Ministry of Transport Headquarters, Chiyoda Ward
12:02 AM
Following the winding paths from the front door, past the vast office space of the National Railway Authority and International Ports Administration, inevitably the doors to the office of the National Civil Aviation Authority (formerly the Civil Aviation Bureau pre-1998, though still referred to as such anyway) would be met. A potted evergreen demarcated the office alongside a tempered glass screen and a thin metal sign which stuck out from hallway plaster. The window radiated an aureate color partly into the hallway, orange hues from the room’s more temperate lighting interlacing with the clinical setting of the hallway.
The night was calm with the cool air outside and stuffy inside. While one couldn’t hear a pin drop, they certainly could eavesdrop on conversations from at least a cubicle or so away without having to focus so much on the task. The time was only made more apparent by the windowsill view; an avenue far below that was quiet even by Kasumigaseki standards, and everso bright lights in windows that sparsely dotted across buildings that were equally drab as their lights bright.
But the quiet was interrupted, with only a light cause for concern. All had been spurred about as only the beginning part of a grotesquely bureaucratic Rube-Goldberg machine whose activation had only been seen a few minutes before this chapter began.
In the main room, the walls had been painted by the sickeningly sweet blood of a near-slain beast, only some of the heroes behind such a feat were left all around the room laying weary as well. Clattered on their desks were near-empty pens, crumpled reports dating to the previous week, and halfway-marked calendars. Littered across whatever spaces remained were the foam-stained coffee mugs, half-full bowls or cups of soba, and dishes of cheap and easy sushi resting in little plastic and ceramic trays.
There was only a shadow of the usual bumble of activity, with small groups of men either finalizing day-shift work or there already starting their night shift. They scanned boxy CRT screens every once in a while whilst also sifting through lines of text or holding their ears wide open to receive information. And as if the pace had won in chipping away at their manners, many of them simply laid back with their feet on the table. Telephones rang incessantly, though left as obnoxiously as they came - most simply never to be resolved.
Yet even against the hour and time of year, still there was some major source of hubbub. A quartet of men in rolled-sleeve dress shirts had set themselves all against a table. Dozens of newly minted papers, which they merely gazed in awe at, were laid across whatever space was devoid of clutter. More were to come as a MIHIGA-branded fax machine set beside the table clunkily prattled out yet another piece seemingly every second. Reading atop one, it read Toyama Airport, another already settled Komatsu Airport, with the presence of Okayama Airport and Narita Airport at the forefront of not only their minds but also the stacks as well. With all the big airports, any second they could’ve expected Haneda to have popped up in big, black Kanji and English lettering.
And it did.
Several heads had perked up over cubicles and desks just like meerkats deep in the heart of the Sub-Sahara. They simply stared at the sight, telephone receivers put to necks and analyses put onto hold as further flurries of informative flyers were spewed from every fax machine in the room. One of the men held up a mint paper in such a gentle fashion as if it were made of the most delicate silk, before violently throwing it away for another, insulted by the audacity of the sender.
The singular sheet fluttered as it was pulled down, with a large logo centered at the top, and incoherent ramblings depicted blow. To this sight, a salaryman leaned over his desk to another, whispering a question as if not wanting to alert the machines. “Psst, Suzuki-dono… have you got, uh, any idea what’s happening over there?”
The other simply gave them a perplexed look, then to their computer, before giving off a lukewarm answer. “No… nothing yet, er… not on the set either…” He’d replied without the slightest ping of a clue floating through his mind. It was easy to simply dispel it all as some extremely elaborate prank, or an unlikely system error. Disaster was rare, and never did it merit anything like this in the sheer volume of reporting. Still, he—as did the others in the office— remained somewhat vigilant with their job’s purpose in mind. It very easily could have been a truly catastrophic disaster unfolding in front of their very eyes.
Only a dozen or so seconds had passed since the start of the automated revolt when one of the quartet mumbled “Help us all…,” before he began to scream at the top of his lungs, authority only diminished by a slight Kansai-ben tinge. “Could somebody get a line open to the airports - any airport!? If they ain' calling us by phone or whatever it is, we call 'em'! Every one of ‘em is clogging the fax system!” The Osaka man—whose badge identified him as Juurou, an operations manager—looked around at the halfway horrified workers before shouting again, then clapping as if to accentuate the urgency. “C'mon, get to it!” The man yelled, mustering a commanding voice through his seniority.
Juurou’s face changed as those around began to scurry. “This better be a damned prank, or we’re all damned,” He said. Nobody gasped. Be it out of fear or not, nobody dared make a peep to a remark of such type, by someone they’d collectively deemed the offices’ straight man.
Though a few bewildered faces remained, those indifferent, or rather worried, took haste in pulling out the nearest landline or computer screen as they scrubbed out their eyes.
One worker, the aforementioned Suzuki, clicked on a phone and without looking pushed in a few numbers. He looked around like a lost dog as he pulled the receiver up to his ear. And almost immediately, those he’d called answered. And so, he asked. “Uh…, Haneda, Central, report issue.” He spoke clearly, calmly, and concisely, though partly befuddled as the caffeine slowly wore off.
Whoever was in charge was quick in response, speaking just as quickly as they’d answered, though stuttering as if impatiently trembling at whatever was to happen next. “Some flights, uh… passing flights, about four? Ye- yeah, about four-fifths of the passing flights, they just… they just disappeared—I can’t put it any other way!”
“Dis- disappeared?”
“From right under our noses,” the Haneda operator continued, where hints of seeming frustration entered the fray, “And the, uh… well… we can’t get ahold of the mainland either… or anyone at all, for that fact - been like this for the past few—Three? Three minutes.” The NCAA worker trailed behind by a few words from whatever had been said, like a student trying to grasp a new concept. And just on the cusp of achieving foundational knowledge, he was interrupted, his thoughts sent away in a far less than fantastic manner.
“That’s impossible!” One of his colleagues, clearly poisoned by emotion, yelled emphatically across the room. The exclamation was followed by a loud thud. It came at such a volume it was all but certain everyone had heard him. Some stopped right in their tracks, as if disregarding the urgency of the situation to turn and shoot him down with dirty looks, before continuing. Suzuki himself turned to look at his colleague, whose forehead was pressed against what he could only assume to be either the desk or keyboard in front of him. In this vision too, he witnessed the Kansai manager sprinting over to the commotion with a half-stuffed clipboard in hand.
Simultaneous with the loud occurrence, the airport manager had spoken through the phone. “Y- yeah, they were there, and then they were gone the moment the clock struck… twelve? W—we haven’t been able to get any sight of any of them after that, neither have the TRACON or Tokyo ACC been able to.” Little, however, was heard by the NCAA worker, whose brain had tightened into a migraine and mixed into a senseless spaghetti. He massaged his temple with his free hand. His attention, displaced quite abruptly not once but twice, remained whole sentences behind as he refocused in a slow, sloppily concerted mental effort.
Awkwardly, the worker audibly fumbles with his words. “Uhh… how- how long has it been going for, an- and are you sure you’ve tried everyone?”
“Yeah, we, uh… we’re sure - hold on—” The man on the other side of the phone paused for a moment before he continued with a quiet yet distinctively panicked yell, easily inferred to have been directed to somebody, or maybe multiple somebodies, in the room. “No, Miss Saki, try—try to get something to Los Angeles, and you, yeah you—try Seoul one more time! Yes, you!” The manager was broken by an indistinct response which came through only as incoherent background chatter, followed shortly by more commands and comments. “Those inbound flights are still gone? YES, call up the area center to go again or something! And call up Fukuoka!” The words spoken were not for him, though very easily had also captured what would soon be, and very nearly already was, the atmosphere in the NCAA office.
The ATC manager paused again before continuing to speak, now back to Suzuki. He cleared his throat with an audible background static as the receiver returned to his mouth. “We’ve lost all our- every line out, Beijing, they won’t, uh… ICN… they aren’t getting back to us even by satellite communications; w-we think it's the same for LAX even—have you guys been able to get a… single thing out?” The Haneda operator posed his question, still fettered yet not discouraged by the bad audio quality. Suzuki noticed there was an underlying shakiness in his voice that couldn’t be distorted.
He gave it a thought before replying. “N…,” he held himself on the note for a few seconds, mind ticking toward a definite ‘no’ response. It was appropriate, though he thought he couldn’t just leave it at that. “...o.” Successful in having reset his mental course, the words easily came back, as did a spatter of confidence that all would be well. “I'll get this—” He’d barely begun speaking to be cut off mid-sentence. Whatever had fallen in place fell out of place just as easily. He shook his head, baring his teeth as he listened in.
“Goddamnit, don't you guys have any idea of what's going on?” The airport manager rattled off through the phone, accented too heavily and too obviously by a pant-like breath pattern. There was disappointment—disbelief—toward how oblivious they were.
It had only been four minutes since the turn of the day, and the whole ordeal had begun.
“Th—” Words formed, yet he paused. He could feel a stiff concrete set in his throat, words choking for air. What was there to tell them? They sure didn’t know anything, not yet at least, and anything that was known was coming in from the dozens of airports all either angrily calling or being frustratingly called amidst a crisis they saw to be developing.
One of the main quartet, a Tokyo-sounding man instead, beckoned to him—cutting him off in his conversation had he actually had anything to say. “Hiroshi! You manage to get through?” He asked with a surprising eagerness, sending a paralyzing gaze over.
The worker put the receiver low down to his neck, head turning over with the scaffolding of a smile hastily erected onto his face. “Y- Yeah! Haneda are speaking of some stuff about the mainland—they’re unable to contact them or something like that,” he said with similarly faux confidence, still mid-thought in the previous word to whatever was spoken. “Oh, and, uh… they say about half the planes Tokyo ACC’ve been tracking just… disappeared?” The worker added, scratching his head as he did.
The floor manager turned back, only stricken with more confusion than he’d begun with, huddling close with the others of the quartet. “Er… this certainly should be plenty enough to constitute directly getting the administrator’s input, right?” He asked, unsubtly enough for his statement to have made it across the far length of the room. Few heads turned, though had the room not been so deep in phone calls, many more likely would have followed.
The Osakan was the first to speak up. “We should get Mister Taki to open up the situation center first; we’re nearly powerless without it, and any coordination or information linkage would be delayed by entire minutes,” he’d say, emphasizing the word ‘powerless’. And indeed, they would be. Key direct lines they would be running without, and a greatly streamlined process to consolidate and disseminate information the NCAA absolutely would need.
“H—hold on,” another man at the table—vice supervisor Tadao—would interrupt with an indistinct quiver in his voice. “We… should affirm with some other agency first, right? Surely this isn’t just some sort of system error? A mass coincidence?” Tadao reasoned.
“The system merger was set to happen later this month; they’re all running on separate systems, and for all we can tell, it’s simultaneously happening at every airport that falls under us. There’s… too much about this that’s anomalous for it to be something so simple.”
“Excuse me for interrupting, Supervisor Hisoka-san,” A middling worker pronounced, addressing the Tokyo man directly. “But I’ve just— well, I’m on the phone with them, and NASDA are saying the sky itself is… broken? And they’ve got a similar issue to us as well,” He’d add, though of relatively little importance to the statement that came before it. It was too vague, too open-ended.
The Tokyo man stooped forward, clearing his throat before he began. “...Confirm whatever they meant by the sky being broken;” He’d say to the worker, then turning attention toward the others of his troupe, “Though that should settle it—Juurou-san, get Taki-san down here from his meeting; Tanaka-san and Tadao-san, I’d like for you two to begin communicating with the Southern and Northeastern centers. I’ll deal with keeping things down here in check,” the Tokyo man said, only a mild sense of urgency detectable in his speech.
Several affirming “hai,”s spilled from their mouths, the quartet very shortly thereafter parting ways. Of the ways they went, only one was calm.
From the sea of white collars that engulfed what was the small group and its table of sheets, one rose with a simple question in mind for the manager who’d remained.“Hisoka-san, d’you want me to call the accident commission?”
“Not yet, but I’ve got a feeling this will be bigger than they can handle.”
[~]
A door hurled itself open by divine will and was it to have been animated, smoke would have poured from its base as if to highlight the importance of the person who’d entered.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The modest figure of Juurou stood at the center of the space the door had formerly occupied. “Chief Taki-san, we got ourselves somethin'! An' it don' look good either! Ya gotta come out!” He’d yell out, little regard for any of the finer etiquettes that were usually expected.
The aforementioned Taki—the NCAA’s Chief Coordinations Officer for Central Japan—was leaned back into the comforting grips of an office chair. Accompanying him were three others of vague significance to his junior, Juurou. Half through taking a casual sip from his mug—thin waves of the slightest white tint emanating from the top—he stopped.
Taki, along with the other three, glared at the Osaka boy as he drank. “Something urgent? P—,” Taken aback, Taki paused, struggling to find his words. He wanted his junior to continue, yet had to comb through his mind for how to string the sentence together. Taki scratched his head through an unbroken void of black hair. “Please, elaborate further,” he’d ask of Juurou, “And please, don’t yell indoors,” he further remarked, and almost infuriatingly so amidst all the uncertainty there was.
Whether he was careless (or deemed the matter important) enough to ignore the last remark, the Osakan’s mouth burst open again, only barely quieter. “About e’ry plane that was around Japan—oceanic regions and mainland regions—’ve just disappeared at about… exactly midnight, and everywhere else’s gone silent.”
“Silent? They can’t get ahold of anybody?” Taki asked uncertainly. He narrowed his eyes at Juurou, rolling his thumb across his other fingers.
“Nope.”
Straightforward, unlike the other times, Taki noted. His thumb’s wave-like roll only sped up, and no matter how hard he tried, he failed to find any reason personally in what had been described to him.
A light bulb came on, and he sent away a query to the specifics. Dearly, he’d hoped, he could catch it out here—that they surely would’ve just been worried over nothing. “And you guys have cross-checked with someone else?” He’d ask, lowering his brows quite noticeably.
Juurou had come with a sledgehammer, however—the lightbulb stood no match. “NASDA, I think—folks are saying the same stuff too about a disappearing ev’ry place, and screwups involving navigational stuff; same kinda stuff as far as I can tell.”
It was a real headache and the type of headache that Taki’s mouth went slack to. He’d have to go down to see it all for himself, he’d realized that long before already, but the absolute necessity and urgency hadn’t yet set in until then. And so, he spoke—not to Juurou, but rather to those he’d been meeting with. “I apologize, however, I believe this necessitates a conclusion to our meeting.”
The three he’d met with gave only affirming nods in unison, as if to say ‘very well’, thereby releasing him from the room.
[~]
A small congregation of the curious had gathered just by, setting their work aside for just a minute to watch their boss’s boss personally involve himself in their affairs. Though it was certainly an oddity worth mentioning, his presence was enough to keep their voices down to hushed murmurs.
Taki looked around first—a clock screaming that it was eleven past, an endless domain of cubicles, and a loaded fax machine. Moving over, he took just one look at the stack of papers, holding one up with his free hand. He studied it, eyes narrowing for each line down, before discarding it just as easily as he’d picked it up. He picked up another, though only looking toward the bottom half, and then a third—with each sentence he read, a terrible look of horror developed further; tainting his face. By the fourth, had he thrown his mug down any more violently, it would’ve shattered. He’d suddenly become animated in movement by the time he was finally led to the same conclusion as all the others in the room.
He threw his right arm to the left with little regard for his surroundings, pointing a finger at a general area. “Section four, order Tokyo ACC to recall all outbound flights in their boundary and air sectors A-Oh-Four and A-Oh-Three for Haneda and Narita!” He’d barked out, before throwing his head and another finger at another grouping of subordinates in an instant. The microphone in front of him had just barely escaped being swiped off the table by only a fraction of an inch. “Section two, report Kabura-ya to every regional and domestic airport in Kansai, Chūbu, and Kantō as well as the Southern and Northeastern headquarters!” He yapped out, the intended group going into a sudden frenzy.
Be it the recall or the mere mention of a Kabura-ya report, whatever slow workflow was around very quickly picked up in pace, threatening to crash right through the ceiling. Some slowly backed away before accelerating into a dash for their workstations, whilst others hurled themselves across desks to reach their desks. So frantic were they to push the message through that stacks of papers were pushed aside and replaced with blank sheets, email applications forced open on formerly black desktop screens, and phone lines jammed up with the sudden influx of traffic.
Three of the supervisors approached him, each anxious for whatever new instructions they were to be tasked with. The shortest one’s skin—Tadao—glistened under the light, as beads of sweat drew themselves out. The Osakan stood as straight as could be, arms crossed and both hands clutching the opposing arm. The third, the Tokyo-sounding Hisoka, was as stone cold as could be instead. At least, on the outside—internally, it was a mix. Whilst he was tortured by the question “when?” and “why now?”, there was the light of only the littlest hint of excitement; a leftover from an unfinished plate years ago.
Mentally, Taki was forced to choose who to be delegated what to do out of a roster of two tasks, so he resorted to what was easiest and most readily available—a mental game of ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe’ which he only vaguely pronounced.
“Uh… Ta—, no, His…” This was right, he thought, and so he selected Hisoka-san “Hisoka-san, I need you to call over whoever is in the emergency action board to come down right now. I don’t care what you do, so long as they’re here within… thirty minutes, let’s say.”
Hisoka’s expression was shaken into determination marked by a curt nod. “Can do, Taki-san.”
But now to deal with the others. There was one task to be shared amongst two people. Though he might need the extra man to be readily spare, should he get both to do it, they’d finish up much faster and subsequently leave him with two at his disposal were he to wait. He considered his options, weighing them against each other. “Uh, Juurou-san, and Tadao-san, I’ll need you two to go down and get the situation center ready.”
“Will do,” Juurou affirmed, plenty fluctuating in his mind.
“On the way,” Tadao would proclaim, right in-sync with Juurou.
Both were quick on their feet, with just as much determination as Hisoka had in his duty. It was perfect, and now only one thing was left.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Taki himself picked up the nearest telephone handset, tapping in the numbers at the same speed as an intermediate tap dance. A short tone played before he was patched through to his intended recipient.
“Er, Administrator Tomohiko-sama,” he’d say, rubbing his lower lip with an extended index finger, “I—I apologize for calling at such a time, however, there is great priority to this—” All that he’d blurted out came out as a singular block of constant noise. Had he not been interrupted, he very easily would’ve continued the conversation unintelligibly.
<<“Slow down, Taki-san, I can barely keep up at the pace you’re speaking,” the geriatric-sounding Tomohiko rather slowly enunciated.>> Where Taki was unclear and too fast, Tomohiko was exactly opposite.
How to most effectively put it forward, as concisely as he could, Taki asked himself. “I’d like to ask for authorization to open the situation center.”
<<“T—... Taki-san, you very well understand what it’s used for, correct? What— what’s happening that necessitates this? I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for whatever it is.”>> Tomohiko spoke with some obvious distrust of his new hire junior, most likely from his fairly young age that had only just breached the thirties.
“Ther—there’s been… half, we’ve lost contact with half of all air traffic—all central airports can corroborate this claim—and contact with overseas has wholly been lost. We haven’t managed to get to anyone! Foreign aviation authorities, foreign airports… not a single soul outside of the country,” he’d say, pausing to let his list of mental notes catch up, a spark going off in his head as he did. “Oh, and I’ve just read a report indicating that airport navigation systems have… self-adjusted?” He’d add, far more unsure of the credibility of the claim than he was of the others.
<<“Very well then, I’ll authorize it and confer with Minister Hitoshi-sama on the issue if you would forward me those papers,” he’d ask calmly, “If this truly is such an emergency, it’s a cabinet concern too,”>> Tomohiko added. Even without his presence, Taki could feel Tomohiko’s probable finger-wagging through the phone; a singular trait so well-developed compared to all but his slightly condescending tone.
Obediently, he’d reply immediately. “Will do, Administrator Tomohiko-sama, I’ll have the reports down right away.”
<<“I appreciate the call, and expect to see me down there in… about thirty minutes.”>>
The phone was put down on the other end first, leaving Taki standing with a beeping tone for a moment, before he put the handset down and set forth to fax the Administrator.
[~]
12:21 AM
The door opened to a dank, cavernous room that took over two floors’ worth of space. White pillars interrupted otherwise uninterrupted sets of tables with preset desktops, telephones, and nameplates, each set around circular desks with overhead circular paneling. A center built as ostentatious as could be, all thanks to the aftermath of a seventies-era typhoon.
The room sprawled with monitors, where at the far end of the room was an arrangement of telescreens built as flat as they could be, and set wall-to-wall. Each screen depicted a near-monochrome Japan with sickly-neon green or white bands against a black backdrop. The central display manifested lines and dots coming to and fro Japan, though far less than usual, and in far lower density than one would expect. Accompanying it, one depicted the temperature and another of the wind. Every peculiarity was precisely measured, as cold fronts rushed in from both directions, while another exclaimed of a dashed blanket representing rainfall even if just a short skip out from Japan the data was all lost.
At the far back of the room was a long table with four microphones implanted into its polished concrete surface—an announcements system for the room and three direct emergency lines; one that relayed to all Central Japan airports, and the two others to the office’s counterparts in the Northeastern and Southern Japan air coordination staff. The lines were almost direct - in actuality routing through emergency channels via airport radio, but it was close enough to direct that the title still held, even if more an express line than anything. Though they were redundant, they were certainly still useful.
Taki approached the first, where he leaned in and pushed down hard on its respective button, with Juurou and Tadao watching distractingly over his shoulders.
One code word was all he needed to say, so say it, damnit! Having taken in a single deep breath beforehand, he’d speak into the microphone clearly and concisely. As much so as he could have.
“Kabura-ya, extremely adverse conditions, prepare for handling heavy traffic influx—cancel all outbound flights.”
[+]
Narita International Airport, Kankūjima
12:19 AM
The terminal shrieked of ‘departures;’ overworked KyōkazuMart employees, and a run-down Bendtsen gift store included as dozens if not hundreds poured through to replace those lost to the ravenous gates. Small groups of travelers, mere chips of the greater mass that passed through, gathered by the walls and whatever seats they could find. There were men in slate suits who found a place next to families in woolen clothes, and touristy young foreigners fresh from the meat grinder of high school or college. There were mobs of luggage that huddled together for warmth near each group, benches filled to the brim with the weary, and tables lined with all sorts of everyday paraphernalia—trays of food, purses, and backpacks.
All happened under the watchful supervision of overhead electronic boards, to which dozens glowed an incandescent orange. Electronic clocks read aloud the time in segmented letters, though never shouted it, and as the month of January turned over into her second half, the second twelfth of the sun was soon to reveal itself once more.
Yet, despite this all, the airport wasn’t running at peak capacity, far below in fact, even with the buzz and commotion.
Looking up at their lords above, the electronic boards weren’t happy. Lines silently went out, which began with flight JA-57 to London. It flipped from the neat remark of boarding to delayed, then KF-36 to Taipei from on-time to delayed, and A3-11 to Seattle just as the last. The list went on, flights scheduled for 1 AM were delayed, then 2 AM, and then half-past—all the way down to the bottom of the boards. The silencing was quick, sharp, and precise, where each flight taken off the list was another hundred or so travelers now stranded without a hotel.
Oh well; just an hour or so more to wait in the terminal—nothing so bad, right? Perhaps a grumble, perhaps a moan, but it wouldn’t kill anybody.
Then, the terminal fell to the whims of a PA system as it chimed on. The omnipresent murmurs of new-years travelers, foreign tourists, and business executives alike fell short as many looked up from their luggage to hear its celestially mocking remark.
The system spoke in a friendly tone, that of a man only just woken up, who spoke casually into a microphone. “All departures have been put on hold due to unforeseen, adverse weather conditions that have recently arisen around the airport. We apologize for the delays,” he’d say, yawn half-expected yet to never come to fruition. To the rest-deprived, it came less as a friendly interaction and more as a stranger’s harsh sarcasm. Some moaned, some groaned, some even yelled to their parties, but most stayed quiet. Instead, they bottled it up with sourer tempers than they’d begun with. None knew at this point how their thousand-dollar tickets had been invalidated with a single button push. None knew why just yet, focused only on the wasted time, money, and trips cut short.
[+]
Kantei, Chiyoda Ward
12:27 AM
An aide in a stuffy grey suit stood in front of a desk. He’d been speaking for a while and was already near the culmination of whatever extremely short address he’d given which followed with an even shorter summation.
“So, Minister Hitoshi reports that the NCAA has recalled most flights and is reporting a severe communications outage.”
“Such extreme course of action… he authorized it, I take it?” The man behind the desk asked for clarification, cautious toward any possible miscommunication or misinterpretation. He felt only a light sense of reason to find suspicion in the recall—were it to have been Hitoshi’s doing, he would’ve questioned it little. It seemed to make enough sense anyway albeit concerning on top of the prior issues, though it was best to leave any investigation to those who knew what they were doing.
“Erm, yes…” The aide answered, then pausing for an obvious ‘but’—more news to come, and probably not good. “But we’re also so far still unable to call the Prime Minister’s team or any of our embassies, and have been unable to determine when contact can be regained.”
It was striking enough to hold more regard for what was becoming quick thinking on Hitoshi’s part, though why the recall hadn’t reached him until that point was also a point for concern. The concern was only exacerbated by the fact that usually any outage was scheduled, and they only ever lasted fifteen minutes at most in a smaller, localized area. It had already been thirty, give or take, and he was sure they’d be extra quick to fix whatever it was were it to be so widespread and severe; dare he say it was an issue that had been felt nationally.
“I hold trust in Minister Hitoshi’s intuition then—call up Tamika-san or Saneatsu-san and have them prepare the board for a delegation if this is anything more than a minor hiccup, which I suspect is so. Do we have any more information other than this on anything similar?” He’d ask, just to be sure.
“Well, we still haven’t been able to get to the Prime Minister just yet, and Self-Defence Force RADAR installations are reporting some… extreme discrepancies,” the aide further delivered. Three strikes of bad news in a row.
He raised his right eyebrow, finding it odd too that the all too reliable SDF would falter now of all times. Quickly, he formulated a plan—one that he believed would be effective in breaking down the unknowns into knowns. “Would it be possible to get two advisors to gather more information then?”
“I’ll get on that right away, Mister Cabinet Secretary.”
“Thank you,” the Secretary would reply in full grace and gratitude.
Taking the ‘thank you,’ as a cue, the cabinet aide bowed and exited the room, leaving the Cabinet Secretary to his lonesome, swinging from side to side in his chair as he took his mind off the document set on his desk for just a moment.
More meetings and plenty more public conferences.
.
.
.
.
.
Great. Just great.