Koji Suzuki - Loop

And Kaoru could sympathize with that request. How many times had he confronted his father with a desire to understand how the world worked? But it turned out that this world's working was a little too complicated to be fully comprehended. Every time he thought he'd chased down the answers, they receded a little farther into the distance, like an endless game of cat and mouse. He felt like he was chasing his own shadow, something he'd never ever be able to catch. If it turned out that the world had a maker, then going to that maker's own world would answer all his desires. It would surely tell him how his own world worked.

Eliot spoke calmly. "I understood Takayama's feelings completely. His request came not out of fear of death. What moved him was an insatiable thirst for knowledge. His curiosity about the world exploded in that instant, and it brought about what was to him a miracle."

"A miracle?"

"That's what it was to him. On the brink of death, his greatest desire was to cross over into this world. If the NSCS plans hadn't been in my head, I doubt the idea would ever have occurred to me. In fact, I'm sure it wouldn't have. But as I say, things are connected, organically. I believed I could see twenty, thirty years into the future, and based on what I saw, I made up my mind to grant Takayama's wish."

Kaoru cried out in surprise.

Grant Takayama's wish?

It was just as he'd suspected. Somebody had been rash enough to bring an entity over from the virtual world into the real one. Kaoru was speechless.

Eliot, though, was calm as he began to explain how he'd gone about bringing Ryuji Takayama into the real world.

It was impossible to bring him over as an adult, possessed of his current state of consciousness and all the memories it held. The only thing Eliot could do was extract genetic information from one of Takayama's cells, and based on it, use a genome synthesizer and the genome fragment alignment method to create DNA that would be valid in the real world. Once he'd analyzed Takayama's DNA sequence, it was essentially a matter of chemically synthesizing it.

The next step was to prepare a fertilized human egg, extract its nucleus, and insert the manmade Takayama nucleus in its place. Then all he had to do was return the egg to the mother's body and wait for Takayama to be born. The process wasn't all that different from the cloning procedures that had been developed in the last century. Nor was it all that difficult.

In short, the only way to bring Takayama into the real world was to allow him to be born here as a baby, a new human carrying all the genetic information of the virtual Ryuji Takayama.

"This was a grand experiment, to say the least. We were all quite excited at the prospect of bringing something from the virtual world into the real one. But we had to act in the utmost secrecy. I'm sure you can see why. If the media had gotten wind of it, they would have had a field day, saying we were playing God, ignoring the sanctity of life, that sort of thing. We'd seen the furore that had surrounded the first successful human cloning at the turn of the century, and we wanted no part of that. I doubt you can imagine what things were like then… Anyway, the plan was kept secret even from most of the scientists involved with the Loop."

"Not even my father knew about it?"

Eliot nodded once. "That's right. He didn't know. It was more convenient that way."

"So he was left out in the cold, is that it?"

"It wasn't like that, exactly… But, well, I guess you could say that…"

Eliot seemed at a loss for words. But Kaoru thought he could guess what came next. "So anyway, you mean…?"

"Yes, it's just what you're thinking. We collected Takayama's genetic data from a point just before he died. A point at which he was already infected with the ring virus. When we brought Takayama into the real world, we brought the ring virus right along with him."

"In other words, the ring virus that took over the Loop world was the basis for the MHC virus that's taking over our world?"

"That's what we think. Careful comparisons of the genetic sequences of both viruses reveal too many similarities to be explained away as mere coincidence. The ring virus seized on our plan to resurrect Takayama in this world as a chance to escape. We think the virus's RNA must have invaded an intestinal bacterium, as luck would have it, and thus made it into the outside. And then it mutated with frightening speed, as viruses are wont to do. The result was the MHC virus."

The sequence was essentially what Kaoru had guessed. What to do about it, though, remained a problem.

He leaned close to Eliot's face and said, "Let's clear something up right now. Have you or have you not figured out a way to conquer the MHC virus?"

"You said it yourself: Takayama holds the key."

"So Takayama is alive. Where is he now?"

Eliot rested his chin on his hand and gazed into Kaoru's eyes for a while. Then he snapped his fingers. "The eyes play tricks on one, don't they? What we think we know can affect our judgment."

Shaking his head, Kaoru leaned back on his couch. Eliot always evaded the important questions. He began to be suspicious of the old man again-what was he up to?

Eliot, meanwhile, was punching buttons on the remote control, ignoring Kaoru's nonplussed gaze. From one wall appeared a large computer monitor.

"You saw it all. You even put on the helmet display. But you failed to notice it. I suppose that's liable to happen. Your preconceptions got in the way, I suspect."

Kaoru thought Eliot was talking to himself; he was speaking as one might speak to a bird that's landed in one's yard. So Kaoru swallowed his annoyance and waited for Eliot to play his next card.

Eliot had called up on the screen the last moments of Takayama's life. He'd probably prepared this ahead of time-he had the scene up and ready to play with only a few commands.

"Let's go through it like you did, locked into Takayama's perceptions."

And they began to go through the same sequence of events that Kaoru had lived through already amid the ruins of Wayne's Rock. It was a week after Takayama watched the video, and he began to see signs of his impending death. Spurred by his final wish, he put the tape into the VCR and pressed play. Those mysterious, fragmented images danced across the TV screen. Dice rolling around inside a lead case. In the middle of a phone call, Takayama noticed the ever-changing dots on the dice and made a sound like a scream.

Just then it happened. A reflection appeared in a mirror at the edge of the monitor. A man with a telephone receiver held to his ear and a look of utter shock on his face. It was Takayama. While on the phone, Takayama's glance had momentarily settled on his reflection in the mirror.

Eliot paused the playback there and zoomed in on Takayama's reflection.

"You were locked into Takayama's perceptions, but your own preconceptions clouded your vision. Your mind's reaction was that you couldn't be seeing what you were seeing, and so it simply wouldn't let you see it. It happens. Take another look. Don't you recognize that face?"

The face in the mirror was slightly blurred. Eliot sharpened the image.

Kaoru sat face to face with Takayama's reflection. His jaw dropped. His nerves were buzzing, as if they didn't want to recognize the face.

Takayama's features were distorted by his expression of astonishment. On top of that, the imminence of death seemed to have abruptly aged him. But even so, there was no mistaking the outlines of his face, the muscular line of his jaw. Kaoru did indeed know that face. He'd known it all his life.

"This man holds the key to the MHC virus." Eliot poked Kaoru in the chest with a huge finger. "Kaoru, you're Ryuji Takayama."

Kaoru tried to block the words from reaching his brain, but their truth seeped into his body anyway. He felt the world collapse around him. His body, the flesh that he'd always thought of' as his, had betrayed him.