He had never been to those northern countries where the sun never fully sets, but he imagined that it must be something like what he was now seeing. The white phosphorescence rose independently from the moon that hung low in the sky, as though filtering upwards from the sea itself. It formed a long band of light across the water below. Hashiba felt that he had seen enough during the day and that he could take anything in stride now. He lay down on the bed in an attempt to concentrate and sort through his thoughts. As he sank into the soft mattress Hashiba found his thoughts drifting back to the feeling of Saeko’s skin, but this was not the time for indulging in fantasies. He pushed the image to the back of his mind and started to skim the half-written draft script. He had to do something to occupy his mind; he had to finalize the basic structure of the show.
The first problem was whether or not to treat the mass disappearances at the gardens as related to the other disappearances they were going to cover. Atami was situated close to the Tanna Fault Line, so that fitted. But he had to be careful not to jump to any conclusions; the disappearances here were on a completely different scale. The cases they had looked at so far had concerned at most only a few people. This time almost a hundred people had gone missing, and Hashiba was at a loss as to how to approach that. Should he argue the same causes but just apply them on a different scale? It was a difficult decision.
He decided to tackle that issue later and let his thoughts return to the files Saeko had given him. There was sufficient evidence in the file to suggest that the disappearances to date had a common link: periods of heightened solar black spot activity. According to Isogai, there was a hugely complex relationship between sunspots and the makeup of the Earth’s crust that could cause disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field. But Hashiba didn’t have the knowledge of physics necessary to either confirm or deny that contention. Moreover, he now had to decide whether or not to treat the sudden appearance of the crater as part of the same phenomenon.
He decided he needed Isogai’s opinion on all of this if he was to make any progress on the script and bunched the papers outlining his questions under his arm. It was getting close to six, and the crew and Isogai were scheduled to hold a meeting over dinner.
When they sat down to dinner everyone was too famished, so Hashiba decided to take the meeting back to someone’s room afterwards. A short while later, they gathered in Isogai’s room. Hashiba sat with Kagayama on a sofa next to the window, while Hosokawa and Kato sat cross-legged on the floor. Isogai was at the desk, booting his laptop.
Kagayama reached across to the mini bar and pulled out a large bottle of beer. He poured the contents into some glasses and passed them around the group. Then he picked up a saucer from the table before the sofa, spun it above his head, and said, “We’re going to roll with this, yes?”
Hashiba wondered if Kagayama was beginning to lose it. For some reason, Kagayama had been avoiding eye contact, as though he were somehow determined not to face up to the reality of what was before them. He wore an unconvincing smile of self-parody. Even the spinning saucer began to look ominous.
“Give me that.” Hashiba snatched it and put it out of reach.
“Come on, we’re going to roll with it, right?” Kagayama continued his appeal, mindlessly repeating the phrase, ignoring the fact that Hashiba had taken his prop away. Everyone knew what he was talking about, but no one took the bait. Kagayama still wanted to believe that a UFO had landed in the park and abducted the ninety-one missing people. Just the idea of basing the show around that was horrifying.
“We have to look at all the options, of course,” Hosokawa injected subtly.
Kagayama took a step back, suddenly defensive. “What other options, exactly?”
Kato sat frowning, listening passively. Hashiba’s thoughts wandered back to Saeko. He decided to give her a call to check if she was all right, but just as he pulled his phone from his pocket there was a knock at the door. Isogai jumped at his computer, emerging from his bubble and finally pulling himself away from checking emails from his colleagues and friends overseas. He called out and looked around the room.
Kato was closest to the door and pulled it open, revealing a short black man holding a briefcase. He looked nervously around the room, but as soon as he saw Isogai he breathed out and all tension seemed to melt away from his expression. Isogai smiled back and ran over, taking the man’s hands in his own and gazing into his eyes.
“Naoki!”
“Chris, you made it!”
Isogai introduced Chris to the people in the room, his face bright with pleasure. Hashiba found himself feeling awkward in front of such open, unreserved joy. Isogai began to boast to everyone in the room about how brilliant a scientist Chris was. For his part, Chris looked shy; there was something about him that seemed almost naïve. Hashiba knew that Chris was five years younger than Isogai, who seemed to be the protective one in the relationship.
Chris elbowed Isogai in the ribs. Isogai turned around, coming out of his reverie. Chris had tears in his eyes.
“Chris?”
“Something terrible is happening.” His tone was serious.
The two of them started to talk to each other in English. They spoke louder and louder, getting worked up to the point where they were almost shouting. Chris must have told Isogai something important, perhaps a new development. Hashiba put his phone back and waited for a lull in the conversation. Eventually, the two men seemed to finish their discussion.
“Could you let us know what happened?” Hashiba asked.
Isogai walked over to his computer and sat down, staring intently at the display. As he opened some file according to Chris’ instructions, his expression indicated some form of inner turmoil. Hashiba walked up to Chris and Isogai and peered over their shoulders.
The display showed a series of long numbers along with some English text and a lot of equations. Only Isogai and Chris could interpret the contents.
“Is this an email from someone you know?” Hashiba asked. If he knew who sent it, he might be able to guess at the contents.
“It’s from Cyril Burt, a colleague and good friend from Carnegie Mellon. He’s been kind enough to keep me up to date with the latest news from the research labs since I came back to Japan.”
“And what’s he saying?”
Isogai slammed his hands down on the desk, as though in response to Hashiba’s question. “Impossible!”
Whatever the content, Hashiba could tell that it was something big, something important. The room had fallen quiet in the wake of Isogai’s outburst; everyone sat poised, waiting for Isogai to explain, but he just sat with his eyes closed, muttering softly to himself, occasionally asking Chris the odd question.
“Could you let us know what’s going on?” Hashiba tried again, unable to bear the suspense.
Isogai took a deep breath and looked over at Hashiba, eyes slightly bloodshot. He stared up at the ceiling and began to explain.
“It’s not just Pi that’s changed. The Riemann hypothesis has collapsed.” His voice was a whisper. The words meant nothing to Hashiba. He had just managed to get his head around the idea that the value of Pi had somehow changed; Isogai had talked about that at dinner. Meanwhile, no one seemed to have heard of the Riemann hypothesis.
“Could you explain in layman’s terms?”
“The Riemann hypothesis collapsed …” Isogai simply repeated.
“And what exactly is that?”
“The question was first raised 150 years ago. It’s probably the most important question in all of integer number theory. Say you were to take all prime numbers — numbers only divisible by 1 and themselves — and laid them out in order. You would get a list that goes on ad infinitum: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43 … Now, the gaps between successive prime numbers get larger as you continue. People started to conjecture that there could be a pattern dictating the length of the spaces between prime numbers. To keep it simple, a genius mathematician called Riemann set out to find the mathematical proof, but the task was heinously difficult. Still, the existence of a pattern was considered almost certain since the Riemann zeta function of zero only appeared on the plane of complex numbers when S = 1/2 + ti. But now, checking Cyril’s report against Chris’ information, it looks like that’s been proven false. Frighteningly enough, a number of non-trivial zeros have been discovered outside 1/2 + ti, which means that the hypothesis has collapsed.”