Koji Suzuki - Loop

Willingness and a sense of mission: Kaoru had showed up with exactly what Eliot required of him. And the carrot Eliot held out to him was quite enough to satisfy that sense of mission.

"The key to conquering the MHC virus is within you. Unless we can analyze your genome in three dimensions, your mitochondria, your metabolic cycle, your secretion factors, we're not going to be able to solve this. Simply analyzing your DNA sequence isn't enough. We need to digitize your entire body. We think that a special gene insertion method might prove to be a powerful treatment, but in order to understand the full effects of insertion, we need to run detailed simulations, and we need data on you for that. Do you understand what this means? The things we learn from you will have immediate application. Your father, your mother, your lover will be the first ones to benefit. It's only proper that you be rewarded for laying your life on the line."

Eliot's expression was earnest as he offered this promise.

The longevity zone Kaoru had imagined he'd find out here in the desert had proved to be a mirage. Its only vestige was this decrepit old scientist, Kaoru reflected bitterly. But what Kaoru had hoped to find in his longevity zone- a cure for MHC, something to save the lives of his loved ones, something to prevent the entire spectrum of life on earth from falling victim to this cancer-that was about to be granted him, in a most unexpected way. As long as he was willing to trade his body for it…

His body supposedly contained something that completely blocked the effects of the virus, and the best way to instantaneously and exactly lay bare that mechanism was to neutrino scan him. The things they learned would have immediate application. The terror of the cancer virus would disappear: life on earth would learn to coexist with the virus.

Kaoru understood the logic behind it. There was no time to pursue this knowledge by traditional methods. Long before they arrived at a cure, time would have run out-at least for his father. His mother would probably lose her mind, while Reiko might kill herself and the baby inside her.

He may have come from the virtual world, but he felt that this life had value, and was worth living. He'd been alive these twenty years-the hunger he'd satisfied with Reiko was proof of that. If it hadn't been for her, he might not have ever felt so alive.

I exist, right here, right now.

Beaming with confidence, he stood at the end of the ridge like one of those peculiar rocks visible on the horizon. He gathered all his courage and expressed it in a shout, as loud a yawp as he could make.

The sound of his voice echoed in the canyon, flew across the land toward the horizon, disappearing in the distance. He imagined that was how he himself would disappear, leaving only echoes behind.

His feelings toward Eliot were complicated, needless to say. They went beyond straightforward hatred. After all, it was thanks to Eliot that he had a physical body. All the pleasure and pain he'd experienced these last twenty years he owed to Eliot's ingenuity. If someone had asked Kaoru whether he'd wanted this life, he would have answered with a resounding yes. But then, if he'd never received this bodily existence, the cancer virus would never have been loosed upon the world.

Kaoru knew he bore no responsibility for that. But as a fact it was undeniable, and it weighed on his mind.

However, this was no time to be caught up in resentment, hatred, or the pricks of conscience. It was time for him to steel himself and pay the price. It was time to look to the future. Always to the future.

Kaoru turned around and strode purposefully away from the cliff.

It took another ten days to make everything ready. Kaoru spent the time going through the record of Takayama's life in the Loop, experiencing it until he knew it all, up to the moment of his death. He made it all his own, from the man's relationships with parents and friends to his scholarly learning, his habits of thought, the way he spoke.

By the time Kaoru got so that he could understand the language they spoke in the Loop without a mechanical translator, he'd essentially finished committing the man's life to memory. Perhaps because they shared the same genes, Kaoru found it felt rather natural to become the man in this way. In fact, the more he found out the less he considered Takayama a separate person. At certain moments Takayama's life seemed to overlap with his own.

On the morning of the big day, Eliot accompanied Kaoru down in the elevator. As they descended three thousand feet below the surface, all of Kaoru's misgivings melted away. He was about to cross over to that distant shore, but strangely he felt no fear. The special atmosphere of the place actually lent his mood a touch of solemnity, of grandeur.

The elevator doors opened. He could see a section of the NSCS control centre. Surrounded by thick security walls, the computers' lights were flashing. But they weren't inside the NSCS yet. Kaoru would go in there alone.

Eliot kept pace with Kaoru. He refused to use a motorized wheelchair, telling Kaoru that he preferred to propel one himself, to keep his muscles in shape. The old-fashioned wheelchair looked out of place here, surrounded by the latest technology.

Panting faintly, Eliot said, "I need to ask you something before we begin, so that we have no misunderstandings. You don't think I let loose the MHC virus on purpose, do you?"

The thought had crossed Kaoru's mind, but all his doubts on that score had been settled.

"Why would you do that?"

Kaoru went behind Eliot's wheelchair and tried to push for him, but the older man waved him away as he would a fly. "Don't interfere," he said, but kindly, renewing his grip on the wheels. "Why would I do it, you ask? Isn't that obvious? To ensure funding for the Loop."

True enough, if Eliot could make the case that restarting the Loop was a necessary step toward defeating the MHC virus, then he'd get a massive amount of funding. A cure for the virus was the top priority worldwide-if one were developed, it would bring huge profits all around. The return on investment would be phenomenal, to say nothing of what it would contribute to society. And with that funding, Eliot would be able to achieve his dream of reactivating the Loop, a dream that had been on ice for twenty years.

"You wouldn't do something like that."

"And why wouldn't I?"

"Because there'd be no way you could foresee how the virus would behave. That, and I have a hard time believing your hatred of the virus is feigned."

Eliot swallowed and made a queer sound in the back of his throat. He, too, had lost several intimates to the disease: it was obvious what fuelled his animosity toward it.

"I'm glad you understand. The virus's getting loose was an accident, pure and simple. Had I known the virus was this wily, this nefarious, I would have been much, much more cautious…" His words of frustration carried the weight of truth.

"I know. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be down here."

Eliot stopped his wheelchair and gazed vacantly up at Kaoru. His wide eyes were wet with tears.

"So you don't… hold a grudge?"

"For what?"

"For taking it upon myself to bring you to this world, and then saying, 'Time's up, back you go.'"

"But I wouldn't be here, as a human being, if it weren't for you. The last twenty years haven't been bad at all. In fact, you've given me a lot of great memories. I don't have any grudge against you."

Kaoru was trying to view things philosophically. He felt that if he failed to affirm the present world completely, then all that would be left to him would be fear of the world to come. Unhappiness had dogged him. He'd seen his father, his mother, and his lover infected with the MHC virus; he'd witnessed Ryoji's suicide. But he could still state unequivocally that this life had been a good one. It was the only thing that allowed him to remain composed as he walked down that hallway.