SUBMERGED SECRETS
S-2857 • L9 Fluxluna • D08 Lilibe
(Gregorian eq., 12/27/2112)
“Fluxluna runs in a thread of living brilliance.Lilibe pours luma in a gentle curve.The tide sings clearly in the city’s air.The story weaves a path in a light current.”
NAGASAKI
Neon skyscrapers rose like the city’s sentinels.
Kūchū no Kyūden, the Floating Palace, towered above everything.
Mizukagami, Water Mirror, throbbed at the agitated center.
Kurayami no Sora, Sky of Darkness, sank at the base—darkness creeping.
Holograms floated above narrow, ancient streets, forming a kaleidoscope of phosphorescent lights and co-breathing shadows.
Polychrome glass and metal nearly swallowed temples and wooden houses.
Relics of a suffocated past.
Scars of the corporate wars.
Technological races broke open in the illuminated favelas.
E-tags and vibrant graffiti flared across debris and hacked screens.
The streets swarmed.
Mercenaries.
Hackers.
Merchants.
Artists.
Residents.
Tourists.
They wore a fusion of tradition:
kimonos adorned with circuits,
nanite weaves,
luminous implants,
pixels dancing over LED fabrics.
Aircars glided along the skyways.
Drones watched.
Entertained.
Adwares popped like digital swarms.
Up high, Kūchū no Kyūden housed a rare kind of nature.
Nanoplants and meta-trees dominated—
cold simulacra of an extinct green.
Below, veiled by giants of glass and steel, Kaigan Beach stretched out in Tairamachi.
The waters reflected the artificial lights of the ocean platforms.
Climate-control towers dotted the horizon like dead stars.
The sand formed a mosaic of meta-particles:
residues of industrial extraction,
experimental biotechnologies for environmental modification.
A ground of scars.
Waves oscillated between radioactive emerald and shimmering neon blue.
They slid over digital pollution, technological debris—
drone remains, android parts, rusty robot gears.
Drops fell onto diffuse holograms.
Food stalls dragged like silhouettes between withered palm trees.
Lanterns flickered under the pixelated purple fog.
The stench of burnt frying.
Marine garbage pressed down on the lungs,
clung to skin like a viscous miasma.
The salty breeze drove a metallic tang into the tongue—
traces of acid corrosion.
Fishermen, faces carved by time, callused hands,
tried their luck in waters that grew scarcer by the day.
Empty eyes reflected the struggle for lives always beyond reach.
At dusk, holograms glitched as they powered on.
Music camouflaged apathy.
The party went on.
Echoes of laughter hung in the air—
some hollow,
empty as echoes without a soul.
Coughs ruptured the flow.
Tides came and went,
bringing painful torments of pasts, presents, futures.
Hikaru played.
He hopped between damp stones.
Treacherous moss slipped under his feet.
He fell.
The impact came fast.
Cold water rose to his knees.
A cave.
He rubbed his aching head.
The scratched skin burned.
He groped around,
sought support on the slick rocks,
looked for a way back outside.
He stumbled.
His fingers found something.
A brown square fluttered downstream.
He grabbed it.
Turned it in his hands, feeling the weight of time inside it.
An aged notebook.
Bio-leather cover.
Yellowed pages.
Soaked through.
It might have been trash to many, but Hikaru’s heart and eyes lit up at that treasure.
He didn’t even dare move it much.
He feared tearing the fragile pages apart.
He shoved it under his clothes,
shielding it from the damp.
He climbed the cave walls.
Braced himself, pulled up onto the rock—
one more push—
and then he was back on the surface.
He ran home.
The rub of wet bio-leather against his skin thrilled him.
When he entered, he found the same scene as always:
his mother passed out on the sofa,
hundreds of neoheroin injections piled in stacks on the table.
Hikaru went straight to his room.
He placed the notebook where the air circulated better.
He turned the pages one by one—
carefully.
His fingers slid gently over the wet paper.
It took hours, but the work paid off.
The notebook revealed itself as a diary.
And he understood nothing—absolute squat.
Nothing made sense.
Curved letters.
Intricate symbols.
Drawings like indecipherable patterns.
What language was that?
A hidden message waiting to be decoded.
He had to find out.
His only access to the internet was through Mr. Saito—
but at that hour, the old man was dozing.
Hikaru had asked so many times to use the terminal.
Always denied.
It didn’t matter.
He had to unmask the language.
Those symbols and drawings were calling him.
He had to answer.
He waited for nightfall.
His mother woke only to make dinner,
then stuffed herself with neoheroin again,
and crashed in the bedroom.
Hikaru slipped through the streets to Aio Saito’s house.
The old man wore a permanently stern expression, as if carved from rock.
Messy white hair.
Small, sunken eyes—dull blue.
Always suspicious.
He wore threadbare sweaters and loose pants.
His house stood out from the others:
dusty windows,
weeds devouring the yard.
Around it, the other homes withered—
most of them empty, abandoned,
shadows of what they once were.
People left.
They searched for more promising places.
Occasionally a bark tore through the silence.
Leaves rustled.
Wind whispering nonexistent children’s laughter.
Saito’s computer sat in a hidden room, but Hikaru knew a window—
by chance, exactly his size.
He only had to climb onto the neighbor’s roof,
jump between houses,
undo the latch…
His head spun.
Determination burning.
He didn’t hesitate.
His feet knew where to land.
Instincts guided him.
A distant noise covered the one step that landed off-beat.
The zephyr danced around him as he leapt across the rooftops.
He landed like a stealthy cat.
The latch gave under his fingers with familiarity.
He was used to it.
Silence reigned.
He had to be quieter than quiet itself.
One step at a time.
He reached the computer.
Click.
The holoscreen opened.
He scanned the notebook.
The Technological Essence analyzed:
Suggested: a diary by a French scientist about quantum nanotechnology.
French?
A grunt sounded nearby.
Hikaru froze.
Then he bolted.
He looked only ahead.
He barely slept that night.
In his dreams: glimpses of stacks and stacks of books.
