1.2

Minato was hardly recognizable.

A year and seven months 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 (Implant Portal 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.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Keshi stared intently at the paper in his hand. Eiji had stressed to leave his phone back at the apartment, and it was the first time he’d ever had to follow written directions.

WHEN MIRAI BLOCK A ENDS—TAKE ANOTHER LEFT……

Keshi looked over at a circle of refugee housing units to his right. They were a newer addition to the Heiiki scenery—a donation from the Netherlands.

Each unit was 3D printed from a composite material, with very few standalone components. Engineered to be not only flotational, but partially submersible, they consisted of a round living chamber set atop a donut-shaped base, which was lined with a sturdy foam mesh. Should the unit become submerged, a hidden inflation mechanism beneath the eaves—which extended down from a domed roof—would activate and provide additional lift, carrying it to the surface.

A flat rollout deck ran along the top of the base, and allowed for hanging laundry and a few folding chairs. Each cluster of units had running water from a shared central tank that supplied the kitchen sinks, which were equipped with gas heaters. For bathing, you’d just go to the nearest bath house.

They were arranged in a way that promoted socialization and cooperation—the promotional video showed outdoor cooking and yard games, but it was far too cold, and Keshi didn’t see anyone outside.

Sure, it was closer to camping than a traditional home, Keshi thought, but it was a vast improvement over the tentpole villages set up in the immediate aftermath of the flood. 

As he watched a pair of pajama pants blowing gently on a line, he thought he wouldn’t mind living in one, but a sharp pang of guilt swiftly undid the thought. No doubt, whoever lived there would gladly trade places, and eagerly awaited the day their name was called on the relocation lottery. 

Behind the pair of pants were more flyers, stuck to the unit’s outer wall. Keshi could barely make out a young girl’s face—she looked about 12 or 13.

A loud HONK startled Keshi out of his daydream—he quickly stepped off the paved road as a large cargo truck drove past. In the back were a group of scientists wearing special diving suits that resembled skin-tight HAZMATs. All of eight of them stared down at their feet in silence.

Keshi watched them turn the corner and take off left, out of sight.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

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?

And say he did get caught, what then? It’s not like he could bribe anyone—the cash in his front pocket was useless anywhere else.

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 toolset. The Neural Net was vast—far more so than Tokyo. He pictured himself wandering endlessly through more empty streets—only in his head, instead of the city.

As another cold gust cut right 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 that 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” 

Now, his search had brought him here. 

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 an unmarked black helicopter vanish over the top of it. 

Nearly 300 meters tall, it sliced 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 somehow 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 Dutch lifesaving pods. 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.