The Next Continent (4 page)

“Yes, that should do it.” Gotoba cocked an eye at Sohya and nodded expressionlessly. So the rumor was true. A moment later Gotoba's jovial expression was back. He turned to the old man. “See? Everything's under control. No need to worry about the trip home.”

Toenji smiled. “Goodness, we're not worried,” he said with a casual wave of his hand. “I've heard about your company and its achievements. It seems the reputation is well earned. The most advanced technology, the best people. If that's the case, I might even be able to use you.”

“Well, thank you for that,” Gotoba replied with a smile. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, it's right up your alley. I need you to build me a structure. Very difficult location. Only Gotoba Engineering can handle it.”

“What kind of location? We've worked in blistering heat and freezing cold, at high altitudes where a man can hardly breathe, and deep in the ocean under crushing pressure. I was looking forward to a slightly less challenging setting for our next project,” Gotoba said, still smiling.

“Then I'm sorry. My project has all of those things.” Toenji seemed to be joking, and Gotoba was about to repay the favor when he noticed the old man's eyes twinkling strangely.

“All of them?” asked Gotoba.

“Correct. Temperature from minus 120 to plus 160. Atmospheric pressure, oh, a hundred-billionth of that at sea level. It's the kind of place where I'll need your help.”

“I don't understand.”

“Tae?” Toenji looked down at the girl, who was holding a glass of orange juice. With her free hand, she pointed at the ceiling. “There!”

They all glanced up. The ceiling was fiber-reinforced concrete, with a blown ceramic surface. Gotoba and Sohya were baffled.

“The moon.” Toenji smiled, as if enjoying a particularly choice joke. “Care to consider it?”

Gotoba and Sohya stared at each other, speechless.

[3]

THE DOOR OF
the airbus opened. From the moment Sohya stepped out onto the moving walkway, he was immersed in hot, humid air and the faint smell of foliage. Light perspiration immediately started under his long-sleeved shirt. He murmured to himself, “Summer in Japan…”

“Huh?” said Iwaki, a few steps ahead of him. He looked back at Sohya, who was wiping the nape of his neck with a handkerchief.

“The smell. The humidity. I notice it every time I step off the plane. It's nice to be home, but it's not exactly Swallow Reef, is it?”

“You smell something?” answered Iwaki. “You're pretty sensitive.” He began sniffing the air intently. Sohya walked past him toward Customs and Immigration. Maybe the smell was a trick of his senses, but the air enclosing him was like a steaming towel. The only other place he'd encountered this kind of humidity was the Amazon.

He felt the sense of homecoming again at the immigration gate, which was little different from the wicket in a train station. Armed security personnel were a thing of the past. Japan had managed to break free from the endless economic competition between Asian nations that had reigned during the late twentieth century. It maintained its primacy in industrial technology through national commitment. There must have been hidden broad-spectrum cameras, metal detectors, and other high-tech observation devices all over the airport. But to the eye of the visitor, there were no heavyhanded security arrangements. Even though the world as a whole had become a much safer place, the atmosphere around the gate struck Sohya as especially peaceful.

“Eyes, please.” The immigration officer leaned out of her glass booth at the gate and held a device like a cordless shaver in front of Sohya's face. The device trilled softly as it scanned his retinas, and an ID number came up on the display in the booth. The officer glanced at the screen, pulled Sohya's passport from the slot below the display, and held it out with a smile. “Welcome home.”

The whole procedure was almost as simple as buying something in one of the convenience stores that used to dot every city block in Tokyo, but Iwaki always bridled at the inefficiency of it. Over Sohya's shoulder, he muttered, “Airports should catch up with the times. When I ride the train, all I do is walk through a gate, a high-resolution camera scans my face, and the fare comes out of my account.”

“Not good enough for an airport,” said Sohya. “Those systems miss one or two faces in a thousand. Japan Rail loses a few yen, but in an airport it could mean missing a terrorist or letting someone enter illegally.”

“A human can recognize a face even if the traveler shaves his head,” added the officer. “And we don't malfunction. Eyes, please.” She held the scanner up before Iwaki, who muttered that machines make mistakes because the people who build them make mistakes.

“And that, Takasumi Iwaki, is why we use machines
and
people here. Have you lost a little weight?” The officer looked from Iwaki to the video in his passport. Iwaki frowned. “Too much spicy food.”

The officer smiled. “Welcome home.” She held out the passport.

“See? People are necessary. Who wants to be greeted by a machine?” quipped Sohya, and turned to the officer. “Is the air conditioning down? It feels like thirty-two degrees in here.”

“It's cold in the plane. We're at twenty-nine degrees. If it hits thirty, the air conditioning comes on. We apologize.”

“So it's like this outside?” pressed Sohya.

“Yes, we're just using the ventilators. Mustn't waste energy. Next, please.”

Sohya exited the gate, slightly surprised. So the smell was coming from outside after all. It suddenly occurred to him that he'd always passed through this airport in winter. The winds blowing off China washed gently over New Haneda International Airport, floating in Tokyo Bay off Odaiba.

The men picked up their baggage and headed for the monorail station, but the walkway to the platform was blocked by construction. They stepped outside the terminal. Sure enough, the temperature difference was negligible. Paradoxically, the roar of jets arriving and departing from the airport's two runways almost made it seem cooler.

Looking northwest toward the center of the city, they saw what appeared to be a forest of gigantic, moss-covered tombstones topped by flashing red aerial warning beacons. Beginning around 2015, the practice of sheathing high-rise buildings with living vegetation had become widely popular. In addition to cooling the urban heat island and improving energy efficiency, people seemed to like the unusual, beautiful effect.

Sohya and Iwaki walked the short distance to the monorail platform.

“It's not just cool today, is it? They've basically shut the air conditioning off in the terminal. Global warming is trailing off,” said Sohya, impressed.

“Here and around the world,” answered Iwaki. “It was like this when we changed planes in Hong Kong.”

“Climate change was such a big deal when I was little.”

“Yes, and because of that things are getting better now. We helped out too, with the Sahara project.”

“It would be great if we made a difference,” replied Sohya. They boarded the monorail. As the train pulled out of the station, the enormous spaces of Tokyo's waterfront spread out before them.

The construction industry had changed profoundly in the past two decades. Before, construction companies had built buildings, erected bridges and dams, and laid endless miles of asphalt. Nature's domain was carved away, and the human domain expanded ceaselessly. As often as not, self-interest was behind all this development: the interlocking networks of influential people who depended on the profits from construction made sure that it continued unabated.

But that mindset had changed. Of course, the human domain had to expand. Global population growth had slowed, but people in the developing world were seeking more space and a higher standard of living. To give people a better life, farmland, factories, and modern homes continued to be necessities.

Still, construction did not just mean replacing nature with the man-made. The construction industry had the potential to enlarge nature's domain as well. The Sahara project was just one example. Gotoba Engineering had planted huge numbers of drought-resistant plants such as eucalyptus trees, then built a rain-generation facility for irrigation. Today the Sahara was slowly reverting to what it had been before the construction of the pyramids: a vast green region. Some of the inhabitants disliked the new, more humid climate. But across the globe, the flora and fauna that mankind had begun exterminating four millennia ago were beginning to rise again.

This restoration of the planet was not just taking place far from human habitation. It was promoted in the middle of large cities. Sohya watched the metropolis moving past as the monorail slid along, suspended in the air. Houses, buildings, warehouses, and factories were covered with lush foliage. Water-retaining polymer sheeting was widely used as a covering for roofs and walls. It was cheap and durable, and it protected the underlying structure against moisture. And thanks to a well-conceived system of government subsidies for such technology, the polymer was widely used. Protruding from the greenery at uniform intervals were rank upon rank of glittering, silvery purple mirrors pointing toward the southern sky—photovoltaic panels. With an efficiency of better than 50 percent at the earth's surface, these panels provided energy at less than nine yen per kilowatt hour—cheaper than power from an oil-fired power plant—and had become as widespread as foliage sheathing for buildings. Gotoba Engineering did not engage in residential construction, but virtually no structure was built without solar panels.

Political reform had accelerated the industry's transformation. The biggest change was the elimination of fixed electoral districts. Instead of standing for election from defined regions, candidates for the national Diet ran as representatives of local communities. Campaign pledges were posted on the web, and the entire nation voted on each candidate. Regional politics was left to local government instead of the central government using the power of the purse to meddle in local affairs. National office meant responsibility for national issues and diplomacy. Most politicians who relied on personal and financial connections lost their seats, and this led to the extinction of the old construction industry's vested interests and its struggle to gain advantage by backing handpicked elected officials. Politicians who used the industry to funnel funds for wasteful construction to the countryside disappeared from the scene.

Old-school construction companies were unable to survive amid the changes. One after another they went bankrupt. At the same time, environmental and technology projects and the revolution in energy production meant the construction business was healthier than ever. Nimble start-ups able to ride this new wave had grown into large concerns. Gotoba Engineering was one such company. Today, Japan was in the midst of an economic growth renaissance.

Since the completion a year previously of the Edogawa Riverbed Renewal project, which facilitated the treatment of wastewater with microorganisms, the waters of Tokyo Bay had reverted to their original crystalline blue with startling speed. As Sohya gazed out on the sparkling waters, he was struck by how bright the future seemed. Yes, life was good.

Yet, something about the current era smacked of stagnation. Sohya remembered the speech Takumichi Gotoba had given the new employees when he joined the company: construction is progressive. Harmony with nature? By all means. Restoration of the environment? Very necessary. But ultimately, construction means creating the new. Past generations had used this power in a way that harmed the planet. This generation would use that same power to repair the damage.

But what about generations to come? Would they be as active in maintaining and tending the biosphere? If every corner of this little planet were made amenable to human habitation, would the construction industry lay down its tools?

“No,” was the president's aggressive answer. “Construction will never end. Even if there are no commissions, we ourselves can create projects. We have the capability to propose, initiate, and execute projects that would be impossible for almost any other organization. The proof stands today in the Sahara, in Antarctica, in the Himalayas. These projects are monuments to the power of human will made real, to the next stage in human history.”

Gotoba was famous for bombast, especially when motivating new employees. Probably 80 percent of what he said was exaggeration. Yet as Sohya listened to the president gradually being carried away by his own rhetoric, he was deeply moved. Who knew what they might build next?

Sohya was more than blessed with the passion of youth, but for all that he was still levelheaded by nature. He found much to agree with in Gotoba's words, but those views were only natural for someone in the industry. Others would see things differently. Construction was merely a means to an end. Gotoba and companies like it had a role to play only when people required it. That was what they needed—huge challenges to test the very limits of their ability.

“Hey! We're here.” Iwaki shook his shoulder. Sohya opened his eyes. He must have fallen asleep while contemplating the scenery. The monorail's doors stood open at the platform at Shimbashi Station. This new station had just opened eighty meters below the surface of Tokyo Bay.

“Hurry up. Get your things,” barked Iwaki.

“Are we transferring here?”

“No—yes, we just pulled into Shimbashi Station. Aomine is with me.” Iwaki was in the middle of a telecall on his wearcom even as he stretched on tiptoes and tugged at his luggage in the overhead rack. Sohya was nearly a head taller. He reached up and took down the luggage. “Head office?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes? Yeah, I'm coming straight in. Aomine has to stop off at home.”

Sohya leaned toward Iwaki. “I don't have to go home.” Iwaki held his hand up for silence. He nodded several times and ended the call.