As the vaccine came to be manufactured in quantity and more and more people were inoculated, the mutated forms of the tape came to pose less of a threat. Instead of a deadly weapon they were now simply junk. They were allowed to fulfill their purpose as entertainment, but that was all anyone saw them as.
People used to call this the Killer Video. Are you brave enough to watch it?
It was becoming a relic of the past.
But there was another problem: what to do about all the Sadako Yamamuras who had flooded the world. The Sadakos were hermaphroditic, and they could reproduce on their own, so it was still possible for them to multiply with viral speed. The media terror may have died out, but if the Sadakos continued to occupy a larger and larger percentage of the human population, the Loop ecology was still in danger. Otherwise the Sadakos were harm-less, and public opinion wasn't hysteric enough, or the public will wasn't firm enough, to eliminate them. Some said this was the logical stance, but it was probably more accurate to say that everyone recoiled from the question of who was going to hunt down the Sadakos and dispose of them, and how.
However, a new virus was unleashed that resolved things perfectly. It was unclear whether it had existed in the Loop world all along and had simply mutated into a state of efficacy or if it had been intentionally designed, but either way, it inflicted decisive damage on the Sadakos and no one else. Left to its natural course, it effectively destroyed the source of all the problems. And in the process, the events left a warning for society as a whole, an eloquent testament to the risks of losing diversity and allowing all life to become assimilated to one pattern.
An organic community's resilience is directly tied to the presence of individual differences within it. Some live in the mountains, some live by the sea. Some live in a world of ice, some under equatorial conditions. Some have white skin, some black. The greater the range of individual differences, the greater the chances of surviving a catastrophic blow. A virus can harm individual beings that live in hot places while having no effect on ones that live in cold places. If it attacked both, the former would die while the latter would survive. As long as there are survivors, there can always be a new start—a chance to form a world with sufficient diversity. But if the entire world shares the same DNA, everyone in it runs the risk of succumbing to the same viral attack.
The virus that overcame the Sadakos served as proof of that. It seemed to work upon some physical peculiar-ity of the Sadakos, which caused them to die a natural death.
The Sadakos were not born through sexual reproduction, and they shared the characteristic of growing to maturity in a week's time. Once they contracted the virus, however, they grew old at the same advanced rate until they died of natural causes. The Loop world began to overflow with aging, dying Sadakos.
Reiko found herself curiously moved by the sight of Sadakos dying in the streets. She knew how much the original Sadako had dreaded getting old in her days as an actress—as a woman, Reiko couldn't bear to see her succumbing helplessly to the hideousness of age. The fact that it wasn't just one Sadako but myriads who were fighting and losing the battle only made it sadder.
The Loop world seemed to believe that the virus that was killing the Sadakos had arisen naturally. Reiko suspected that it was man-made, and she thought she knew by whom. Ryuji Takayama—Kaoru. She believed that he had taken his knowledge of the unique telomerase sequence in his own DNA and applied it to creating a virus that hastened cellular division. Amano had told her about the correlation between aging and the number of times a cell divided, and how the latter was limited by the length of the telomeres.
So, in the end, Takayama had created two products: a vaccine to disable the program that brought death or impregnation, and a virus to increase the rate of the clones' cellular division. Together these allowed the Loop world to recover its biodiversity.
Reiko moved her perspective-point back to widen her field of vision. In hundred meter increments, she gradually rose to a vantage point of several kilometers over the surface of the Loop world. Finally leaving the atmosphere, she noticed that the ball known as the Loop had changed color ever so slightly. It was beautiful now, hardly different from Earth.
Until a short time ago it had been covered here and there with dirty splotches, but now, with its biodiversity restored, the Loop world was returning to its original color. This was a mixture of many different hues, reflected in delicate shades, darkness and brightness added according to the light.
Reiko was relieved to see this. It was visual confirmation that Kaoru had accomplished the mission he'd gone down into the Loop to perform. The beauty and brightness of the image told her this faster than any words could have.
She wanted to go to sleep clinging to this feeling of relief.
She turned off the computer, thinking she'd watch more tomorrow, and lay her pregnant body down on the bed. She could feel the fetus kicking energetically inside her. It could come at any time now. She pulled the telephone up next to her pillow, just in case.
The next day, at the same time, Reiko accessed the Loop again. Six days had passed in the Loop world, and in just that short time, a change had come over Takayama's body. He was in the hospital again. He was in the same exam room, and he was undressing in front of the doctor again.
Reiko was looking at his back. In addition to the scar slanting across his back, she could see brown spots on his skin, and wrinkles on his neck. The change was drastic for such a short period of time. His hair was going white, and his hands, as he picked up his clothing, were dry and cracked.
Reiko took her vantage point around to the front and looked at his face. What she hadn't dared think before became a certainty now. The face she was looking at had changed. It was old.
It was Takayama, no doubt of that. His belly and chest still looked youthful. The contrast between them and his aged face put Reiko in mind of some unnatural power. Her anxiety grew.
The exam over, Takayama went to the reception desk for his prescription and then tottered out of the hospital. As he did, Reiko's monitor showed her the waiting room, where she'd previously seen two Sadakos in a brief moment; now there were none. Had they been completely expelled from the Loop world?
Takayama left the building and walked down the street. This time he wasn't driving, but walking along the pavement.
His shrunken back bore witness to extreme fatigue and physical decline. Walking seemed difficult for him.
Every now and then he'd stop and lean against an electrical pole or a wall, press on his chest and wheeze and cough.
Each time, he'd take out the medicine he'd just been prescribed and swallow a little, but he himself seemed to realize it was good for nothing but psychological comfort.
Obviously, Takayama was overcome by rapid aging.
Reiko thought she could guess why. He'd become infected with the same virus that had aged the Sadakos.
He must have foreseen it when he was developing the virus. Given the similarities of their manner of resurrec-tion into the Loop world, the virus was bound to affect him as well, to kill him. He'd known it but gone through with it anyway. He'd sacrificed himself twice over. He was a man burdened by fate.
When he could no longer stand, he made his way between some buildings to a set of steps leading up into a park and sat down on them. She could imagine him feeling the coolness of the concrete beneath him. What season was it, she wondered. Passersby looked to be dressed for chilly weather.