MJ-12: Inception

2

Danny Wallace had never really known how silence could be “deafening.” The idea seemed not just contradictory but ludicrous. Yet on this day, as the young US Navy lieutenant walked down the streets of downtown Hiroshima in the light of the morning sun, he understood completely.

There were no sounds. No cars, no trolleys, no people. No birds, no movement. A testament to the devastating power of the atom bomb and a quiet, yet angry, protest against it.

He was still at least a mile from the center of the blast that had torn through the city three months prior, and yet the destruction was so complete, the land so cleansed. The idea that people had died right where he was now walking seemed incomprehensible.

But seventy thousand people had, many of them instantaneously. They were the lucky ones. Danny had heard painfully detailed stories of horrific burns and victims that lingered for days, weeks, before dying. There were still wounded on the outskirts of town, in makeshift hospitals and in family homes, still not yet dead — either stubbornly clinging to life or, perhaps more cruelly, waiting for an end to the excruciating pain.

The streets were bare, for the most part. There was debris, lots of it, and a number of burned-out trolleys and cars on each block. But the road’s outline was easily followed amid the destruction. In fact, Danny looked up to the sound of sweeping from an old woman tending to her section of the street, brushing it clear. There was no house behind her, just a pile of charred wood and stones.

It was all the same, everywhere around him. Where there were once buildings two, three, even four stories high, now it was just rubble: burned wood, broken brick, and fine ash, most of it in piles no more than a few feet high. In the far distance, reinforced concrete structures stood gutted and burned out like ghostly skeletons against the sky, a sky so blue it almost seemed to mock the fate of the city below. Most had structural damage from the sheer kinetic force of the A-bomb. It didn’t matter that they were still standing; they could never be used again.

Someone on a bicycle dashed by — upon what errand, Danny couldn’t begin to imagine. A couple knelt in the street and prayed before a piece of blasted ruin, a stick of lit incense wedged between crushed masonry. Danny hadn’t the faintest what the Japanese did for religion, but he knew mourning when he saw it. He had to keep it together, he told himself. He had a job to do.

“This is good,” the man next to him said.

Danny wheeled about and wiped a stray tear from his eye. “What could be good about this?”

Dr. Kaoru Shima put a gentle hand on Danny’s shoulder. “I mean it is good that you see this, Lieutenant Wallace. It is good that you cry a little for us. I never supported this war against the Chinese, against the Americans, but this type of destruction is something that I never imagined would happen on Earth.”

Danny tried to think of something to say but could only nod. Shima ran a hospital in Hiroshima. He had been out of town the day the bomb fell. He’d lost everything and yet was set on rebuilding his facility and, in doing so, focusing on the care that those far less fortunate than him desperately needed.

There were a lot of unfortunates in Hiroshima.

It had only been a few days since the Navy had landed at the city’s main port to take over administration. Japan’s top experts had already proclaimed Hiroshima safe, and Danny had reviewed their data and found the science sound. But that wasn’t why Danny was there. Captain Roscoe Hillenkoetter, head of intelligence for the US Pacific Fleet, had personally approved this particular mission, and Danny had had to sign more than his fair share of confidentiality agreements before being given the green light.

Shima was already well known as a local guide. He’d been one of the first to greet the Americans at the docks, though he had made no effort to conceal that it was strictly in the hopes of getting medical supplies to his suffering people as quickly as possible. Thankfully, those higher up on the chain of command had seen fit to stuff the Navy ships with all kinds of medicine, as well as food and potable water. The Americans had become, if not popular, then certainly less hated in Hiroshima in relatively short order. And Shima had made himself an accessible and friendly local presence.

Now, of course, Danny understood why. He wants to show me the Hell on Earth we created. And I can’t say I blame him. They were among the very few people walking the streets: the dignified Japanese doctor with jet-black hair and moustache, wearing a suit and tie, looking as if he were just going to the office like any other day; and the young, blond-haired, bespectacled young lieutenant in shipboard khaki, as out of place there as a gun in a nursery.

They walked by a tall, domed building — gutted but still technically standing. “Our prefectural industrial hall,” Shima said, noticing Danny’s look. “It is — was — a place where we would showcase the best efforts of our domestic goods, where other countries would come and see and buy from us.”

Nothing else needed to be said. Danny knew those industries were gone, the workers dead. He wondered how in God’s name anybody could rebuild after this. Where could you possibly start? If it were him, if he were a survivor of something like this, he’d leave and go as far away as he could.

As they continued, Danny noticed that the rubble and ruin were slowing piling up — it was now maybe three or four feet deep in places — and less strewn about. They were very close to where the center of the blast had occurred. The bomb had ignited when it was still a thousand feet above the city, and the buildings right below it had suffered a massive thrust of pressure and fire. Everything was crushed, straight down into the ground.

“Here,” Shima said, pointing to a half-standing concrete doorway surrounded by rubble. “This is where my clinic was.”

Danny opened his mouth to ask how many people had been in the building at the time but decided against it. In all honesty, he didn’t want to know. Instead, he let Shima lead him through a trail the doctor picked out amid the ruin, all the while mentally cursing the aim of the US Army Air Corps. They were supposed to target the Aioi Bridge, a half mile away. Instead, the bomb had exploded right over a goddamn hospital.

Like it would have mattered, he realized. The way it happened, the people in the hospital died instantaneously. If the bomb had been on target, they would’ve had an extra few seconds of agony before it was all over. Danny shook his head at the thought, saddened and awed by the new calculus of war the A-bomb had created.

A handful of people ahead were picking through the wreckage of the hospital, including a woman in a nurse’s uniform. Danny watched as she bent over, tugging at something stuck under a chunk of concrete, then pulled out a two-foot-long bone bleached white from the blast. She placed it gently into a sack marked with Japanese characters.

Shima walked through the doorway — and it was just a door frame sticking out of the ground, nothing on either side or above it, a gesture so bizarre that Danny would’ve laughed under any other circumstances — and pointed toward a partially excavated stairway. “Most of the bones of our people are down there, in the basement, with the rest of the building,” Shima said. “We have worked steadily to recover as many as we can. They will go to a shrine dedicated to our lost people.”

It was becoming more and more difficult for Danny to keep focused on the assignment in the face of so much loss and suffering. “How deep did you get?”

Shima motioned Danny forward. “Deep enough. That is why you are here, correct, Lieutenant?”

Danny turned and looked at Shima to elaborate, but the doctor merely smiled sadly and waved him on. “Do not touch anything, Lieutenant. I cannot say how strong the walls are.”

As Danny turned on his flashlight and headed downward, the doctor following behind him, he wished he had brought a few MPs along to take point. But Hillenkoetter had given strict orders: keep it contained. The less that knew, the better.

“I have not let many people down here,” Shima said, as if Danny had been thinking out loud. “I cannot allow more to risk their lives. So it has been myself, my nurse, and a single worker. That is all.”

Looking around, the entire basement was choked with rubble, so much so that in many places, Danny couldn’t tell where the floor or ceiling started or stopped. It was just a big pile of junk. Concrete, wood, metal, and electrical wiring had all come down in little pieces, and he was burrowed somewhere in the middle of it.

Shima took out his own flashlight and assumed the lead. Burrowed, as it turned out, was the right word — the doctor and his people had managed to carve out a tunnel through the rubble no more than four feet high and three wide, held up by a few impromptu supports wedged into the walls.

“Why did you tunnel?” Danny asked. “Why wouldn’t you start from the top?”

Shima shrugged. “It is hard to explain. The laborer I hired to help in here insisted on going down to the subbasement. He said it was important. He recovered many remains, so I did not argue with him. I originally assumed that is why he tunneled.”

“What happened to this worker?” Danny asked. “I may need to speak with him.”

“He was Korean. I believe he went home after a while. He did not show up one morning. I can’t say I blame him. If this is not your home, why would you be here?”

“Maybe he found something.”

“It is all as we found it,” Shima said. “Do not worry.”

Danny ducked a bit lower to get through a particularly tight passage. “Nonetheless, doctor, I’ll need the worker’s name.”

“Of course.”

After a few more minutes, during which the tunnel grew tighter and delved deeper, the passage finally opened up into a smallish room somewhere far in the hospital’s basements. Danny could just barely make out tiled walls and a concrete floor. He estimated they were at least two or three stories beneath street level, with several tons of rubble above them. And yet there was enough room here for both Danny and Shima to stand and stretch.

And in the center of the room… there it was.

Danny exhaled under his breath. Holy shit. It was true.

“Dr. Shima,” he said, turning to the doctor, clearing his throat. “I’m afraid that under the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, this area is going to be under quarantine from here on out.”

To Danny’s surprise, Shima merely smiled. “It is a rare thing, Lieutenant Wallace, to have something of value in the midst of this kind of devastation.”

“Excuse me?”

“What we have here, I know you wish to study. This is why you came. And because you came alone, Lieutenant, it is safe to assume you are one of the only Americans who know that it is here.”

The air had become heavy with tension, and in the same motion, both drew their firearms and stood, less than five feet away, weapons pointed at each other in silence.

“I have no wish to harm you, Lieutenant,” Shima finally said.

Danny stared hard at his guide-turned-adversary. “Then you should drop your weapon.”

Shima smiled and lowered it to his side. “I just wanted you to know that I could have shot you, but I will not. You seem an honorable young man, and I hope we might treat each other with honor here.”

Danny knew better than to mince words — or holster his sidearm. “What do you want?”

“I want your word that your government will rebuild our city.”

“You’re serious?” Danny asked. Shima’s face remained unchanged. “I’m just a junior officer. You realize I don’t have that kind of authority, right?”

“No, but those that sent you here — without anyone to protect you — I’m quite sure they do.”

Smart guy. “I could just shoot you, Doctor.”

Shima shrugged. “You could. But before I die, I could detonate the charges I’ve placed around these tunnels, burying you and me and keeping your discovery from ever seeing the light of day. How long do you think it would take them to find this room again, if ever? How long to find your body?”

“I can carry your request up the chain. And I’ll make sure you’re able to treat as many victims here as possible.”

Shima nodded. “Where are you from, Lieutenant?”

“St. Louis.”

“And if someone bombed your city into dust and ash, would you not do all you could to see it rebuilt?”

Danny finally lowered his weapon. “We should continue this conversation back aboveground, Dr. Shima.”

“If you come back in force, I will detonate the charges. I want assurances.” And with that, Shima turned his flashlight back on and made his way up the tunnel.

Danny made as if he would follow but paused for a moment in that room underground and closed his eyes. He could hear them much more clearly here, and louder, too — the whispers clear as day as they tumbled about in his head. He focused, trying to pinpoint from the echoes where their actual locations might be. Wherever it was, it was far.

In time, maybe Danny could find them. And that light — that vortex of blindingly white light swirling in a subbasement of a hospital decimated by history’s mightiest weapon — just might help him do that.

A few minutes later, Danny emerged into the clear, sunny day and took the Handie-Talkie out of his pack. “Patch me through to SCAP,” he said. “I need Captain Hillenkoetter ASAP.”