was coming from behind.
I turned and saw the silhouette of a large sail. It was coming fast. The distance between us was no more than four or five hundred meters.
It knew we were here. The fiend had much better eyesight that the queerats. The river was dark, but there was enough starlight to reflect off the ripples we were making.
“Should we dive?”
“There’s not enough time… Let’s make a break for it!” Satoru shouted.
I pushed the boat full speed ahead. Satoru stuck his head out the roof and threw up a smoke screen. From what I heard afterward, he whipped up the air on the surface of the water and created a wall of bubbles to try to hide our movements.
“Saki, close your eyes!”
I had no idea what he was planning, but squeezed my eyes shut even as I continued pushing the boat faster. I saw a blinding light through my eyelids. It seemed like the patrol boats in front of us were bursting into flames. The fiend’s night vision would be temporarily lost once he was exposed to the light.
Eyes still shut, we sped through the burning boats.
Even after I opened my eyes, I continued accelerating on autopilot. The boat flew forward with terrifying speed.
Before I knew it, we had already made it to the Pacific Ocean. We were out far enough that I could barely see the land anymore. The lapping waves of the river were nothing compared the ocean’s fearsome swells. This was the stormy Kashimanada sea.
“Where’s the fiend…? Did we shake it off?”
“Yeah, for now. But I think it’ll figure out what we’re up to and catch up again.”
“Why?”
“If all we wanted to do was escape, we would have gone on land since they had control of the river. But instead, we took the much more dangerous option of forcing our way through. Once Yakomaru finds out about this, he might guess our plan. Or at the very least, he’ll think it’s something worth investigating.”
The rocking motion of the boat was making me nauseated. The pungent smell of the sea wasn’t helping either.
“So there’s no time to lose…”
“Right. As long as we keep the land to our right, it should be easy going. We just need to go past Cape Inubo and around the Boso Peninsula.” Satoru gazed out over the dark sea. “The tricky part comes after. If we can’t get the fake false minoshiro to work, it’s all over.”
The tidal flats of Tokyo Bay illuminated by starlight was a beautiful sight. It seemed nothing like the horrifying place Kiroumaru had described.
We stopped the boat at the far end of the bay to wait for dawn, as Kiroumaru warned that it was dangerous to try to land in the darkness. Last time, he had arrived in Tokyo at midday and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but his soldiers that accidentally wandered too close to the shore at night had all been eaten by some unknown creature.
The waves here were much gentler than those on the open sea, but I was still itching to stand on solid ground again. So when the sky finally started to glow with the first light of dawn, I was relieved that we could finally get going.
A giant shadow appeared over our heads. I looked up in surprise and saw a giant flock of something flying in the dawn light.
“Bats. The place is overrun with them. You could call them the true rulers of Tokyo now,” Kiroumaru explained.
I wondered how the bats had bred so copiously. Though seeing Kiroumaru’s calm expression, they didn’t seem to be too dangerous.
We spotted the northwestern shore of Tokyo Bay. It was covered in grey sand as far as I could see. There were no plants or animals in sight.
I jumped off the boat the moment we touched land, and stretched my cramped muscles. The crunch of sand underfoot felt great, though I still felt like the ground was swaying slightly. The others followed me ashore.
We searched for a place to hide the boat and found a grey reef-like thing on the far end
of a sand dune. On closer inspection it appeared to be the remnants of an ancient concrete building. It was like the round buildings I had seen in the Robber Fly colony, but much larger. On the other side of the building was a giant crack in the wall. Peeking through it, I saw a ledge about twenty meters below. The hole seem to extend all the way down into the earth. Cold, musty air drifted out of it. We secured the boat on the ledge and took out the things we needed.
“So, now what?”
“There’s no point wandering around blindly; we have to try charging it again,” Satoru said, pointing at the knapsack holding the fake false minoshiro.
“We should move to a safe place first. Somewhere with a view of the ocean so we can spot the enemy if they manage to make it here,” Inui said.
We moved to a higher location that looked like a blackened rocky mountain, but was actually the ruins of another ancient building. Even the sand dunes appeared to be concrete that had broken down until it was nearly unrecognizable.
The fake false minoshiro was placed in a spot where it could soak up the rays from the rising sun. Then there was nothing to do but wait. We ate breakfast, silently chewing on the military rations supplied by the temple. We didn’t light a fire to cook, in case the smoke gave away our position. The rations were ball-shaped chunks consisting of buckwheat, dried fish, dried plum, walnuts, Chinese wolfberries and other foods held together with molasses. It reminded me of the queerat rations I had eaten a long time ago when we had gone to find the Goat Moth colony with Yakomaru. The taste was different, but not by much. I managed to force myself to eat it.
After eating I started feeling drowsy and wondered how it was even possible to be sleepy in this situation. Inui suggested that we should sleep in shifts and I passed out almost instantly.
I don’t remember what I dreamt about, but it seems like people don’t have nightmares when they’re in a life-threatening situation. Instead, I woke with the feeling that I had just had a rather enjoyable dream. It was probably about my childhood.
There was a strange creature in my dream that croaked like a frog and chirped like a bird at the same time.
Just as I was thinking that it was annoyingly noisy, I woke up. What in the world was that sound?
When I opened my eyes, the others were gathered around the fake false minoshiro.
“What’s going on?”
“It started up…it’s fully charged.”
I was fully awake now. I jumped up and made my way into their circle.
The fake false minoshiro was still making that terrible racket, but it finally spoke.
“I am the Tsukuba branch of the National Assembly Library, mirror terminal 008,” it said in a soft female voice.
We all started cheering.
“I have a question,” Satoru said.
“Starting synchronization…synchronization in progress…synchronization in progress,” it said, ignoring Satoru.
Somehow, it seemed to be communicating with other library terminals.
“Synchronization complete,” it announced after a while. “Calendar recalculation complete, archive update complete.”
It didn’t seem to have any problems transferring information to other machines over long distances.
“Good for you. I have a question,” Satoru cut in.
“User registration is required to access query services.”
Satoru glanced at me. These were the exact words the false minoshiro had said to us during summer camp.
“How do I register?”
“You must be eighteen year or older, and supply proof of name, address, and age with one of the following: driver’s license, insurance card (with address), passport (a copy with full date of birth, and current address), student identification (with address and date of birth), certificate of residence (issued within the past three months), or other official identification. All must be within the expiry date.”
“I don’t have any of those.”
“Furthermore, the following forms of identification are not valid: employee identification, student identification (lacking date of birth or address), commuter passes, business cards…”
“If you don’t answer my question right now, I’ll break you. And I’m only going to warn you once–you’d better not try to hypnotize me.”
“…documentation requirements have been waived. Beginning user registration process.”
“Skip that too. Tell me how to get to this address.”
Satoru read the address and the fake false minoshiro started beeping loudly again.
“Unable to start global positioning system…unable to receive satellite GPS signals…unable to receive satellite GPS signals…out of signal range.”
“That’s unfortunate. Those things no longer exist.”
“Receiving signals from other terminals to triangulate your current position.”
The fake false minoshiro was silent for a moment that felt like an eternity.
“…comparison with map data complete. Geomagnetic positioning by electric compass complete. Target location has been identified. Please proceed 29 degrees northwest from your current position.”
I pumped my fist in victory as we started off toward the address in the letter. Though whether the psychobuster was still there or not, only the gods knew.
“Hey, tell me about the psychobuster.”
The fake false minoshiro thought for a moment.
“…search returned 57 hits.”
“It’s supposedly a weapon, also called psychokiller or psychocide.”
“One hit. …’Psychobuster’ is the name of a bacteriological weapon developed in America during the final years of the ancient civilization in an effort to eradicate all psychics.”
I was surprised to hear that it was a bacteria.
“But the word psycho means mind…is it talking about mentally abnormal people?”
Satoru was rehashing the same old topic again.
“It’s the same word, but you may be thinking of the slang that refers to mentally unstable people, like the Hitchcock movie ‘Psycho’. In this case it refers to those with what is broadly known as psychokinesis, called ‘psyko’.”
“What do you mean by bacteriological weapon?”
“Psychobuster’s formal name is ‘strong toxicity bacillus anthracis’, abbreviated ‘STBA’. Bacillus anthracis occurs naturally in soil from decaying grass. Once absorbed into the body, it can cause cutaneous, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal anthrax, all serious illnesses…”
Its explanation sent shivers up my spine. When exposed to adverse environmental conditions, bacillus anthracis forms dormant endospores. Because of this, it is a good candidate as a biological weapon. Cultivated bacillus anthracis spores can be turned into a white powder that retains its potency even in heat or dryness. So you could, for example, infect someone by sending it through the mail.
STBA is a genetic manipulation of bacillus anthracis that raises the mortality rate of pulmonary anthrax from 80 or 90% to almost 100%. STBA has multi-drug-resistance, making the usual antibiotics like penicillin or tetracycline ineffective.
“…additionally, while normal pulmonary anthrax is rarely contagious between humans, STBA is highly contagious. As such, containing outbreaks through conventional epidemiological means is exceedingly difficult. In addition to having the destructive power to make it an ideal first-strike weapon. To facilitate post-war cleanup, the strain’s toxicity was designed to fall in one or two years, so it can be used without reserve and does not harm the environment…”
This was insane. I couldn’t understand what the people back then were thinking.
“…are we really going to get this thing?” I asked.
The three of them looked at me uncomprehendingly.
“There’s no choice if we’re going to defeat the fiend,” Satoru said.
“Its toxicity will decrease with time, so it will not cause problems in the future,” Inui added.
“Wonderful. All we need is to infect th
e fiend while it’s distracted. The only question is how to get it to inhale the powder,” Kiroumaru said.
“…although regular bacillus anthracis has a lifetime of about fifty years, STBA spores is believed to last for a millennium…” the fake false minoshiro continued to drone on.
“That’s enough.”
Satoru silenced it, probably worrying that the battery would run out.
Suddenly, Kiroumaru leapt to his feet.
“Damn…”
“What?” Inui asked.
“That bird. Please capture it,” he pointed at a shadow that was retreating steadily into the distance.
Just as Inui was preparing to capture it, Satoru called out.
“No, wait.”
A vacuum lens appeared in front of him. Unlike normal lenses, it was concave, magnifying whatever it was pointed at. We gathered around him.
The tip of a sail was clearly visible on the horizon.
“I can’t believe it. They’ve already caught up.” Satoru sounded shocked.
“I was careless. Scouts often use birds to help their search, but I did not expect that we would be discovered so quickly. They must have found us in the bay last night using owls or nightjars,” Kiroumaru said regretfully. “They probably already know of our present position. We should escape, but everything within a thirty kilometer radius is a barren desert. There is no place to hide. They’ll be able to come after us in a straight line, and it’ll only be a matter of time before they catch up.”
“So should we go underground?” Inui asked, a deep furrow between his brows.
“Underground Tokyo is hell. The most soldiers I lost were when we were exploring underground. But there’s no point talking about that now.”
Kiroumaru led us forty or fifty meters away to the crack from which air was blowing.
“When we came by earlier, I smelled the air coming from the hole and it seems like it connects to the underground tunnels in Tokyo. It’s not too steep, so we can probably walk down.”
It looked like we had no other choice.
“That’s great. In any case, we just have to find the psychobuster before they catch up with us. And when they do catch up, it saves us the time of having to go find them. Let us go into hell. …worse comes to worst, we can use the psychobuster to infect the fiend right here in the tunnels before it kills us.”
