Kojo Suzuki - Spiral

When he’d put several good feet between himself and the woman, he bolted for the door and stumbled outside. In slacks and a sweater he was dressed much too lightly for the cold, but he spared not a thought for that as he ran down the stairs. It was only after he’d run through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk that he was able to turn around to look behind him. There was no sign of pursuit. He looked up at his windows, still brightly lit. He wanted to go someplace crowded. He ran toward the station.

The wind chilled him to the bone. He had no particular destination in mind, but he found himself naturally gravitating toward bright places. He turned his back on the shadowy groves of Yoyogi Park. The skyscrapers of Shinjuku loomed ahead like so many black hulks. Between him and them lay the modest bustle of Sangubashi Station, surrounded by narrow shop-lined streets leading into residential areas. He guessed that even on a holiday there might be one or two places open. Ando’s steps took him in that direction. Anywhere there might be people was good enough for him.

It was only when he came to the ticket vending machines at the station that he realized he’d left his wallet behind. He couldn’t go back and get it now. He searched his other pockets. He found the little case he kept his driver’s license in. He remembered shoving it in his pocket the other day when he’d gone on that excursion with Miyashita, thinking he might have to take the wheel at some point. He’d forgotten to take it out of his pocket when he got home. Luckily he’d tucked some money behind the license for emergencies.

A five-thousand-yen bill. That was all the money he had now. At the thought he felt more lonely than cold. Where was he supposed to sleep tonight? Five thousand yen wouldn’t even buy him a night in a capsule hotel.

His only hope was Miyashita. He bought a train ticket, and then stepped into a phone booth. He dialed his friend’s number, doubting he’d have gotten home yet. And, indeed, he hadn’t. No wonder, he’d only just called Ando from Yotsuya, across town from where he lived. He was probably still on his way home to Tsurumi. Ando decided to head in that direction himself.

It was past nine o’clock when Ando sank into a seat on the train. When he closed his eyes Sadako’s face appeared before him as if by conditioned reflex. He’d never had his feelings about a woman change so drastically over such a short period of time. The cold air of mystery he’d sensed on their first meeting had dissipated somewhat on their second, to be replaced by a growing desire for her. When they met a third time, that desire was realized, and the faint beginnings of infatuation had stirred his heart. And then, the fall. She’d lured him up to a high place, had her way with him, and then pushed him off the edge into the abyss. It was unendurable to think that he’d copulated with a woman who should have been dead for twenty-five years. The word “necrophilia” came to mind. Where had this woman come from? Was the part about her being dead a mistake? Or had she really come back from beyond the grave?

It being a holiday, the train was comparatively empty. Only a few passengers had to stand. Across the aisle from Ando, a laborer-type was sprawled across the bench, occupying enough space for three people. His eyes were shut tight, but he wasn’t asleep. Proof of this came every time somebody walking the length of the car passed by him and he opened his eyes a crack to fathom his surroundings. His eyes, however, were so heavy and dull that they almost looked dead. Ando averted his eyes from the man. But the laborer wasn’t the only one. Every one of the passengers was as pale as a corpse.

Ando hugged himself to keep from trembling. If he didn’t hug himself, he was afraid he’d start screaming, right there in the public space of a train carriage.

He accepted a glass of brandy from Miyashita. First he sent a trickle of it down his throat, savoring the sensation, then he drained the glass.

He was starting to feel human again, but was still shivering slightly.

“How do you feel now?” Miyashita asked.

“More or less alive.”

“You must’ve been freezing.”

Miyashita didn’t know yet why Ando had come without a coat.

“It’s not the cold.”

Miyashita had shown Ando into the room he used as a study. Ando was sitting on the spare bed in the corner. It was where he was going to sleep tonight, but for the moment, he was just rattling its metal bars. Only after downing his second glass of brandy was he able to stop shaking.

“What happened?” Miyashita’s voice was gentle.

Ando told him everything that had happened since the previous night. When he finished, he fell backwards onto the bed and let out a whine like a mosquito’s.

“I give up! Explain it to me! I’m lost,” he moaned.

“Good Lord,” muttered Miyashita, utterly thrown for a loop. It was one of those moments when people can’t help laughing, albeit bitterly, and that’s what Miyashita did, weakly. When his laughter had subsided, he poured brandy into some hot coffee and started sipping it. He seemed to be deep in thought, trying to find a reply that was logical, that made at least some sense.

“The basic question is, where did Sadako come from?” The rhetorical tone suggested that Miyashita had already come up with an answer.

“Tell me. Where did she come from?”

Miyashita turned the question back on Ando. “Don’t you know?”

Still supine, Ando shook his head. “No, I do not.”

“You really don’t know?”

“Tell me! Where did she come from?”

“Mai Takano gave birth to her.”

Ando forgot to breathe for a few moments while he tried to think of an alternate explanation. But he could hardly think at all. He’d lost the power of cogitation. All he could do was repeat what he’d heard.

“Mai Takano gave birth to her?”

“The evil video was born from Sadako’s mind. Mai watched it on a day when she was ovulating. The ring virus was born in her body and then fertilized her egg. ‘Fertilized’ isn’t the right word, though. It’s probably more accurate to say that the nucleus of Mai’s egg was replaced with Sadako Yamamura’s genes.”

“I hope you’re going to tell me you can explain the mechanism by which all this happened.”

“Think back to when we ran the ring virus through the genetic sequencer. We discovered that it contained smallpox genes and human genes mixed together in a fixed ratio.”

Ando sat up and reached for his glass. But the glass was empty.

“So the human genes were…”

“Sadako’s. Split into hundreds of thousands of parts.”

“Hundreds of thousands of ring virus specimens, each carrying a tiny segment of Sadako’s DNA?”

“Despite its being a DNA virus, the ring virus has reverse transcription enzymes. So it ought to be able to insert those fragments into the nucleus of a cell.”

A single virus specimen would be incapable of carrying the entirety of a person’s genetic information. It simply wasn’t big enough. But things would be otherwise if a person’s DNA could be split into hundreds of thousands of segments, and each segment parceled out to a different piece of virus. In the photos taken by the electron microscope, they’d seen what looked like countless numbers of ring viruses, mobs of them. It turned out that each one of them had been carrying a part of Sadako Yamamura’s genetic code, and together they’d ganged up on Mai’s egg.

Ando started to stand up, but thought better of it and sat down again. He always got fidgety when he tried to counterargue.

“But Sadako died twenty-five years ago. Her genetic information shouldn’t be able to manifest itself anymore.”