The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop. Koji Suzuki

what he meant.

      “Your father was probably Japan’s greatest collector of this sort of information. He told me that, using a network of connections he himself had forged, he had assembled a list of people all over the country with paranormal powers. He said he was storing the information.”

      Tetsuaki’s face clouded over. Surely they weren’t going to ask him to search through all those records for a single name. “Yes, of course the files have been preserved. But there are so many of them. And many of those people are frauds anyway.” Tetsuaki blanched at the thought of looking through all those files again. It had taken a dozen of his father’s students several months to organize them. Following the wishes of the deceased, they’d included even uncertain cases, swelling the number of files even further.

      “We certainly don’t intend to put you to any trouble. With your permission, we’ll search through them ourselves, just the two of us.”

      “They’re in the archives upstairs. Perhaps you’d like to take a look at them first?” Tetsuaki stood up. They could only talk like that because they had no idea how much there was. Once they had a look at all those shelves, he had a feeling they wouldn’t feel like tackling them. He led them to the second floor.

      The archives were in a high-ceilinged room at the head of the stairs. They entered the room to find themselves facing two bookcases of seven shelves each. Each file-book contained materials relating to forty cases, and at first glance there seemed to be thousands of file-books. Asakawa didn’t notice Ryuji’s reaction, he was too busy turning pale himself. If we spend time on this, we could well die here in this gloomy room. There’s got to be another way!

      Ryuji, unfazed, asked, “Do you mind if we have a look?”

      “Go right ahead.” Tetsuaki stayed and watched them for a little while, half out of astonishment and half out of curiosity to see just what they thought they’d find. But eventually he seemed to have given up on them. “I’ve got work to do,” he said, leaving.

      When they were alone, Asakawa turned to Ryuji and spoke. “So, want to tell me what’s going on?” His voice was a bit thick, because he was still craning his neck looking at all the files. These were the first words he’d spoken since entering the Hall. The files were arranged in chronological order, beginning with 1956 and ending in 1988. 1988—that was the year Miura had died. Only death had brought down the curtain on his thirty-two-year quest.

      “We don’t have much time, so I’ll tell you while we look. I’ll start with 1956. You start with 1960.”

      Asakawa tentatively pulled out a file and flipped through it. Each page contained at least one photo and a piece of paper on which was written a short description as well as a name and an address.

      “What am I looking for?”

      “Pay attention to names and addresses. We’re trying to find a woman from Izu Oshima Island.”

      “A woman?” asked Asakawa, cocking his head questioningly.

      “Remember that old woman on the video? She told somebody they were going to give birth to a daughter. Think she was talking to a man?”

      Ryuji was right. Men could not bear children.

      So they started searching. It was a simple, repetitive task, and since Asakawa asked why these files existed in the first place, Ryuji explained.

      Professor Miura had always been interested in supernatural phenomena. In the ’50s, he’d begun experiments with paranormal powers, but he hadn’t got any results reliable enough to allow him to formulate a scientific theory. Clairvoyants would find themselves unable to do in front of an audience what they had done easily before. It took a lot of concentration to be able to display these powers. What Professor Miura was searching for was the kind of person who could exert his or her power at any time, under any circumstances. He could see that if the person failed in front of witnesses, then Miura himself would be called a fraud. He was convinced that there must be more people out there with paranormal powers than he knew about, so he set about finding them. But how was he to do this? He couldn’t interview everybody to check for clairvoyance, second sight, telekinesis. So he came up with a method. To anybody who might possibly have such powers, he sent a piece of film in a securely sealed envelope and asked them to imprint upon it with their minds a certain pattern or image, and then send it back to him, still sealed. In this way he could test the powers of people even at great distances. And since such psychic photography seemed to be a fairly basic power, people who possessed it often seemed to be clairvoyant as well. In 1956, he’d begun to recruit paranormals from all over the country, with the help of former students of his who had gone to work for publishers and newspapers. These former students helped set up a network which would report any rumor of supernatural powers straight back to Professor Miura. However, an examination of the film returned to him suggested that no more than a tenth of claimants actually had any power. The rest had skillfully broken the seal and replaced the film. Obvious cases of deception were weeded out at this point, but cases where it wasn’t clear one way or the other were kept, ultimately resulting in the unmanageable collection Asakawa saw before him. In the years since Miura had started, the network had been perfected through the development of the mass media and an increase in the number of participating former students; the data had piled up year after year until the man died.

      “I see,” murmured Asakawa. “So that’s the meaning of this collection. But how do you know that the name of the person we’re looking for is in here?”

      “I’m not saying it definitely is. But there’s a strong possibility it’s here. I mean, look at what she did. You know yourself that there are a few people who can actually produce psychic photos. But there can’t be too many paranormals who can actually project images onto a television tube without any equipment whatsoever. That’s power of the very highest order. Someone with that kind of power would stand out, even if they didn’t try to. I don’t think Miura’s network would have let someone like that slip through.”

      Asakawa had to admit that the possibility was genuine. He redoubled his efforts.

      “By the way, why am I looking at 1960?” Asakawa suddenly looked up.

      “Remember the scene on the video that shows a television? It was a rather old model. One of the early sets, from the ’50s or early ’60s.”

      “But that doesn’t necessarily mean …”

      “Shut up. We’re talking probabilities here, right?”

      Asakawa chided himself for being so irritated this last little while. But he had good reason to be. Given the limited time-frame, the number of files was huge. It would have been more unnatural to be calm about it.

      At that moment, Asakawa saw the words “Izu Oshima” in the file he was holding.

      “Hey! Got one,” he yelled, triumphantly. Ryuji turned around, surprised, and peered at the file.

      Motomachi, Izu Oshima. Teruko Tsuchida, age 37. Postmarked February 14, 1960. A black-and-white photograph showing a white lightning-like slash against a black background. The description read: Subject sent this with a note predicting a cross-shaped image. No traces of substitution.

      “How about that?” Asakawa trembled with excitement as he waited for Ryuji’s response.

      “It’s a possibility. Take down the name and address, just in case.” Ryuji turned back to his own search. Asakawa felt better for having found a likely candidate so soon, but at the same time he was a bit dissatisfied with Ryuji’s brusque reaction.

      Two hours passed. They didn’t find another woman from Izu Oshima. Most of the submissions were either from Tokyo itself or the surrounding Kanto region. Tetsuaki appeared, offering them tea and two or three possibly sarcastic comments before leaving. Their hands on the files were getting slower and slower; they’d been at it for two hours and hadn’t even polished off a year’s worth.

      Finally, somehow, Asakawa got through 1960. As he went to start on 1961 he happened to glance at Ryuji. Ryuji