Loop (38 page)

Eliot had told him that everything was arranged for his rebirth. In any world, the idea of a dead man coming back to life would be pretty hard to accept. The stage would have to be set.

And set it Eliot had. He'd singled out Ando as someone who could be of use and sent him hints in code, all so he could arrange in as plausible a way as possible for Takayama's rebirth. Bringing Ando's dead son back to life was bait to get him to assist in bringing Takayama back.

In the case of Ando's son, an inhabitant of the Loop, there was no need to go through a neutrino scan. It was an intra-Loop transfer, a simple matter of reconstituting the boy's genetic information.

The Loop had been reset, six months ago, to the point where its cancerization had been triggered, and then restarted. Takayama's advent had been timed with the utmost care so as to enable him to conquer the calamity whose seeds had been sown. If he were to do nothing, the Loop would proceed along the same path, turning cancerous. He needed to construct for it a new history, make a new channel for its dammed-up waters. If he succeeded, the world he'd lived in before, too, would retain its genetic diversity.

"Listen, I'm grateful to you, I really am. You worked out just as I expected."

Takayama was indeed grateful to Ando. Just before coming to the Loop, he'd committed Takayama's life to memory. He knew of his school days with Ando, and he knew of Ando's brilliance. Without the help of such a friend, he doubted he ever would have been able to make his entrance in such a reasonable way as via virgin birth.

But Ando, it seemed, simply felt used. Or worse-maybe he suspected Takayama of being in league with Sadako Yamamura, of coming back in order to destroy the world.

If that was what Ando thought, then Takayama had no way to defend himself. The one thing he couldn't do was reveal his true identity. Sometimes it depressed Takayama to think of the lonely life that awaited him. The only thing that kept him going was the desire that he kept hidden in his breast.

Down by the water's edge again, the boy stood up and waved at Ando. Ando returned his signal, and the boy came closer, kicking sand as he came.

"Daddy, I'm thirsty!" Ando offered his son the beverage that Takayama had given him. The boy took it and drank it down.

Takayama watched the boy's pale throat. He could almost see the cool liquid coursing down the little throat. Living, moving flesh and blood, brought back to life by only slightly different methods. A product of the same womb-a brother, almost.

"Want another one?" Takayama said, fishing around in his bag.

"Nope," the boy said to Takayama, then turned to his father, raising the half-finished can as high as his head. "Can I have the rest?"

"Sure, drink up." The boy went back to the water's edge, swilling the can. Takayama figured the boy wanted to play with the can after it was empty, maybe fill it with sand. Ando yelled after him. "Takanori!"

The boy stopped and turned around. "What, Daddy?"

"Don't go in the water yet, okay?"

The boy grinned in acknowledgement, and turned his back to him again.

The child was still afraid of the sea-he remembered drowning. He'd have to overcome that fear before he could get on with his long life.

"Cute kid," Takayama said. He was thinking of his own child, still growing, no doubt, inside of Reiko.

Ando ignored his comment, instead saying, "Tell me something. What's going to happen to the world now?" He glared at Takayama as if to say,
You ought to know.

And he did know. Or at least, he had a better idea of it than Ando did. But he could never tell him.

"What do
you
think's going to happen to it?"

Ando answered by sketching out a future that closely resembled the final cancerization of the Loop. The ring virus would spread throughout the world. The videotape would transform itself into various forms of media, and would itself spread worldwide. Women who came into contact with it while ovulating would give birth to children with the same genetic makeup as Sadako Yamamura; everyone else would be eliminated. The same would happen with men: a very few on whom the new media depended would survive, while the rest would be destroyed. You didn't have to be a doctor to predict the results of this. All life would be assimilated to a single genetic pattern: Sadako.

"And you're okay with all that?"

Ando's gaze was brimming with animosity. He definitely misunderstood Takayama.

Without changing his expression, Takayama reached into his pocket and pulled out an ampoule. He handed it to Ando. "I want you to have this."

"What's this?"

"A vaccine."

"A vaccine?" Ando accepted the tiny glass vial and examined it carefully.

After six months of research, Takayama had succeeded in developing a vaccine for the ring virus, based on hints found within his own cells. He'd only just perfected it. Animal trials showed it to be effective.

"Take that and it'll take care of the virus. Your worrying days are over."

"Did you come all the way here just to give me this?"

"What, can't a guy go to the beach once in a while?" Takayama gave an embarrassed laugh. Ando's expression seemed to soften a little.

As he put the vial in his breast pocket, Ando repeated his earlier question, but more calmly this time. "Can't you tell me what's going to happen?"

"I don't know." Takayama's reply was blunt.

"Don't give me that. Together you and Sadako are going to redesign the world and everything that lives in it-aren't you?"

At that, Takayama had to laugh. There was no point in staying here any longer. He got to his feet, muttering, "Well, I guess I'll be off now."

"Are you leaving?" Ando looked up at him from where he sat on the embankment.

"It's about time I took off. What are you going to do now?"

"What can I do? I'll find a deserted island someplace out of the media's reach, and raise my son there."

"That sounds like you. Me, though, I've got to see things through to the end. Once it's gone as far as it can go, who knows, maybe a will beyond human wisdom will exercise its power on us. Wouldn't want to miss that." Takayama was speaking vaguely on purpose, trying to say something without saying it.
Relax. The world's not going to turn out like you think it will. It already did end like that, once, but this time it won't. I came back to see that it doesn’t.

He started walking away along the embankment.

"Bye, Ryuji. Say hi to Miyashita for me."

Takayama stopped at the sound of Ando's voice.

"Before I go, I want you to remember something. No matter what disaster strikes, we've got to meet it head on and overcome it. Only by accumulating that kind of experience can we change the world, you see. So… yeah, it'll be alright."

Takayama waved and walked away. He was sure Ando hadn't understood. But that was okay. Someday he would.

He glanced behind him from time to time as he heard Ando's voice and his son's.

"Daddy, you promised, right?"

"Yes, I did." Ando again told the boy what would happen once he overcame his fear of the water. "I'll take you to meet Mommy."

Ando and his wife had separated over the boy's death.

"Mommy's going to be so surprised."

Listening to these scraps of conversation, Takayama imagined the Ando family's happy reunion.

He was jealous. That was something he'd never have.

He reviewed the longitude in his head, although he had no trouble remembering it exactly. The time, too. There was no way he could forget the appointment he'd made with Eliot.

From the seaside town where he'd met Ando, Takayama headed due south, arriving at the appointed place slightly ahead of schedule. It was on a hillside with a nice view across the water to a cape. The gentle pine-covered slope continued right down to the water's edge.

Takayama sat down on the grass and waited.

June 27, 1991, 2:00 pm exactly, Loop time.
That was what Eliot had told him. There was still a half hour to go.

Six months had passed for Takayama since the Loop had been restarted, but time moved somewhat slower in Eliot's world. The Loop would be moving even faster if they'd been able to mobilize the same number of supercomputers as before, but they hadn't. As a result, the Loop would only move five or six years for every year the computers ran. Six months to Takayama would correspond to about a month where Eliot was.

He'd made contact with his father and with Reiko just before going into the scanner. A month had elapsed for them since then. He'd made his crossing to this world without being able to explain things to them. They probably thought Kaoru was lost somewhere in the desert, when in fact, he'd disappeared completely.

At the very least, there were things he still wanted to tell them. And how else could he fully explain his actions but with his own mouth, his own body?

It was easy to call Takayama up on the computer monitors over there, a simple matter of specifying time and place. So he'd made Eliot promise to show his parents and Reiko that he was safe and sound.

Takayama looked at his watch. Almost time.

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