It was October 12, 1989.
[Nikkei Average Index: 35,410 points]
Three days remained until the official opening of Niseko's Gokurakukan.
The Rolls-Royce engines of the Gulfstream G4 growled as the wings cut through heavy clouds. As the altitude dropped, the landing gear deployed with a mechanical click. The tires hit the concrete of New Chitose Airport hard.
Mid-October in Hokkaido had brought an early, brutal cold snap. The first snow of the season, mixed with sharp ice pellets, tore across the apron in the gale.
The jet stopped at its private berth. On the tarmac, dozens of S.A. Logistics employees stood in two ramrod-straight rows. Their dark blue cold-weather gear snapped in the near-freezing wind.
The cabin door opened.
Fujita Tsuyoshi stepped out first, his custom black suit sharp against the gray sky. In one practiced motion he unfurled a massive black umbrella, shielding the doorway from the slashing ice.
Behind him, eight guards in tactical windbreakers fanned out, forming a human wall.
Saionji Shuichi stepped out next, the collar of his cashmere coat turned up against the chill. Following him was Saionji Satsuki.
She wore a high-necked black wool dress under a camel-colored coat. Her leather boots clicked steadily on the metal steps. The sub-zero wind didn't move her. Ice shards hissed past and she didn't flinch.
Surrounded by their detail, father and daughter transferred to an Aerospatiale Super Puma parked fifty meters away. The matte dark-blue beast, marked with the silver hidari mitsu tomoe, was built for extreme weather.
The engines roared. The rotors spun, shredding the falling snow into a white vortex. The fuselage lifted and raced toward Niseko, straight into the Hokkaido front.
Looking down from the window, the world was a lifeless palette of black and white. A dark sea of coniferous forest, dusted with snow like powdered sugar.
As the helicopter passed between two low peaks, the view opened.
In the center of a desolate snowfield, a massive glass dome sat wedged into the permafrost like a giant, glowing gem. Tens of thousands of spotlights woven into the steel framework threw off a blinding aura of deep blue and gold.
With the glowing crystal as the heart, villa clusters spread across the snow. Closer in, "standard suites" hugged the lower slopes. Independent VIP villas hid deep in the fir forests. The light spilling from the dome washed the snow gold for hundreds of meters. The whole thing looked like a holy mirage in the frozen north.
The helicopter set down on a cleared pad, kicking up a flurry of snow. On-site executives, faces blue from the cold, bowed in perfect unison.
"Welcome, Young Lady! Welcome, Family Head!"
Shuichi and Satsuki stepped off.
To protect the guests from noise, the helipad was half a kilometer out. From here, the dome looked unreal. A massive, humming deity guarded by tiny altars of villas.
"Let's go inside first," Satsuki said, hands in her pockets. Her gaze locked on the glowing behemoth.
The group followed a bluestone path with underfloor heating. Falling snow hit the stone and vanished into mist, like walking on a warm cloud above frozen earth. Precious firs, lit by buried spotlights, glittered like ice sculptures.
Up close, the dome's crystal beauty gave way to raw industrial power. The curved glass wall ran upward forever, held by thick steel grids that made the people at its base look like ants.
The main entrance was an airlock buffer.
The outer steel doors, twenty centimeters thick, slid open with a hiss of air pressure. Inside the transition space, red heat lamps and high-speed air curtains stripped the cold and moisture from their coats in seconds.
The inner glass door sensed them and glided open.
"Welcome to Niseko Gokurakukan. May you enjoy earthly paradise here," a soft, Sony-tuned voice said through the airlock.
Crossing that threshold, the season died.
A warm, humid rush of air hit them. Twenty-eight degrees, sixty-five percent humidity. It smelled of sea salt and tropical flowers.
Beneath their feet ran a main road of polished teak. Palm trees, kept alive by high-frequency misting systems, lined the boulevard.
At the end of the road stood the heart of the dome: a seven-story "hourglass" building. Wide at the bottom, narrow in the middle, flared at the top where it locked into the dome's skeleton.
This behemoth held the casino, the opera house, and the ultra-luxury clubs. An altar to indulgence reaching for the sky. Its facade of thousands of dark glass panels reflected the extravagant light in every direction.
In the frozen north, capital had used gold to build a literal heaven.
To the left, a European-style commercial street glowed with warm yellow lights. To the right, pure white sand from the Philippines stretched toward a man-made sea where waves pushed forward with a steady hiss and crash.
Maids stepped forward silently to take their heavy coats and offer warm towels.
Shuichi wiped sweat from his forehead, caused by the thirty-degree swing. Satsuki handed her towel back. Her gaze swept the artificial rainforest. She could almost feel the dull, rhythmic vibration of the massive underground boilers through the teak floor. Heavy oil burning by the ton to keep the flames of this paradise roaring.
The group moved to a glass conference room. The financial representative presented two heavy folders.
"President, this is the energy report for the trial phase, and the maintenance bills."
Shuichi flipped the cover. His fingers tightened, creasing the paper. Even for him, the figure was staggering. The cost of fifteen days of "paradise" was astronomical.
Satsuki took the folder. Her eyes ran over the red ink.
The de-icing system for the glass dome burned enough power to run a medium-sized city.
The tropical plants needed constant UV.
The hydraulic wave machines swallowed ten-thousand-yen notes with every pulse of the tide.
It was a bottomless financial black hole.
But it was exactly what she wanted.
Once open, the cash flow would mask these costs. And when the time came to lure the "King of Real Estate," Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, this heavy asset burden would be the perfect bait.
"Have the load tests passed?" Satsuki asked. Her voice was cool in the artificial heat.
"Yes, Ma'am," the supervisor replied. "Redundancy is at the highest level. We can handle full load."
"Very good."
She handed the folder back. The executives melted into the shadows.
Satsuki walked out of the conference room alone. She moved through the broad-leaf forest. Hidden speakers played soft, ambient music.
After five minutes, the wood boardwalk ended. Soft white sand replaced it.
She walked to a wicker lounge chair at the water's edge and lay down. Her back sank into the cushion. The artificial sea breeze from massive fans pushed against her black wool dress, carrying the scent of salt.
Behind the glass, Hokkaido's lethal winter was a world away.
Deep underwater, the hydraulic machines released tons of water. A white wave slapped the sand with a long, steady roar.
Satsuki closed her eyes and let herself relax into the comfort that broke every law of nature.
Setting aside the financial ruin it would cause, the Poison Apple was indeed succulent.
I shall taste the sweetest part of this apple first for you, Mr. Tsutsumi, she thought.