"When are we gonna see it?"
Keshi watched a cluster of yellow circles bob up and down in front of him.
A small class of elementary school students stood in loose formation, all in matching bright caps and backpacks. They squirmed impatiently as they waited for their teacher to finish speaking to the checkpoint officer, their reflective sashes bouncing the harsh, artificial light back into his eyes.
"You could see it from the train."
"I couldn't."
"Who cares, the Sky Tree's taller. My sister said so."
The D-4 checkpoint was attached to the east exit of Meguro Station, now the final stop on the Yamanote inner line—the former loop cut off between it and Shimbashi.
Non-residents without an implant or pre-registration, along with foreign tourists, had no choice but to queue up in the manual lane on the far left, which inched forward at a glacial pace.
Keshi's eyes wandered over to the IIC gates on his right, where a steady stream of commuters flowed seamlessly through the open barriers.
"Does everyone have their sticker?"
"Yeeeeesss!"
"Before you go through the gate, peel off your sticker and stick it on your chest where everyone can see it. If you need help, ask your buddy."
One by one, the bright yellow caps bounded across the threshold. Two kids in the back shouted "DING!" as they passed through, touching their heads and throwing their hands out—activating the gate with their imaginary Ichors.
"Next visitor please!"
Keshi approached the counter and presented his physical ID to the disinterested checkpoint officer—a middle-aged man with a round face and wireframe aviator eyeglasses.
He didn't bother looking up, his eyes twitching about as he performed his duties. Every few breaths, he'd expel a puff of air through his nostrils from the back of his throat.
As he scanned Keshi's ID, it appeared on a large screen overhead. Seeing his own face blown up on the monitor, Keshi felt as though he were staring at a mugshot. He suddenly became hyper-aware of the envelope of cash resting inside his hoodie's front pocket. Not illegal to carry on its own, but certainly suspicious.
He didn't want to know how Eiji managed to get ahold of it.
"Purpose of visit?"
"Family. Nisshin. Block E."
The system chimed—a transparent turquoise rectangle flashed on screen, overlaying Keshi's ID. A kiosk attached to the counter printed a matching color sticker that was stamped:
04FEB2048
"Day pass expires 22:00."
The officer handed Keshi back his ID, letting out a puff of air.
Keshi peeled off the fluorescent sticker, which was stiff from the coil inlay, and pressed it firmly to his chest.
The reader flashed green and the gate opened.
On the other side, Keshi found himself standing in a bustling open courtyard teeming with shops and food stands. A complex blend of coffee, asphalt, and hot oden slowly wafted into his nostrils.
After reflexively checking that the envelope hadn't fallen out, Keshi reached into his back jeans pocket and pulled out a folded piece of A6 paper, which was filled border to border with barely legible handwriting.
D-4 MANUAL CHECKPOINT AT MEGURO—7:30-9:30 HRS—REASON FOR VISIT: "FAMILY—NISSHIN BLOCK E"—FOLLOW MEGURO DORI AVE 700 M—LEFT AT FRENCH BAKERY...
A sudden chill seasoned the smells of the courtyard with a distinct saltiness, pricking Keshi's sinuses.
It was true, the Heiiki Zone had its own air.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Minato was hardly recognizable.
Nearly two years had passed since the Great Flood swallowed the city, irreversibly changing Tokyo. 220,000 people. A hard figure to imagine.
The Heiiki Zone, which partially intersected 6 different wards (Ōta, Shinagawa, Minato, Chūō, Kōtō, and a sliver of Shibuya), constituted the areas directly affected, and became the designated refugee housing and rehabilitation zone once the waters receded.
It had been about a year since Keshi last set foot there, and old anxieties were starting to creep in. He'd always shut out the possibility that Runa and her family were killed in the disaster, but it was hard not to look around and think only of loss and death.
Buildings that passed inspection had been allowed to reopen, and now a patchwork of convenience stores, supermarkets, drug stores, restaurants, and bars had restored a weak pulse to the city.
One glance off the newly paved main roads, however, and you'd see deep scars left in the old streets.
It was a landscape of contrasts, with vacant luxury apartments towering over rows upon rows of temporary housing blocks.
At night, every surviving high-rise in downtown Minato was illuminated from the inside, revealing the skeletons of empty offices, glass-walled fitness clubs, sky lounges, and abandoned penthouses. Part memorial, part art installation—it was conceived by an artist whose home and studio had been destroyed in the flood.
Keshi questioned whether someone who actually lived there would come up with such a thing.
Still, both the remnant tidal flats and "ghost towers" had become major tourist draws, and were eventually adopted as part of the city's visual identity.
As he made his way through the outer zone, Keshi's eyes weren't on the sights, however, but on the countless faces staring back at him.
Hundreds of flyers for those still missing were stuck to the sides of buildings, light posts, vending machines—any surface they would fit. Below the photos were IP codes that served as a direct line to the Missing Person's Taskforce, which was set up by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The missing person's list was also available in text-form on their website, which Keshi checked regularly.
Runa and her parents never appeared among the near 40,000 names, but that was no great comfort.
They were already missing.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
At some point along the way, Keshi had crossed over into another plane.
Sounds no longer carried the same, like the whole world was whispering. The winter sunlight had darkened, and the wind felt three-times as cold. A thin glassy patina glistened on every exposed surface, which would flake off and crumble into a powder on touch. Even the air had grown more coarse.
It made him feel off balance, and only added to his growing sense of unease.
He thought the hardest part would be getting through the gate, but the long walk had given him time to think.
The further into the Heiiki Zone he traveled, the more he noticed the increased security presence—not just police—actual soldiers with rifles. If you were running an illegal operation, why here of all places?
It all sounded good in the moment—"She's out there."
But he had no real plan for how to find Runa, even with the Ichor's help. The Neural Net was vast—far more so than Tokyo. He imagined himself wandering endlessly through more desolate streets—only this time, inside his head, instead of out in the city.
As another cold gust cut through the fabric of his hoodie, he regretted trusting Eiji's judgement.
Just keep searching.
Familiar words interrupted his thought spiral.
The first time he heard them, he was lying in bed. Keshi wasn't sure if he was awake or asleep, but he could have sworn it was Runa's real voice, whispering in his ear. Since then, it had become a kind of mantra that he repeated whenever he started to feel stuck or hopeless.
"Just keep searching…"
He prayed it wasn't her ghost he heard.
As Keshi crossed the street—still staring at the small piece of paper—a large shadow overtook him. He looked up to see a faded pink awning that read:
AMI CLINIC
Keshi crumpled the paper in his hand.
Just then—a whooshing in the distance caused him to turn out in the direction of Tokyo Bay. As Keshi stared up at the sky, his expression flattened.
A towering wall of ocean loomed overhead.
Keshi watched the tail of a black helicopter vanish over the top of it.
Nearly 300 meters tall, it sliced right through the cityscape at an angle—leaving some buildings half-submerged and half-dry. Flocks of petrels and gulls were perched on their exposed balconies, and schools of fish could be seen swimming through tangled drifts of cables and debris that hung suspended in the still seawater.
No one knew what held it up—officially.
Researchers tasked with studying it were gagged, but there was no shortage of folk theories. Magnetic pole shifts, global warming, a Chinese or North Korean WMD, superconductors beneath the seafloor—there were at least six different cult leaders who claimed responsibility.
Eiji swore it was black budget alien tech. Keshi didn't get how it could be both.
The government's official stance was "anomalous natural phenomena," though they maintained that there was no immediate risk of the flood wall bursting, or pushing inland a second time.
At one point, the public might have taken them at their word. However, the days of trusting anything had long passed.
It didn't matter one way or the other, Keshi thought. You couldn't stop it. Not with man-made barricades. Not with armed soldiers or art projects. Not with flyers.
The Great Flood Wall simply visualized the inevitable—and, on the surface, life continued on in spite of it. Those with jobs had to go to work. The trains had to stay running. Hungry bellies needed filling—hair washing—teeth brushing. Maintenance. But for all of it to mean anything, some kind of future still had to be believed in.
Living in the shadow of constant, looming death, though—it changed people.