——Thus ends Part 4 of Chapter 2. Part 5 continues below—-
Kue-…
The bird’s cry reverberated far away.
“They left…”
Katou muttered.
The bird disappeared over the horizon, and Katou returned to the wing of the bridge. He remained silent and displayed a stern expression. Those on the bridge also did the same. The leaders were also confused, and could only say that something unbelievable happened.
But Katou was different, he desperately tried to come up with a decision concerning the current situation. Perhaps it was his sense of duty as the head chief of staff, but this is his flexibility and his high ability to adapt. He might be an exception in the rigid-thinking leaders of the Self-Defense Force.
Amongst the chatter on the bridge, Katou didn’t show too much shock.
“Did you come to understand anything?”
Kaburagi, wearing the same gray life vest and helmet as the other marine force members, at some point came next to the others.
Kaburagi was one of the few people who could understand Katou, who had a knack for seemingly alien to others. Katou also has trust in him.
Eh, said Kaburagi cheerfully. At hearing his voice, the bridge settled down all at once. With everyone calm and their attention gathered, Katou cleared his throat once.
“Due to the event in the ward room with that girl, we have lost track of our present position. For about 22 hours, we’ve moved forward down a strayed path in the midst of a deep fog. All this time, our radio waves have been silent. Because we lost our ability to communicate, we took emergency measures to take a route for what we thought was the closest island with an American base, Guam.”
To make sure none of his ideas sounded too strange, he took a moment to take a breath and gather his thoughts.
“However, after we left that mist there was that bird. Riding it was a girl with an unknown nationality…But this is not so very important. That’s because this is a problem from now, and is not a fundamental issue.”
He was not making an allusion to something that was solved. You can ask about the current status of the communication devices and radars from the operators of the “Ibuki” in detail.
“Even now that we’re in clear weather after leaving the fog, we’re not getting and intercepting any signals, right?”
“Correct.”
“It’s not broken?”
“We’ve checked 3 times already, but there are no problems with the machinery, sir.”
“And even the GPS, we’re not getting any response from any satellites and can’t connect to any…right?”
The operator confirmed this with his silence. Katou affirmed it.
“This…there’s no way on Earth this can happen.”
That was the strongest feeling these people here had. There was nothing blocking the signal, but letting that aside, even private radio signals and the communication satellites all being down is definitely impossible.
The impossible is happening. Since one can’t even imagine this, they had no clue as to what was the cause. Unnatural signals had vanished. It was as if the world itself had disappeared. Some found Katou’s words hard to take, and so around them started subdued conversations. But Katou didn’t care about that and continued.
“Are you aware of quantum mechanic’s ‘multidimensional (or many-worlds) interpretation’?”
“No…What’s that supposed to be?”
Kaburagi replied that he was a little surprised to hear these words he wasn’t used to hearing. Katou put his arm out and lifted his forefinger, and in a teacher’s accent started to explain.
“Taking quantum mechanic’s ‘Schrodinger’s cat’ thought experiment, there is a field of extreme logic that would suggest the world is not one, that is the hypothesis.”
“The world?”
“Yes, the world. The world we live in would have many parallel worlds in existence, and that parallel worlds would not mix, so we wouldn’t be able to perceive it, and there wouldn’t be a way to know about it.”
The ears that listened and took in Katou’s calm speaking voice found a strange power of persuasion in it.
“However, if through some way, something from another world was brought into ours, then what?”
After talking thus far, Katou fixed his glasses with his middle finger.
“That girl came to our world as an ‘observer’ and, through some ‘knotted point’ she was able to blend the worlds, and through this pulled us into a different world…how about that as a theory?…However, exactly why did it have to be us?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Katou, I can’t understand whatever the kind of story you’re telling.”
One of the leaders interrupted him with such a jeer. Katou didn’t care and continued his talk. However, it was a little quicker, since he wanted to get to the conclusion.
“In other words, if my hypothesis is correct, then…the world did not disappear,”
And, he looked around at the leaders that was lined up in a row, and declared:
“It’s the opposite. In other words, right now, this fleet has gone astray into a ‘parallel world’!”
========
——Thus ends Part 4 of Chapter 2. Part 5 continues below—-
Kue-…
The bird’s cry reverberated far away.
“They left…”
Katou muttered.
The bird disappeared over the horizon, and Katou returned to the wing of the bridge. He remained silent and displayed a stern expression. Those on the bridge also did the same. The leaders were also confused, and could only say that something unbelievable happened.
But Katou was different, he desperately tried to come up with a decision concerning the current situation. Perhaps it was his sense of duty as the head chief of staff, but this is his flexibility and his high ability to adapt. He might be an exception in the rigid-thinking leaders of the Self-Defense Force.
Amongst the chatter on the bridge, Katou didn’t show too much shock.
“Did you come to understand anything?”
Kaburagi, wearing the same gray life vest and helmet as the other marine force members, at some point came next to the others.
Kaburagi was one of the few people who could understand Katou, who had a knack for seemingly alien to others. Katou also has trust in him.
Eh, said Kaburagi cheerfully. At hearing his voice, the bridge settled down all at once. With everyone calm and their attention gathered, Katou cleared his throat once.
“Due to the event in the ward room with that girl, we have lost track of our present position. For about 22 hours, we’ve moved forward down a strayed path in the midst of a deep fog. All this time, our radio waves have been silent. Because we lost our ability to communicate, we took emergency measures to take a route for what we thought was the closest island with an American base, Guam.”
To make sure none of his ideas sounded too strange, he took a moment to take a breath and gather his thoughts.
“However, after we left that mist there was that bird. Riding it was a girl with an unknown nationality…But this is not so very important. That’s because this is a problem from now, and is not a fundamental issue.”
He was not making an allusion to something that was solved. You can ask about the current status of the communication devices and radars from the operators of the “Ibuki” in detail.
“Even now that we’re in clear weather after leaving the fog, we’re not getting and intercepting any signals, right?”
“Correct.”
“It’s not broken?”
“We’ve checked 3 times already, but there are no problems with the machinery, sir.”
“And even the GPS, we’re not getting any response from any satellites and can’t connect to any…right?”
The operator confirmed this with his silence. Katou affirmed it.
“This…there’s no way on Earth this can happen.”
That was the strongest feeling these people here had. There was nothing blocking the signal, but letting that aside, even private radio signals and the communication satellites all being down is definitely impossible.
The impossible is happening. Since one can’t even imagine this, they had no clue as to what was the cause. Unnatural signals had vanished. It was as if the world itself had disappeared. Some found Katou’s words hard to take, and so around them started subdued conversations. But Katou didn’t care about that and continued.
“Are you aware of quantum mechanic’s ‘multidimensional (or many-worlds) interpretation’?”
“No…What’s that supposed to be?”
Kaburagi replied that he was a little surprised to hear these words he wasn’t used to hearing. Katou put his arm out and lifted his forefinger, and in a teacher’s accent started to explain.
“Taking quantum mechanic’s ‘Schrodinger’s cat’ thought experiment, there is a field of extreme logic that would suggest the world is not one, that is the hypothesis.”
“The world?”
“Yes, the world. The world we live in would have many parallel worlds in existence, and that parallel worlds would not mix, so we wouldn’t be able to perceive it, and there wouldn’t be a way to know about it.”
The ears that listened and took in Katou’s calm speaking voice found a strange power of persuasion in it.
“However, if through some way, something from another world was brought into ours, then what?”
After talking thus far, Katou fixed his glasses with his middle finger.
“That girl came to our world as an ‘observer’ and, through some ‘knotted point’ she was able to blend the worlds, and through this pulled us into a different world…how about that as a theory?…However, exactly why did it have to be us?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Katou, I can’t understand whatever the kind of story you’re telling.”
One of the leaders interrupted him with such a jeer. Katou didn’t care and continued his talk. However, it was a little quicker, since he wanted to get to the conclusion.
“In other words, if my hypothesis is correct, then…the world did not disappear,”
And, he looked around at the leaders that was lined up in a row, and declared:
“It’s the opposite. In other words, right now, this fleet has gone astray into a ‘parallel world’!”
========
