As of April 22, 2022, this chapter has been rewritten

Somewhere in Tokyo, Japan, 3:30

“Ngh...”

Five more minutes, he thought as he rolled around in his cool, comfortable bed while subconsciously motioning his hands to start groping around for the blanket that had evaded him while his body lay bare to the elements. Finally, his hands felt the soft fabric of the blanket and reflexively pulled it up for it to extend its warm embrace over his body. All of this while the annoying chime of the telephone had been ringing for the past few minutes, disturbing the somber atmosphere of the dark, cold bedroom. It wasn’t unusual, but then five more minutes spent in rest wouldn’t hurt, he tried to convince himself. However, the unending ting-a-ling of the telephone had already pulled him beyond his state of slumber and at this point, he was only trying to go back. Feeling the futility and at long last resigning to his fate, the man shed off his blanket and motioned his body to get up.

“Goddammit, what time is it?!”

Despite his sleepy, flakey eyes, he got a good look at the red digits reflecting menacingly off the clock next to his bedpost.

“Fuck! It’s half-past three! What the hell do they need?!”

Entertaining his sleepy thoughts as he reached for the phone next to the clock, the man tried to wipe off the drowsiness from his eyes. Bringing the phone to his ear, he fixed his tone to its usual formality.

“This is Ambassador Woods speaking.”

A familiar, feminine voice greeted him from beyond the unnatural replication synthesized through the receiver.

“Ambassador! I’ve been trying to reach you!”

“Colette? Why did you call this early? Is it an emergency?”

His formality loosened as soon as he recognized his secretary’s voice.

“My apologies, Ambassador, but I’m still at the embassy tidying things up...”

Woods pinched the bridge of his nose as he recalled how industrious his secretary was and how much he felt she was being inconvenienced.

“Yes, and?”

“The embassy staff burning the midnight oil reported to me that they couldn’t contact Washington, Hawaii, Guam, nor any of the other embassies in other countries like South Korea or the Philippines!”

Woods’s narrow, sleepy eyes widened in confusion, his first thoughts immediately going to how this might have happened.

“Did you try checking the lines? Maybe they’re down?”

“We’ve checked, Ambassador. Moreover, none of us could reach our friends and relatives overseas, not even those back home. We’ve already received a call from the USFJ checking if we could contact CONUS since they too couldn’t!”

Hearing the last line, Woods finally snapped from his drowsiness. He couldn’t recall an announcement for communications downtime this widespread. Either way, parts of their communication apparatus were beyond the Japanese’s control, so they likely had little part in what had happened. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so he decided to gather more information on the matter.

“Alright. I’ll be down there in several minutes.”

Lacking sleep due to a sudden call, the day had already begun in a disagreeable fashion. Putting the phone back, he spent a full minute in place, massaging his face in preparation for the possibly work-filled day that was to come. Then, he felt a light tugging force pulling his pajamas backward before a soft voice came from behind.

“Work?”

Turning around, his wife Lou still lay half-asleep on her bed pillow, her closed eyes pointing directly towards his own.

“Yeah. Something’s up. By the way, can you check if you can reach mother back in Portland?”

“Why? Aren’t you not on speaking terms with her?”

Woods scratched his head as he remembered how his mother-in-law screamed at him during a disagreement the last time they saw each other.

“...She’s the first person that came to mind. Anyway, just go check, please?”

Lou turned around and reached for her phone. Unlocking it, the bright white light of the phone’s screen lit up her half-asleep face, forcing her already opening eyes to close once more at the sudden brightness shining down on her. When she tried reaching for her mother on her social media...

“Hm? I can’t access it?... There’s no internet?”

Woods exhaled deeply, in relief for not having to talk to his mother-in-law and in exasperation for having one more problem to deal with. He got up from the bed, releasing himself from where he hoped to spend the next several hours. Navigating through the dark bedroom from memory, he found himself standing next to the tall, black wardrobe. As he opened its creaking, wooden panels, he spoke out to Lou.

“Thanks for that. Something’s wrong with communications back at the embassy, although now it’s starting to look a lot like the problem’s widespread. I’ll tell you more about it later, ‘kay?”

Having already put her phone back in place, Lou was on her way back to sleep.

“‘Kaaay...”

Woods silently left her wife to fulfill her own needs (and wants) for shuteye as he struggled through his coat. Buttoning the last button and fixing his blue tie on, he made one last pat-down throughout his entire person in a psychological bid to make sure he was ready. Grabbing his smartphone from the work desk next to the door, he then made his way out towards the garage.

Embassy of the United States of America to Japan, 3:45

Ambassador Woods walked through the bright spaces of the embassy, which despite the early hours of 3:45 AM, was already starting to become lively with activity. While there was still not much staff present, they were already coming in as the situation around them continued to unravel. Still, it was only 15 minutes to 4 AM. The luminescent white lights emanating from the innumerable LED lights all across the embassy took their toll on Woods’s aged, sleepy eyes.

“I wonder what in God’s name happened...”

Sifting through hurriedly uniformed men and women, perhaps only having reported in after being called back to work, Woods made his way towards his office. Just before he entered through the doors of his office, he was stopped by the petite figure of a woman coming to his side. Her droopy, bagged eyes and messily kept hair last fixed yesterday made it clear that she still hasn’t gone home herself.

“Ambassador!”

“Colette! Go take some time off, will you? You look horrible...”

Colette subconsciously fumbled through her hair in embarrassment as she took the position to take a jab at Woods herself.

“You too, Ambassador! Lieutenant General Strucker is on the phone!”

After hearing that he was about to speak to the commander for US Forces Japan, Woods cleared his throat of any obstructions as he thanked his thoughtful secretary. Making his way through the familiar office room, he took a seat at his usual, comfortable chair before picking up the phone on his elegant office table.

“This is Ambassador Woods speaking.”

Greeting him on the other end of the receiver was the stern voice of a woman that gave off an aura of authority.

“Good morning, Mr. Ambassador. Forgive me for calling you this early. I was hoping you’d shed more light on this predicament we’ve stumbled onto.”

Leaning back on his office chair to entertain the remnants of drowsiness in his mind, Woods replied to the commander.

“I don’t mind, Commander. However, I’d like to point out that we too in the embassy are in the dark on this. We haven’t received any prior notification from the Japanese nor Washington on a communications downtime.”

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“I see. How strange.”

“Do you have any more details regarding this anomalous communications blackout? We too are continuing to verify on our end what is going on, and I’d rather not jump to conclusions before we have more to go around.”

“Rest assured, Mr. Ambassador, we have no indications of an imminent enemy attack from certain nations.”

Woods chuckled as he sighed in relief at the prospect of not having to be in the frontlines of an emerging conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

“That’s good to hear.”

“Still, we’ve come upon even stranger facts in order to rule out the prospect of an attack.”

“Oh?”

“Aside from communications, our detection apparatuses have simultaneously stopped showing the radar profiles of the Asian continent to the east, the formations around the Sea of Okhotsk to the north, and so on. Only the main islands of Japan, the Ryukyu archipelago, the southern islands, and the Kurils have remained.”

“What?”

Woods’s eyes opened in surprise and confusion. What Commander Strucker had described was awfully specific for a scenario. He could not come up with an explanation as to why the rest of the land masses had disappeared save for the ones closest to Japan’s home islands. It was so unbelievably eerie that he hoped he was still back home in his bed, dreaming away.

“Did you check for–”

“Yes, Mr. Ambassador. We have troubleshooted our equipment, and even when we did fix the few flaws we found, the situation has remained the same, unfortunately.”

Woods could only think that they had been isolated, with the rest of the world had disappeared. Drops of sweat steadily began to trickle from his forehead as he began to imagine the repercussions of being cut off from the rest of the world.

“Surely we could try to contact them physically, right?”

“Regarding that, Mr. Ambassador. We’ve already advised all elements we could contact that are on deployment to return to base immediately. We’re currently trying to get them all back, as they report that their navigation systems were experiencing difficulties or were outright failing. What’s more, however...”

Woods could hear the hmm of the commander through the phone as if she was hesitating. After a few seconds, Strucker’s voice once more permeated through the receiver.

“They have all reported that the “skies were different” and that the “horizon was further out.” This is corroborated by base personnel and other contacts we’ve asked.”

“Wait, are you serious?”

Woods swiveled on his office chair to look out the glass windows of his office. He turned his eyes upwards towards the night sky but found only empty, starless skies, owing to the immense light pollution emanating from one of the world’s biggest metropolises.

“Yes, Mr. Ambassador. We’re assuming the worst-case scenario wherein we’ve been completely cut off from CONUS and our other assets in Guam, Hawaii, Korea, and so on. I’m about to phone my counterparts in the SDF leadership regarding this matter to confirm what they know.”

“Alright, Commander. I’ll call you back once we’ve also checked in with the Japanese ministry on this.”

Putting the phone back, Woods took a deep breath before exhaling a hearty amount of air. It probably won’t be the last time he’d sigh so deeply today, he thought. The information given to him by Commander Strucker was almost conclusive that they’ve been cut off from the rest of the United States and the world–a harrowingly frightening narrative. An attack from certain aggressor nations had been ruled out as well, but he still considered contacting the respective embassies of these nations to get confirmation whether or not they were behind this. Above all, however, he deemed it necessary to contact his Japanese contemporaries.

Reaching back for his phone, he pressed the appropriate numbers on the dial to phone the Japanese ministry for foreign affairs.

Yokosuka Naval Base, that same time

“Good Lord, where could the Commodore be?”

Running through the dimly lit halls of one of the facilities in Yokosuka Naval Base, a naval officer was thoroughly checking through every nook and cranny for the Commodore. His exasperated grumbling and hurried actions mirrored the worried expression plastered all over his face. One of the commanders of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka was asking for the presence of their commodore, but so far, he was nowhere to be found in the facility. He scratched his head in frustration at his search’s inability to produce the whereabouts of their commodore. Just as he was about to walk back in dejection to report an unsavory result, he caught a glance of a figure in the darkness off in the corner of his eye. Turning towards it, he saw the silhouette of a dark figure standing outside the building, and their back turned towards them. Looking closely, he made out the comparatively bright upper apparel of the figure, which corresponded with the white uniform that their commodore wore.

Running out of the building towards the silhouette, the naval officer finally recognized the stature of the figure.

“Commodore Griffiths!”

The commodore turned his head over to look at him, at long last exposing his recognizable ginger facial hair, visible even in the low light conditions that only the commodore would have. Finally, he thought, for he had found their commander.

“The Yanks are looking for you, sir!”

Griffiths turned his head away from him. After a few seconds of silence, with only the sound of the gentle sloshing of harbor waves and the blowing in of the incoming sea breeze playing in the background, the commodore broke the silence with his coarse, Irish accent.

“So I’ve heard. Worry not, I’ve already talked to them. I actually told them I’ll be out here.”

He and the commodore looked out towards the harbor of Yokosuka. Populating the crowded docks of the naval base were the steel hulks of several US Navy warships alongside the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force ships, the luminous lights of white, blue, and red peppered all across their hulls shining bright all throughout the otherwise dark, sleepy harbor. However, one of the ships closest to them dominated the display of military might in the harbor with its sheer girth, second only to the US Navy’s gigantic floating minicities that were their supercarriers. Bright lights of blue and white shine from the two structures jutting out from the starboard side of its huge, wide, flat deck. Painted on one of them were the characters “R08”, indicating that she was the HMS Queen Elizabeth, one of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers. As part of her globe-trotting deployment, dubbed Operation Fortis, together with other international elements under the United Kingdom-led Carrier Strike Group 21, she was currently in Yokosuka in preparations for exercises around Japan with the JMSDF and the US Navy.

However, fortune was not on their side when fate intervened in their plans.

Griffiths looked on, the anxiety written all over his face was hidden from his subordinate as he felt the winds blowing in from the harbor.

“I’ve come here to feel this for myself.”

“The... wind?”

“Yes. It’s September, and in the Orient, autumn is already well underway. However...”

Griffiths paused for a moment, taking in the feeling of the cold wind that was blowing against his person. However, the wind betrayed his expectations, carrying in its seemingly innocent gales a more sinister, graver truth.

“I’ve been out here for a few minutes, and the wind... It’s different from the dry air one would expect to come as the cold season looms over. No, this... This is far too humid for autumn. It’s as if spring had come again...”

Having spent a considerable amount of time outside during their stay in Yokosuka and in the many port calls he had had in Japan before, Griffiths knew what the cold, September wind that blew through the mouth of Tokyo Bay felt like. However, the wind that was blowing in today wasn’t one he would recognize in this place and time.

He then looked up towards the sky to the south, where there was less light pollution in comparison to the north, where the excessively bright lights of the bustling capital Tokyo lay. At this time and place, he expected to see a winter constellation such as Orion high up in the sky. However, instead of the easily recognizable pattern of stars that made up Orion, all he saw in that patch of the night sky was an unfamiliar jumble of stars of different colors and brightness in places they were not supposed to be.

“Do you recognise any of them?”

“I’m afraid not, sir...”

“Then we have our answers.”

The commodore instantly turned about-face and walked back towards the facility. The officer, too, turned and followed him. Griffiths continued to talk as they headed for the American commander that had called him.

“While man has the ability to cut off our communications outside this land, only the Lord could change the seasons and rewrite the entire story of the skies above us.”

Aside from the poetic delivery that echoed Griffiths’s tendency for showmanship, there too were hints of worry and concern hidden in his words. Whatever it was that was causing this seems to be beyond their realm of control and definitely beyond their own understanding. In any case, its effects on them were tangible and real, and they knew that they had to do something. God has made His move, and now it was their turn to play their hand.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that same time

“My apologies, Ambassador Woods, but we currently have no definitive answers as to what’s causing this communications blackout. I assure you, we will get back to you once we have more information.”

Dropping the call, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Agano Kenzo, buried his exhausted face into the palms of his hands as he let out a long sigh. He had just reported in after being summoned by the ambassadors of some nations who asked for his presence. However, all he could do was offer blank statements and turn them down, for he, too, doesn’t know what was happening. Leaning back on his chair, sweat trickled down his brow as he fiddled with his fingers in an effort to cope with the situation.

“Damn it... I need food.”

Specifically, his stomach craved for the tempting, sour goodness of an umeboshi plum. He had not yet eaten his breakfast after all.

Just as he was about to stand up from his chair to search for food, one of his aides burst into the office. Beyond the exhaustion dotted throughout the man’s face, Agano could tell that there was anxiety.

“I’ve checked, Minister! We can’t reach any of our diplomatic missions elsewhere!”

He expected it, but the shock was more than what he could hide from his expression.

“What?! Are you doubly sure?!”

“Absolutely!”

Agano was at a loss. He wanted to leave the building and dump this responsibility onto his aides, as was common for ministers, but he felt conflicted. He knew he could not return to sleep with the amount of uncertainty hounding him and his countrymen. He had already dipped his hands into the mess, and now there was little merit in turning back. Then, his secretary hurriedly rushed into his office.

“Minister! You’re being summoned to the Prime Minister’s residence! All agencies and ministries are being gathered for an emergency meeting!”

A sliver of light shone in Agano’s eyes. Finally, he thought, as he could now move on to another responsibility. Although if the situation is serious enough to warrant an emergency meeting with all ministers and agency heads, then this was definitely more than what he could handle alone. Even though he wasn’t fully absolved of his obligation, he found solace in the fact that he didn’t have to face this predicament alone.

With a heavy heart and little hope for the upcoming day, Agano made preparations to depart for the Prime Minister’s residence.