The politicians found in history books were no different from those of the 2050s. They spoke of hope—said there was still hope left for humanity. One day, a four-term lawmaker, a graduate of an elite university’s law school, stepped up to the podium holding a speech. The materials he presented were tangled with equations so complex that an ordinary person would not only fail to understand them, but lose their bearings entirely. Even he seemed doubtful as to whether he truly understood what he was briefing. But there was no time to weigh fire against water.

  “The government and scientists have completed their precise calculations. All we need to do is follow them.”

  He did not forget his trademark gesture either—the one that declared, “I look only to the people.” Even after the politician descended the steps at the edge of the podium, the applause did not subside. It continued long after he had fully taken his seat, though after several minutes the cheering became awkward and faded into an uneasy silence. At that moment, a scientist stepped onto the stage—like Michael Jackson. He drew the silence deep into the room with his gaze, and when he felt that everyone’s attention had settled upon him, he finally broke it.

  “You must trust the rationality of science.”

  The speech, remembered as one that “sang of hope built upon the science accumulated up to that point,” would be quoted and recalled for years to come. When the scientist stepped down from the podium, the politician waiting below greeted him warmly.

  Years later, when that lawmaker became president and then fell from power in disgrace, articles flooded the media revealing that the scientist had been facing academic exile for unethical experiments. He had manipulated climate data for politicians in exchange for research funding and the promise of a ministerial post. In truth, shortly after the scientist’s debut as a public speaker, several journalists had already sensed something amiss. They investigated his background, obtained evidence, and prepared to expose the truth. But in human language, lies are far easier to produce than truths are to verify. By the time rigorous fact-checking had been completed and the article written, the politician had already secured the presidency with an overwhelming majority. The piece never made it past the editorial desk and was quietly discarded.

  After taking office, the politician never clarified who exactly the “people” he claimed to look toward were, nor how the balance between economic growth and climate crisis management was being handled. Even simple questions were dodged with vague evasions, and as answers failed to come, the questions grew sharper and more menacing. Before his inauguration, he had appeared confident in everything; afterward, he vanished, leaving behind only question marks attached to all that he represented.

  The rationality the scientist had spoken of was not the raw signal or warning that science, as it truly is, was issuing to the Earth. Science is a tool meant to help us face facts as they are—but in hands clenched by a melted human conscience, it was powerless. There was a politician who did not wish to lose votes by honestly acknowledging grim projections, and a pseudo-scientist who distorted and falsified reality to cloak that politician in the authority of science. It was ordinary people, voluntarily submissive, who summoned the two. Honest individuals were pushed beyond the boundary. And he himself had been one of the many who took comfort in the words of that politician and scientist. With no one else around, he felt as though something were watching him.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Damn it—this still isn’t my responsibility!”

  Though he knew there was no use in forcing sound from his already parched throat, he could not stop the curse from bursting out at this point. Yet the voice, like that of the guilty, could not confidently escape the cave of his mouth.

  He recalled the thousands in the crowd, mechanically clapping toward the podium with their necks craned forward. As if on cue, they all stopped clapping at the same moment. And about two seconds later, every one of them turned to look at him, standing at the very back of the formation. Was this what the scientist had seen? Greenish eyeballs swollen with bursting capillaries—eyes that held no passion, only a limp, sagging vacancy. Each time he imagined those bloodshot gazes—surely numbering in the tens of thousands—a chill seized his heart.

  The politician and the scientist had insisted, without a doubt, that they fully understood and were in control of the worsening heatwaves and droughts, the torrential rains and floods, the intensifying typhoons, hurricanes, and earthquakes; the dwindling supplies of available food and clean water; the cascading problems brought on by rising sea levels. They said they believed—without question—that all of this could be managed, and that we would succeed together. At first, the group of scientists assembled by the newly appointed minister claimed that as long as temperature rise could be kept below 1.5 degrees by 2060, things would be fine. Later, this threshold was revised to 1.8 degrees. And when 2060 finally arrived, they said the policies had been effective, and that it would be sufficient to extend control into the 2070s.

  Much earlier in the century—long before he was even born—experts in what was likely Japan, now mostly submerged, had confidently calculated the probability of a nuclear accident at one in a billion. Yet the accident occurred. At first, a cabinet representative with a conspicuously light head and neck bowed deeply in apology to the public. Later, weary even of making excuses to the world and neighboring countries, they discharged tanks tens of meters high filled with contaminated water, as though it were nothing. Was the radiation truly diluted as it followed ocean currents guided by geothermal flows? Or did the pollutants cling together among the garbage islands of the eastern Pacific, said to be larger than France?

  In the end, it was unclear whether this, like microplastics—ignored because they were invisible—or pandemics, had been an experiment testing humanity’s dull inertia, left to form a kind of herd immunity. With the science available at the time, reliable numbers could surely have been produced. But deciding what humanity should believe in common was never within the realm of science. As scientific knowledge expanded, the amount of what humanity did not know only grew larger. People not only failed to know what they did not know—they increasingly had no desire to find out. Most lost their sense of humility. Qualities like humility came to be dismissed as irrational shamanism, and common sense became ever harder to locate. What was uncomfortable grew harder to see; what could not be seen was cleared away; and what was cleared away came to be regarded as having never existed at all.

  And still, he could not remember the names of the friends who had fallen from the rocks. Among those who died, there must have been at least one woman. Yet after enduring his teenage years in all-boys middle and high schools and living alone ever since, he had never had a female friend. Now that there was no one else left at all, there was no longer any need for him to feign humility. The old stories he had briefly recalled felt unreal.

  Once again, he scooped seawater into his mouth. His sense of ordinary physiological balance had already been completely twisted—twisted enough to adapt to radioactive seawater. He could not tell where the chemical and biological equilibrium of his body, beginning with radiation, was headed. This was the “new normal” he had been forced to accept. Hunched over, he swallowed seawater indiscriminately and gasped again and again. At unexpected moments, greasiness and nausea surged together, causing him to vomit repeatedly and lose consciousness. A hazy half-sleep drew him back once more into the past algorithm.