Green Hills Yamanoi

—This is my answer to everyone who criticized this project. The press dismissed the idea of bionic towers here, in Yamanoi, but now I can say to them all: “Look.”

This scale model shows the South Tower, rising one thousand meters high, the very tower we are inaugurating today. As you can see, it includes multiple gardens, swimming pools, schools, shops, supermarkets, roads, a university, a zoo, a hospital, a World History Museum, and countless spas. We show this in a scale model because, in real life, you could not possibly explore the tower in a single day.

Above all else, for energy, thanks to our light-absorbing systems and intensive cultivation methods, every tower will be completely independent of the outside world. And for the skeptics—and for the Institute of Seismology—let me remind: Sugitani Corporation stressed the importance of building six towers with advanced anti-seismic materials. These towers are taller than Tokyo’s tallest structures and twice the height of New York’s skyline.

Before you leave, I want to remind the spirit in which these buildings were created. At a time when Earth’s population has reached twenty billion, and even the Martian colonies are overcrowded, only the sky itself offers salvation. These towers were built as dreams made real: homes for six hundred thousand people, one hundred thousand in each tower, where life can be lived in luxury, on green hills above the clouds, free from acid rain, crime, corruption, terrorism, politics… free, in essence, from worry.

Gentlemen, welcome to the Green Hills Yamanoi architectural complex!

I

Hiruishi decided to take the elevator number five. It was the only one that went up to the University without stopping at the Katsugaoa gardens, and at that hour, he certainly wouldn’t encounter anyone in the elevators. Hiruishi was afraid of being seen going to the University, especially by his colleagues who worked in the refrigerator. In the South Tower, after ten o’clock at night, it was rare to see anyone in the elevators, on the streets, or in the corridors. Only on the fifty-sixth floor and its bars and nightclubs could one see people and Kiko’s — the low-powered cars allowed in the towers.

Hirushi went straight up to the 409th floor. The University in the South Tower occupied the top floors, filled with mirrored recesses and landing pads for spaceships. The hall where he emerged was the University’s grand hall, 3,000 square meters, with enormous Greek statues and marble columns that supported the magnificent mirrored dome.

Hiruishi felt no fear walking through the dark hall. Reflections of the stars lit his path, and the sound of his own footsteps on the inlaid marble reminded him of his graduation ceremony in that very hall. The University of the South Tower held no secrets for Hiruishi Kobayashi.

Akira had never called him before, much less at that hour. They saw each other on weekends, at his house, for family lunches, or at the gym. Akira was the most respected scientist in the South Tower, and his advice was law- it was quickly applied to the organizational structure of the entire tower:

— Akira, how are you?

— Hiruishi-san!

— Why did you call me?

Akira put down the test tube and looked at his father’s portrait on the laboratory wall.

— Hiruishi, I have an important matter to discuss with you…

— What is it?

— Hiruishi, what did your parents do?

— They were employees of the Sugitani Corporation, you know that.

— My father was a scientist. My mother was a housewife. When they came to live here, they thought they would never have to leave. And, in reality, they never left the South Tower. They were buried down there in the cemetery. I also never left the tower. Today I have a grandson, and he never left the tower either…

— Akira, you know perfectly well that, after the nuclear explosions forty years ago.

— They weren’t explosions.

— What?

— My father didn’t know what was happening. We lost the television signal from outside. Everything around us, except the other towers, disappeared, and there was that flash… My father invented those outdoor radiation readings. The truth is, we don’t know what happened.

— Why are you telling me all this now?

— This tower has been occupied for fifty years. We were born here. It was here that I met my wife, it was here that I had my children, that I did my studies, that I saw the Arion comet. We all work, like termites, to keep the structure functional and well-maintained. We have civil engineers for the building, fields to cultivate, livestock to feed, computer scientists for internal communications, and electricians for the generators. It seems we’ll be here for at least another fifty years.

— We will?

— Hiruishi, we’re taking off.

— What?

— The South Tower is taking off.

— How is that possible?

— I don’t know, but the calculations don’t lie. Only you, me, and the geology guys know this. We’re completely embarrassed. We’ve only risen three meters in the last two years. We thought it was an irregularity in the foundations. In the last few months, we’ve risen thirty meters. People on the lower floors cannot look outside, otherwise they would have already seen what the calculations tell us: the South Tower is flying.

— Could it be that Sugitani Corporation built a spaceship and never told us?

— No, that doesn’t appear in any of the plans. I believe this is a phenomenon that escapes scientific understanding.

— What are you saying?

— You know I have the only keys to the ground floor. The only way out of the South Tower.

— If you went out and survived the radiation, you would have to endure a thirty-meter fall to the ground. Nobody survives that.

— One could survive with the help of a very strong rope.

— If we keep climbing like this, soon there won’t be any ropes left on this tower to support the fall.

— I know.

— Akira, I’m starting to understand what you’re getting at, and I think it’s a bad idea.

— Hiruishi, I’m a scientist! I need to see what’s out there.

— There’s nothing out there! Human civilization is over! All that’s left are these two towers. Without you, these people are lost.

— Hiruishi, will you help me stay on Earth?

II

There were about fifty elevators in the South Tower, some for people, others for animals, and still others for cargo. Some only went up one hundred floors, but only ten went up four hundred and twenty. One of them was the fifth, where Hiruishi was after talking to Akira. He got off on the 289th floor, right in front of the central lobby, a corridor—a spinal column that pierced the tower from side to side — from where all the floors could be seen. Hiruishi stopped in front of the vertical abyss. A sparrow landed on his shoulder.
When he got home, Hiruishi checked whether little Azumi was already asleep and whether Hiroito, his other son, was covered up. When he laid his head on the pillow, he turned to Kyoko:

— Kyoko, make love to me…

Kyoko turned to Hiruishi’s side and lifted her shirt to her waist.

— Why are you so distant?

—Because time has stopped in Green Hills Yamanoi.

III

Hiruishi was the director of the South Tower’s cold storage facility. Fifty thousand square meters at eighty-five degrees Celsius below zero occupied only half of the 140th floor. Sometimes he came from Kiko´s to work, but most of the time Hiruishi took the elevator number twenty-four, which left him two corridors from the office. The number twenty-four was the only panoramic elevator. With reinforced glass and ultraviolet protection to prevent the penetration of external radiation, it offered views of the vast desert expanses surrounding the tower and sometimes the distant lightning of a passing hurricane or radioactive storm. It made few stops, and Hiruishi arrived at work within minutes.

The cold storage facility stored the supplies generated in the tower: the vegetables and grains from the 141st floor, maintained with external light and powerful HMI projectors, and the slaughterhouse on the 142nd floor, with the meat. All of this, plus the output from the industrial kitchens on the other side of the floor, belonging to companies that supplied food to the South Tower, meant that the freezer functioned as a huge reserve. All citizens, small businesses, large companies, and factories in the tower could go to the freezer to stock up on frozen goods wholesale. The freezer had reserves for ten years, giving each citizen three hot meals a day. Hiruishi’s work was purely bureaucratic: statistics, ways to save energy, etc. He knew Akira from there. They had both designed and built the freezer’s main power source: the four gigantic fans on the tower’s roof that powered it through wind energy, and also the emergency generators with a two-hundred-hour autonomy. Akira had only created the aluminum required for the laboratory fans, and Hiruishi handled the rest.
At five in the afternoon, Hiruishi played jazz standards with his trio.

IV

At six-thirty, as Hiruishi was returning home, he found Akira on the 289th floor, in front of the central lobby. Akira was sitting reading the newspaper and enjoying the late afternoon breeze that the tower’s air conditioning made similar to that of a riverside town.

“I want to talk to you.”

“I want to talk to you, too.”

“Hiruishi, have you thought about what I told you yesterday?”

“I haven’t done anything else all day.”

“So?”

“I’m going to help you. When do you intend to leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?!”

“Tomorrow is just another day.”

“But so soon.”

“So soon.”

Hiruishi was petrified. Akira folded the newspaper, stood up, and gave Hiruishi a strong pat on the shoulder.
“Tomorrow on this bench, at midnight!”

V

Kyoko prepared sashimi with the salmon that Hiruishi brought from the refrigerator. When defrosted, the meat was so succulent that it allowed for very precise cuts.

Kyoko ran an art gallery on the 90th floor and was one of the most popular people in the tower. All the artists respected her, and her voice was that of a leading figure in the South Tower’s art scene. However, Kyoko always had time to cook dinner for her family every day.

Hiruishi sat at the table and, as he did every day, spoke with Kyoko. Hiroito also shared the events of his day with his parents. Although he was seventeen, he was already attending university. Most of the children in the tower entered university at fourteen, sometimes even thirteen. The protected environment fostered academic success.

— Today, we played very well.

— Dad, Professor Akira asked me about you.

— He did?

— Yes. He asked me some awkward questions.

— Akira?

— If I considered you a happy man, if you were doing well.

Kyoko took her eyes off the sashimi and looked at her husband.

— And what did you say?

— I told him I thought you were normal.

— Normal?

— Yes, just like all the men in the South Tower.

VI

Hiruishi’s wings are beside the fans over the roof of the South Tower. The two towers of Green Hills Yamanoi fly around him. Kyoko cries behind Hiruishi. A tear falls on Hiruishi’s face. The starry sky, in a shimmering harmony, silently shares that destiny. Hiruishi opens the white wings attached to his back. He feels crushed. The tower trembles. Kyoko screams. Hiruishi jumps and takes off.

VII

Hiruishi was sitting on the bench when Akira arrived. Akira held in one hand a roll of extremely light, transparent, and elastic rope, made with ultra-resistant fibers. The two men did not speak. They took elevator 2 down to the first floor. Akira inserted the key into the lock. The ground floor had been abandoned for forty years, since the explosion. Inspections of the foundations and pipes could descend only occasionally. Akira alone possessed the key that allowed the elevators to go down to the ground floor.

It was a dark space; only the reflection of the light from the central atrium, which rose above the marble circle, allowed any visibility. The marble circle had a huge G and H embedded in it, for Green Hills, and below, in green marble, the name Sugitani Corporation. Around this enormous circle—the diameter of the atrium—was a vast reception area. The counters were made of ebony. In the dim light, one could still make out the outlines of cobwebs stretched along the counters.

Akira went straight to the doors. He removed the silicone paste applied when the entrance doors were blown up, and with a kick, he flung open one of the doors, which fell out of the building. Akira and Hiruishi didn’t hear it break. Akira breathed the outside air and looked down.

“It’s more than thirty meters; the building must have gone up last night.”

Akira secured the end of the rope, which ended in a suction cup, to the enormous “world map” that represented, in granite, the internal routes of this tower. Then he threw the rope over the empty space that opened up in front of him.

“That’s how it is. There may not be enough rope to reach the ground, so I’ll have to jump. When I touch the ground, the rope will become light, and then you’ll be able to climb it.”

Akira attached a hook to his body. The two men looked at each other. They bowed in the Japanese manner and then, as if letting the emotion of the moment take over, they embraced. Akira began to descend the rope with the help of the hook.

The wind outside made the rope sway. Hiruishi waited for long minutes. Then he held the rope and felt it light. He then began to pull it upwards, then stopped. He looked back one last time. Before beginning his descent, he simply said:

— Screw it…