JEWEL OF SHINKANSEN

I felt the vibration increase from a constant familiar drone to a higher frequency. An aroma of freshly brewed coffee coaxed me from wherever I had been—a dreamless slumber. The real world coalesced as I shifted my numbed backside in the leather seat. Sounds of others receiving their drinks and asking about the speed fumbled into my brain as I stirred.

“Coffee, sirs?” A small voice squeaked out an offer.

“Black, two sugars for me, darlin,” said a baritone American to my right.

“And your sleepy friend?” Coffee poured. Sugar packets tore.

An elbow jabbed my side, and I focused closer to consciousness.

“Who, him? I ain’t quite sure we’re friends yet, doll. He just plopped down here back in Huhkudo,” he said.

Hokuto Station?

I sat upright and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Where am I?”

“You’re in first class, boy. From the stink-a-drink on ya, I’d say you had a hell of a night.” The man wore a ruddy brown cowboy hat that most definitely concealed a receding hairline terminating in a greasy ponytail.

I looked around the cabin and out the windows. Countryside zoomed past as I let my eyes focus on the distance. “Is this the Shinkansen?” Facing the window, I asked no one in particular.

“Damn, son, you musta hit that saké extra hard.” The cowboy let out a guffaw and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Yes, sir. You are on the Shinkansen to Sapporo,” said the petite coffee-cart girl.

I shook my head and checked the terrain once more. “But, how? There is no Shinkansen rail to Sapporo yet.”

She squinted her eyes and looked around the plush train car as if she were confused. Cowboy scrunched up his face and pulled his chin back into his neck, scanning me up and down.

“I got some news for you, VanWinkle. You are definitely on the bullet train to Sapporo.” He reached into his blazer and retrieved a printed ticket.

I took it from him and read the itinerary: Tokyo to Sapporo, 15/11/2023. One-way ¥125,0000.

“This can’t be right.”

“You ain’t kiddin’, boy, that’s three times what the regular folks had to pay.” He pitched his thumb over his shoulder toward the back of the train.

“Sir?” she probed.

“The Shinkansen line to Sapporo isn’t due to open until 2030.” I didn’t know where I was, how I got there, or even my damn name, but somehow, I knew about this train. Panic crawled inside my head and set up camp. My heart just about beat out of my chest. “What the hell is going on?” I planted my sweaty palms on the armrests, stood up, and shouted, “Somebody tell me how I am on a train to Sapporo?”

I felt the cowboy’s meaty paws on my wrist, pulling me back into my seat. As I sat, he pulled my coat closed and dismissed the coffee girl with a wave.

Cowboy leaned in and closed the gap between us. “Hey now, champ, you might just wanna keep a low profile, if you catch my drift.” He checked the aisle, then opened my coat and pointed to my right side. “I patched you up best I could when you got on, but that’s sure to attract all sorts’a questions you might not wanna answer.”

I inspected the black stain on my shirt and the bandage below it. There was no pain where a wound would be, where Cowboy had just jabbed his elbow. “What happened? What is this?”

“Dunno what happened, chief. That there’s the best field dressing I could muster with the first aid kit they got in the shitter.” Coffee girl passed by again, and he pulled my coat to hide my mysterious injury.

“I got on at Hokuto, like this? You bandaged my wounds and sat me in first class? Why?”

“You was runnin’ from somethin.’ An’ brother, I know it’s like to be alone in the world, to need a friend. You might not have noticed, but I ain’t from ‘round these parts myself. I guess it was just instinct done took over, you feel me?” His broad smile revealed a few gold teeth.

“I can’t feel…anything,” I said as I poked around the bandaged area.

Cowboy slapped my hand away like a parent would. “That don’t mean it ain’t there. You had some vike in your pocket, so I helped you take a couple right before you passed out. Tell the truth. I was a touch worried doing that, but, hell, you ain’t dead, so… I bet you’re still flyin’ high on them.”

My mind churned, trying to extract some memories from the void. “Field dressing? Are you military?”

“Did my time in ‘Nam. Some skills you never forget.” He looked off into some unseen past.

This cowboy did not look nearly old enough to have been in the Vietnam war. What is happening here?

“I need to use the washroom. I need to see this wound.” I stood and tried to exit the row we shared.

The big cowboy put himself in the space I t ried to occupy. “Trust me, you need to stay sat, partner. You makin’ a fuss is not gonna bode well for things, believe you me.”

“I appreciate your concern. Now, please let me out.” In my agitated state I heard my voice climb above the casual volume we had been speaking. My appreciation of the cowboy's selfless act was genuine, but I need answers. They wouldn’t be found hiding in this seat.

The commotion drew the attention of a conductor who approached from the front of the train. “Sir, if you could remain calm. You’re disturbing the other passengers.”

But I wasn’t. No one was disturbed—heads were down, buried in iPads or laptops. Teenagers in school uniforms with neon-colored headphones, bobbing their heads to whatever J-Pop was the flavor of the day. Why are there school kids in first class?

The question was fleeting as I spied businessmen cracking the spines of newspapers with every page turn. Everyone behaved like they’d all secretly agreed to ignore the crazy drunk. I wasn’t drunk. I know when I am drunk, when I’ve been drunk. Vicodin may have me a bit loose, but I’m still me. I am me…but who am I? I searched my foggy head for the last thing I could remember. A glimpse of a glass case surrounded by burning candles flashed in my mind, then as quick as it came, it faded.

“Sir, if I could just see your ticket to Sapporo, we can clear this up,” said the conductor. He extended a white-gloved hand, reaching across the cowboy.

“This leg hasn’t been built yet,” I mumbled. My pockets gave up their treasures onto the fold-down tray: an amber pill bottle with no label, a folded wad of paper Yen, toothpicks in a small case, a Zippo lighter, and a small, spiral-bound notepad. I flipped it open and saw notes in shorthand I recognized as my own. Dark brown smudges that looked to be dried blood stained the pages. What I didn’t find was a wallet, ID, or a ticket for this impossible train journey. “I don’t have a ticket.”

“Sir, you must have a ticket to ride the train.” He retracted his hand and reached for a two-way radio on his hip.

“No shit,” I snapped. “But since I don’t recall ever boarding this train, a train to Sapporo that doesn’t exist—”

“Brother,” said the cowboy, “I’ll bet you a hundred head of Wagyu it does.” He swiveled his head around to punctuate the reality of the situation.

Moments later, it became clear who the conductor had called. Two taller, thicker men approached. One from the rear, another from the front. Security of some sort. When I saw them it stirred a memory. A mountain top temple flashed in my mind’s eye, and that glass case, once more. I was running. To or from what? A memory of pain struck me. I reached for my right side, where my liver sits. The guards seemed nervous, reaching for batons hanging at their waistline. I pulled my hand back and raised both enough to show I had no ill intent.

“If you would come with us, please, sir, we can sort this all out.” The conductor and the two men stepped back to clear a path for me.

Cowboy whispered to me, “I tried to warn ya.”

I acknowledged him with a raised eyebrow and a shake of my head.

“Good luck, hero,” said the cowboy as I stepped over his long, denim-covered legs. He jutted his chin out toward the tray. “Don’t ferget yer stuff.”

I turned back and scooped up my belongings, stuffing them into my coat pocket. Cowboy tipped his hat and shot me a worrisome expression. He had been helping me, though I can’t figure why.

The conductor took the lead with one guard ahead of me and the other behind. Familiar. This wasn’t my first time being led in this way. I needed to know what was happening as much as they did, so I complied. There was a hiccup as we crossed from one car into the next. A slight dip over the maglev rail, then a surge. The pitch rose, and the vibrations changed again.

“This train doesn’t sound right to me,” I said.

The conductor turned back to face me in the privacy of the accordion section. “Very keen of you to notice that. I’ll thank you to keep that observation to yourself, please.”

The warning seemed unwarranted. “Why is that?”

“We can discuss that in my office. I don’t want to alarm the other passengers.”

Office was a generous word choice. The cramped quarters afforded him barely enough room to sneak behind a shallow plastic desk and sit. He motioned to a panel on the opposing wall covered in faux wood grain with a finger-hole rimmed in stainless steel. Intuitively I jabbed my finger in and released the guest seat. It reminded me of those diaper changing stations stores have, except now I was the helpless baby.

“Let’s start with a name, shall we?” He pulled out a pad and pen. “Mr. Tolliver called you Hiro. Is that your name?”

“Mr. Tolliver?”

“The American cowboy you shared a row with.”

“I don’t know him.” I honestly didn’t. I did need a name, though. I pulled out my notepad and flipped through the pages scribbled with random kanji. I recognized it as my writing, but not what it meant. Cowboy called me hero, like buddy or pal. It didn’t feel like a name, not my name. “But, yes, you can call me Hiro.”

“I get the impression that you are suffering some memory loss. Would that be fair to say?” He thumbed through a handbook. There must be a chapter on how to deal with unticketed passengers. Maybe even troublesome ones, like me.

“Listen, I am not senile, and I’m not a drunk.” He stared at me as though my protest bore no value to him. “Surely you have some security footage of how I got on the train?” I had a deepening suspicion that my best course of action was to present myself as a victim. At least until I can recall the truth.

“Someone is working on that as we speak,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows and turned out my hands.

“In a slightly bigger compartment in the back of the train.” After about half an hour of irrelevant questions, he gave up on the handbook and slapped it shut. “Perhaps I should have left you in first class. I think the distraction would have been a better use of you.”

Use of me?

“Distraction from what?” The train car shuddered.

The conductor looked at his watch, then slid open a shade on a small window. He jerked his thumb toward the passing scenery. “You noticed it almost immediately. A few others have asked, but no one else has figured it out.”

“We’re speeding up, aren’t we?”

He looked me dead in the eye. “You’re going to wish you never woke up.”

A knock at the door broke the tense moment. “Yes?”

A quick slide open revealed another of the security guards. He handed a memory card to the conductor then slid the door closed again. “Maybe this will help solve your mystery.”

He slipped the chip into his computer and brought up a video file. I leaned in to watch alongside the conductor. The timestamp in the corner matched the date on Cowboy’s ticket. The sign for Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto Station was clear. Passengers climbed on and off in rapid succession as attendants assisted those in need. About a minute in, an elderly couple appeared on the screen with considerably more baggage than either could carry. Brightly colored, floral-print suitcases toppled and slid across the thick yellow band between the train door and the platform. Several attendants rushed to service, bowing and collecting the skewed items. In the kerfuffle, a man came into frame. The man was me. I was running for the train, clutching my side, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in my wake. On the screen, I entered the train unnoticed and disappeared inside.

Upon watching this, albeit from a new point of view, my memory stirred once again. I reached for my side, expecting a wound, but found only Cowboy’s bandage over my painless side. A quick check of the soles of my shoes revealed only the same dark brown that soiled my notebook.

“Hiro-san, it appears you boarded this train of your own free will. Do you mean to tell me you have no memory of this?” He paused the video.

I searched my jumbled mind for an answer. I opened my coat and showed him my side, which bore the same bloody stain as in the video. “I see it, yes. But I cannot explain it.” Another surge hit us, and the train sped its acceleration. “What’s happening with this train?”

The conductor closed his computer, wet his lips, and leaned in to speak. “If you were on the lam, I could have helped you. For a price.”

I heard the words and expected them to sound absurd, but somehow they didn’t. “I know how that video looks, but I don’t know why I would be running or who from.” As I spoke the words, they did not ring true.

He leaned back and peered out the window. “Doesn’t matter. No one’s going to make it to Sapporo anyway.”

I clutched my side. A phantom memory flashed. A blade plunging in, sliding out soaked in blackness. “There’s something wrong with the train, I feel it.”

“We’ve lost control of the train. It is going to keep accelerating until it loses mag-lock. It won’t be long now.”

“Can’t we stop it? Shut down the engines, emergency brakes? How can you operate a bullet train with no safety measures?” As I asked these manic questions, I realized even proper answers wouldn’t change the outcome.

“The brakes failed shortly after Hokuto. The circuit failure cascaded up to the pilot’s cockpit.” He pulled his phone out and dialed a number. “If you have someone you love, best to call and say goodbye before it’s too late. Make your peace with your maker, Sato, before it’s too late.”

Sato. He called me Sato.

His call connected, and he spoke to someone in short bursts of intense sorrow. He was done with me. I left him to say his farewells and slithered back into the corridor. Did I have anyone who would miss me? My mind was still swiss cheese. I closed my eyes and leaned against the increasingly shaky wall. I saw the temple again. The display case. This time I saw the jewel inside. More details followed when the memory came. Such a beautiful thing, that gem. I let my right hand search my coat pocket. My fingers stroked the spiral wire of the notebook, and in a flash, the cipher came to me.

“Well, I’ll be. Welcome back, hero.” The cowboy, Tolliver, seemed pleased by my return.

I took the seat next to him, where I had been sleeping. I glanced at the ring on his finger. “Maybe you should call your wife.”

“Oh, I wish I could speak to her right about now. Don’t you worry, my friend, I think I’ll be chattin’ her up again pretty soon. I did get a call out to my boys, though. Don’t let the subdued vibe in here give you the wrong impression. I know we’re screwed. Train ain’t s’posed to go this fast.” He pulled a flask from his blazer, unscrewed the top, and took a swig. “Here, might help.”

I took the flask and maybe more than my share. “I don’t understand how all these people don’t know we’re going to crash. We should tell them.”

“What good would that do? They probably travel this line every day. They oughta know better than me. They just don’t. Maybe they’re all zombies or robots. Hell, maybe you’re a zombie, too?” He opened his eyes wide, then flashed a drunken smile. “Figgers, though, don’t it? I fly around the dang world to buy some of them fancy-ass Japanese cattle, get on the fancy-ass super train just to end up a stain on the countryside.”

His composure cracked as the train surged again. We were both sweating now. The heat from below radiated through the floor and overpowered the air conditioning units. The car’s lights flickered a few times then stayed off. A collective gasp echoed over the hum of a train reaching its aerodynamic limits. The end was nearing, so I made my move.

“My name is Sato, and I’ve been a lot of things, but most recently a jewel thief.” I took the notebook from my pocket and flipped to the page with the blood stains. It was blood, wasn’t it? That seemed obvious. Why hadn’t I remembered that before?

Cowboy pointed to my side. “Explains the stab wound. Was it worth it?”

A high-pitched whine of things passing their tolerances punctuated the situation. “I can’t say yet if it was or not. What about you? Why are you on this train?”

“Edwin Tolliver, soon-to-be former Texas Cattle rancher and father of three soon-to-be homeless orphans. This trip was s’posed to save the ranch. The Wagyu I had lined up woulda brought us back from the brink. I couldn’t save their mama, and I can’t save them neither. Damn it all.” He wiped his bright red face with a monogrammed handkerchief.

The car juked to the left. Tolliver’s coffee from earlier sailed from the fold-out table and spilled on the seats facing us. A loud hum filled the car as something dragged on the track. Some part of the train. It was starting to break down.

“I remember now,” I said, “why I got on the train back in Hokuto.” I held up the notebook so he could see my blood-covered kanji code. “I was being chased. I was hurt. Stabbed, bleeding out. Dying”

“You look pretty good for a dead man.” He gripped the armrests with his giant sausage fingers so tightly the leather tore loose. “Why were you being chased?”

A loud clang preempted my answer. I assumed some part of the train was coming in contact with the mag rail as we rounded a curve.

“I stole a sacred jewel from a temple.” I spoke with a quaver of shame in my voice. I don’t remember questioning how I would feel after I’d done it. I only knew that when I saw it, I had to take it. “It mesmerized me. I felt a connection to it. I can’t explain it. Maybe I’m insane. I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t remember anything. I was under its spell.” I rambled on. Trying to make excuses for my crime proved pointless.

The cowboy stared at me as if my confession meant nothing to him. How could it? He’d already lost his wife. and was going to leave behind his children. He was a good man, wasn’t he? A businessman trying to do business and dying for it. I deserved punishment. He didn’t. Right? It all started to make sense to me. It just clicked, and I knew what I had to do.

“Call your children back…” Another massive crash from the back of the train. The sound of scraping metal increased as the car shook more violently. “I hid the jewel. Call them, and I’ll give you the coordinates.” I shook the notebook, “I remember the cipher.”

“I appreciate the gesture, Sato, but I’m not sure a single jewel from some Japanese temple is gonna save my kids. Besides, they’re good, honest boys. I know them. They’ll probably return it to wherever it belongs.”

I held my hands out in front of me and made a circle so large that none of my fingers touched. “This is not just any jewel, my friend.”

His eyes went wide again, and he reached into his pocket for his phone. “Okay, okay. Gimme the coordinates. I’ll text them to Joshy. He’s the smart one. He’ll know what to do.”

I used my cipher to decode the message I had in the notepad and relayed the GPS information to Tolliver. I had to repeat a few digits because the sound of the train trying to exit the track was so overwhelming.

“Thank you, Sato. You have no idea how grateful we are for your blessing.” Tolliver placed his phone back into his pocket and stood up.

The vibrations stopped. The violent shaking stopped. The sounds of impending death ceased, and the whole car righted itself and became still.

I held back a smile. “Did it happen? Are we dead?” I looked around. Outside, the world had frozen in place. The trees close to the car were still blurry, but we were quite clearly sitting still. “I don’t understand.”

“Were.”

“Were, what?”

“Were dead. You died.” The cowboy’s voice changed. His register ticked up a notch, and the Southern drawl receded.

I thought I had come to my senses, remembered what I had done, I thought I had things figured out. But this account of my death didn’t fit. “What do you mean I died?”

“Simply put, just that. Sato Miyamori, born February twelfth, 1997, died November fifteenth, 2023, from a fatal stab wound to the liver. You boarded the Shinkansen bullet train at the Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto Station and never got off. You bled out, Mr. Miyamori, and expired.

“As you indeed recalled, you were being pursued by men from the very temple you stole from. Their mission was to capture you and retrieve the sacred jewel, which they, incorrectly, believed you had on your person. When you died, so died the knowledge of where you hid your prize.” As he spoke, he removed his hat and blazer, loosened the bolo tie with the turquoise knot, and peeled away the ponytailed wig. “We’ve been searching for it ever since.”

“I saw the video, and, yeah, the longer I’m awake, the farther back my memory is going, but,” I held out my arms and viewed myself, “if you’re trying to tell me I’m dead and this is the afterlife, I’m not buying it.”

The ex-cowboy raised his hand and swirled it around. “No, this is hardly any such thing. I said you were dead.”

The view outside the windows went blank. There was a slight hiss, and the walls retracted, revealing that the entire train was no more than some elaborate set on a giant gimbal. I looked closely at the other passengers, who now sat perfectly still.

“A few extras, like the guards and Kiran, the conductor, but the rest are robots. To be fair, I did try to tell you they were.” A smug smirk pushed his rosy cheeks until his eyes became slits.

“I still don’t get the was dead part of this ruse.”

“When you died, and it became clear you had not only hidden the jewel but encrypted its whereabouts with your hackneyed replacement cipher, your body was cryogenically frozen. Interested parties footed the bill to keep you on ice until such time you could be revived. This ruse, as you put it, was my idea. It may have cost more than simply torturing you, but, and I think you’ll agree, it was much more satisfying to have you realize the errors of your ways and offer up the jewel for a good cause.”

“Do you even have children?”

His smirk persisted. “Not yet, but once the jewel is returned, I’m confident my application will be approved.”

This guy thinks he’s hot shit.

“How long was I dead?”

“Considerably longer than you were alive, I’m afraid.” He was getting cocky, dismissive, even.

“How long?” I asked more firmly this time.

“We almost gave it away with that mistake about the Shinkansen going to Sapporo. You’ll forgive the faux pas, I beg. Things happened, and a lot of data about the 21st century was lost. We had to improvise some of this. You did an exceptional job of obscuring your history as well, so we chose this relatively non-specific method of extraction. I’m quite pleased this all worked out in our favor.”

Things happened?

“What year is it?”

“Welcome to 2455, but please don’t get too comfortable.”

I suppressed my shock the best I could. “What are you planning to do with me?”

“Well, some opposed bringing you back at all, and others only objected because of why we were doing it. Ultimately, a decision was made; once we had the information we needed, you would be returned to cryosleep. So, your journey ends here.”

Men, real men, I assumed, entered from between the walls of the fake train. One had restraints and the other a needle. “Let me make you a counteroffer.”

Tolliver held up a hand, and the men paused. “What more could you possibly have to offer, my ancient friend?”

Buy yourself some time, Sato. “I can fill in an awful lot of that missing history you spoke of.”

His hand dropped from the air to his side, and the men resumed their onslaught. “Most of us would rather forget the past. We’ve moved on. A relic like you has no place in the future we’re building. I’m sorry, but you’ll find your offer bears no value.”

“Well, thank you for that. I have a much better understanding of how to play this from here,” I said with a tight-lipped smile.

Tolliver tented an eyebrow. “From here? There is no from here.”

“Did you actually send the coordinates I gave you to someone?” I pointed to his pocket.

“Certainly. I expect we’ll have the lost jewel momentarily.” As if on cue, his phone rang, his actual phone, or whatever passes for a phone in 2455. “You’re sure?” he said. His expression became dour. “Yes, I understand. Stand by for further instruction.” He put the device back in his pocket. “Wretched antique thing.”

“Are you referring to me or that phone?”

“Both,” he said, “it appears you have me at a disadvantage.” He stalled the guards’ advance once more.

“Oh, what did your people find at the location I gave you?”

“A giant block of radioactive concrete where Fukushima used to be.”

“Shame.”

Defeated, he asked, “how did you know?”

I processed the many clues left by my inexperienced captors, deciding it best to keep my reply brief and my observations to myself. “Mr. Tolliver, I was a con man 400 years before you were born. If you want anything out of me, including the real location of the jewel, we have a bit more negotiating to do.”