Sasaki and Peeps - Volume 6 - Chapter 1.3

<The Neighbor’s POV>

Today is my second day at the new school in Karuizawa. Like yesterday, I make the commute in that boxy-looking car. The driver, too, is the same older gentleman. I don’t want him to drive me right up to the school again, so I have him let me out a short distance away, and then I make the rest of the trip on foot.

Once I arrive, my classmates treat me the same as they did before. At my last school, days would go by without anyone talking to me. But as soon as I enter the classroom here, I’m greeted with a series of good mornings.

During breaks, the other students crowd around my desk again. Are transfer students rare here or something? Or are they just after my money, like I figured yesterday? Will they try to get closer to me, then demand friendship fees? I’m not sure how to interact with them, and it causes me a lot of distress. Abaddon teases me, too, saying I’m a born introvert.

Personally, I’m surprised this antiquated demon even knows a word like introvert.

Eventually, lunchtime arrives. Just like my old school, the students take turns going up to the delivery carts in front of the blackboard to get their meals. The ones serving are students, too; we all take turns assuming this responsibility. The line moves up as my classmates receive their lunch trays.

The problem arises when the line is starting to dissipate. One of the girls at the end slips and goes flying.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Whoa. She slid all the way over here.”

“That was a real fall. You okay?”

“You didn’t hit your face, did you?”

“Crap, we don’t have enough food to replace what she dropped!”

Naturally, the food she was carrying is all over the place now. Her soup splattered on several students, and now they’re all raising their voices. It got some of their uniforms dirty, apparently, and now they’re making a big deal out of it. The entire class’s attention shifts to the girl who fell.

She turns to another student sitting right next to her and says, “S-something caught my foot, and…”

“What are you talking about? Hey, are you okay?”

“……”

The girl who tripped is the very same one I spoke to yesterday during our afternoon break. I remember the bullying I saw on my way home. I didn’t see it happen, but I’ve got a pretty good idea why she fell. The accusation she almost made just now is definitely not an attempt at playing the victim.

But none of the other kids seem to have seen it happen, so she doesn’t say anything else.

“Poor girl. And all because you talked to her.”

Don’t make this out to be my fault, Abaddon. I almost say it, but I swallow the words back down. Aside from me, nobody can see the boy bobbing up and down in the air nearby. With so many other students around, it’s impossible to reply to him.

I’m well aware of my responsibility in this. And I’m perfectly willing to do a little snitching to our teacher before the afternoon break is over.

Come to think of it, what’s he up to? Suddenly curious, I glance around the classroom. He’s nowhere to be found. On the corner of his desk is one of the school lunches; a student probably set it there. It seems he hasn’t gotten back yet. Did something urgent come up?

“……”

As my classmates look on, the girl rises and starts cleaning, using her own hands to pick up the fallen food. Two boys sitting nearby get down and begin to help. I have a feeling she’s been the target of the other girls’ bullying since before I arrived. At least, that’s what it seems like based on the class’s reactions just now. Otherwise, the other girls would have volunteered to help her out, and it wouldn’t be just a handful of boys.

I pick up my own tray and go over to her. “This is your desk, right?” I ask.

“Huh?” She looks up at me with surprise. My eyes are focused on an empty seat. “Uh, yes, but why would you…?”

“I think this is my fault, so you can have mine. Don’t worry.”

I place my own lunch tray on her desk. Then I join the two boys and help clean.

It doesn’t take long to pick up the food scattered on the floor. Now we just have to wipe it up with some toilet paper from the bathroom and we’ll be done. It might leave a little stain on the tiles, but it won’t stand out too much once it dries.

Once we’re finished, I go to a corner of the classroom and take out my phone, then call the elderly gentleman from my contact list. When I push the button, the call goes through immediately.

“I’m sorry for calling you so suddenly. Do you have a moment?”

“What do you require, Miss Kurosu?”

“Are you able to come to my school right now?”

“Certainly. But why? Has something come up?”

“I made a mistake, and now I don’t have enough food. If you’re close to the mansion or the school, I was thinking maybe you could take me home to have lunch. Would you do that for me?”

“I see. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” I say politely. The call goes on hold.

I’m used to dealing with an empty stomach. I can get through an entire day drinking only water if I need to. But I can’t stop my stomach from grumbling, and I don’t want that to interrupt afternoon classes.

The on-hold melody only plays for a little while before cutting back. “I’ve gotten confirmation. I will bring it to you immediately.”

“…Huh?”

My house is a few minutes away by car, and there’s some leftover sushi in the refrigerator. It would take the entire afternoon break, but it was just possible for me to eat it in time to make my next class.

That was what I’d had in mind anyway, but the phone call abruptly ends.

A few moments later, our teacher returns to the classroom.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Why’s the trash can over…?”

He’s staring at the trash can we brought to the site of the girl’s accident. You can see a mountain of wadded-up pieces of toilet paper filling it—and what’s left of the food itself. Though initially confused, after seeing the wet tiles nearby, he probably realizes what happened. A moment later, the girl who fell shudders.

I answer him in her place. “I’m sorry. I dropped my food while I was taking it back to my seat.”

“Oh, then you can have mine. Go ahead.”

“No, I’m on a diet. You don’t have to give me your food.”

“It’s not good for a girl your age to be dieting, Kurosu. This is exactly what my own portion is for. Don’t be shy—come and take it. Lunchtime for teachers means keeping an eye on all of you. It’s part of our job.”

“It is?”

“Yes, and I’m not about to watch you go without lunch.”

Adults can be so stubborn, especially when it has to do with work. Of course, they’re bound hand and foot to duty and responsibility, so I suppose that’s only natural.

If he insists, I think, nodding. My teacher at my last school would grab all the food he could and ask for seconds. And thirds. “Okay. Thank you,” I say.

“And the rest of you—if this ever happens, tell me right away, okay?” he says, addressing the class.

“In that case, once the food I ordered arrives, will you eat that instead?” I ask him.

“…What?” The teacher now looks surprised.

I don’t feel like explaining every little thing, so I immediately turn away and head to his desk as directed. I pick up the tray that’s been sitting there and return to my seat. After that, just like yesterday, we all start eating together.

Eventually, lunch break starts to wrap up.

“Kurosu, someone from your house is here. He says he has a delivery.”

“I’m sorry for the wait, Miss Kurosu.”

The driver has arrived, and he’s with a faculty member I’m not familiar with. He’s still wearing the expensive-looking suit I saw him in this morning. Once he spots me in the classroom, he elegantly walks over. His bearing is that of a much younger man, and I almost wonder if he’s wearing special makeup on his neck and face to make him look older.

I stand up right away and prepare to greet him.

“I assumed you would be too busy to leave school, so I brought it to you.”

He’s holding something angular, wrapped in square cloth with an expensive-looking pattern on it. I expect it’s the food I asked for.

It looks like a lot—it’s much bigger than a normal lunch box. In fact, it looks like one of those huge containers they put traditional New Year’s food in—though unfortunately, I’ve only ever seen things like that on supermarket flyers.

“Excuse me for asking,” I say, “but how did you get this so quickly?”

“It was already prepared at the mistress’s residence. The timing happened to work out, so I brought it over. I left as soon as it was filled, so it may still be warm.”

“Are you talking about Ms. Futarishizuka?”

“Yes, as you all refer to her.”

“Are you sure it was okay to bring this all the way out to me?”

“She instructed me to take it directly to you, Miss Kurosu.”

“Whew, you can really feel the weight of her expectations!” says Abaddon, wasting no time cracking a joke.

There’s an implied request here—Futarishizuka is asking that I participate in the angel–demon proxy war with more gusto. The price of her helping us is being paid partly by my neighbor, so there’s a lot of pressure on me now. I’m constantly thinking I have to do something to pay her back, at least once…

After his explanation, he eyes the lunch tray on my desk. “Was it unnecessary, after all?”

“I traded lunches with the teacher today.”

“Ah, I see.”

I accept the wrapped box from the older gentleman and go to the teacher’s desk set up in the corner of the classroom. The teacher is there, trying to ignore his empty stomach by focusing on his work. Naturally, his attention is now on me.

I place the box in front of him on the desk and say, “Here you are.”

“Hold on a second, Kurosu. Who exactly is that…?”

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about what Futarishizuka was eating. I am very curious. In fact, I wish I could take some and save it for dinner. But a promise is a promise. I suppress my regret and push the wrapped box toward the teacher. Hushed voices drift to me from all throughout the classroom.

“Holy crap, Kurosu! You really are loaded!”

“I didn’t think butlers like him existed in real life.”

“Now I want to know what dinner’s like at your house.”

“Right? I’d settle for just a taste!”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the teacher so surprised.”

I can’t exactly sweep what’s just happened under the rug, so I decide to simply ignore the stares. I didn’t expect him to waltz right into the room—and I’m surprised the faculty member brought someone who isn’t even my guardian all the way here.

Maybe they were introduced to one another beforehand, and I just wasn’t told. I can’t be sure of the details, but if Futarishizuka is behind this, it’s pointless to dwell on something so minor for her. Even my neighbor gets overwhelmed when it comes to how rich she is.

“I’m sorry for contacting you so suddenly,” I say, leaving the teacher and going up to the gentleman who delivered the lunch. I bow deeply, trying not to be rude.

I can’t let my actions inconvenience my neighbor later on. Since I don’t know who this man really is, it’s best to be polite.

“A small errand like this is nothing compared to the absurd requests the mistress makes,” the man assures me. “Please don’t hesitate to contact me whenever you need something. I will usually be close enough to rush right to you.”

“Thank you for being so considerate.”

Apparently, Futarishizuka really works this man hard. She seems fully capable of doing quite a lot on her own, so anyone working underneath her must really struggle. Despite his assurance, I still feel bad for summoning him like this.

“You’re welcome,” he replies. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

And then, as quickly as he came, he exits the classroom. The accompanying faculty member walks with him down the hallway, and soon I can no longer hear their footsteps.

Immediately, the other students are up and about. Some of them come to me. Others gather around the teacher at his desk. This latter group is interested in the contents of the lunch box and starts heckling the teacher to open it up already.

Personally, I want to make my way over there. I’m curious what’s on the menu. That would look bad, though, so I decide to return to my seat.

“Kurosu,” calls the teacher, “perhaps you should eat this instead…”

“I’m already full, so you can have it. It would be a waste if any of it was left over.”

“……”

That day, our teacher wound up eating lunch surrounded by his students.

With our short stay in the otherworld at an end, we headed back to Japan as usual. Our destination was the same as always—the hotel near my ruined apartment. And just as I did each time we returned, I checked my phone for any messages. Meanwhile, Peeps began punching new interworld time difference data into the laptop.

Once our little routine was finished, Peeps said, “I believe it’s time—shouldn’t you be getting to work?”

“About that. Could we head to Miss Futarishizuka’s today instead?”

“You’re not going to that bureau or what have you?”

“For this job, we’ve been given the necessary discretion to work outside the office, I believe.”

“I see.”

I’d shared my plan with Ms. Futarishizuka and Miss Hoshizaki the night before. Our cover story was that we’d be going straight into the field and straight home every day, but in truth, we’d be keeping ourselves comfortable at the Karuizawa villa. To be specific, we’d be analyzing the data regarding the UFO’s appearances.

“The government has given us very precious data,” the villa’s owner had said. “We can’t simply throw it up on another company’s cloud server.” With such a reliable excuse backing us up, Miss Hoshizaki and I had agreed without complaint.

I gave Peeps a simple rundown of the situation.

“Then shall we move to the girl’s mansion at once?”

“Miss Hoshizaki should be getting here soon. Let’s wait for her.”

“Very well.”

Once my senior arrived, we moved to the Karuizawa villa, leaving our company phones in the hotel room. Our location data would make it seem as though we were doing our work there. And now that Mr. Akutsu and I each had a grip on the other’s weakness, I figured he wouldn’t start spying on us unprompted.

Once at Ms. Futarishizuka’s villa, we settled down in her chic living area.

“Hey, Sasaki, can I ask something?”

“What is it, Miss Hoshizaki?”

“Are you really sure about this?”

“About what?”

“Well, I mean, we get paid for working, right?”

She was seated on the sofa, an accusatory look on her face. Her gaze was directed across the low table at Ms. Futarishizuka. The latter was resting on the other sofa—reclining on her side, in fact—and playing with her smartphone. She was the very picture of sloth.

As for myself, I was right next to Miss Hoshizaki reading a text on amateur radio. In terms of doing the job assigned to me, I wasn’t working, either. Chalking it up to self-improvement sounded nice, but in reality, I was pretty much just slacking off.

“The sparrow said he’d handle the work for us, remember?” said Ms. Futarishizuka, her attention shifting to the low table.

“I would remind you that I am not your servant.”

The distinguished Java sparrow was atop the table, facing a laptop and deftly manipulating a small golem he’d made out of dirt from the villa’s yard in order to clack away at the keyboard. The screen showed a black background packed full with rows of little letters and numbers. Apparently, he’d remotely logged into a work computer in the mansion’s server room to do this task. The mansion’s owner had provided the equipment, and when we’d arrived that morning, the whole setup was already up and running.

“Either way, you’re still doing the work for us,” she countered.

“I am helping that one and that one alone. Your desires are unrelated.”

“Oh, I know. It’s just that our senior here seems unhappy.”

Peeps was sifting through both the data the chief had provided on the UFO’s appearances and the mysterious Morse code message we’d received the day before. The bird had been so fascinated by it he’d asked me if he could take a look at it, too. I doubted we’d get any results anyway, so I’d gladly handed the task over to him. Lately, this sort of data analysis seemed to be his hobby, so I didn’t even feel guilty.

The same could not be said of Miss Hoshizaki, however. Our ever-serious senior felt very guilty about spending the time lazing around.

“But how are we even supposed to report this to the chief?” she asked.

“We can make up whatever we like,” said Ms. Futarishizuka. “Our recent results speak for themselves. We deserve to relax, otherwise we’ll burn out. The last ‘vacation’ we had, if you could call it that, ended on the fourth day. We only had three days off.”

“But while we’re sitting around, we’re getting paid for working.”

“Do you want to handle the data analysis instead, child? It’d be no skin off my back.”

“W-well, no…”

“And I notice you’re not getting anywhere with that schoolwork you brought, either.”

“Urgh…” Miss Hoshizaki looked at Ms. Futarishizuka in frustration. But she didn’t say any more. The girl in the kimono was right—she did have textbooks and notebooks spread out in front of her.

While Peeps did our work for us, we’d all been passing the time however we liked. Ms. Futarishizuka was going through her mobile games, I was studying up on amateur radio, and Miss Hoshizaki was doing her math homework.

The equations in her notebook had been sitting there waiting for an answer for a few minutes. I was a little surprised that Ms. Futarishizuka had been paying attention to the state of our senior’s homework even while playing her phone games. And I doubted Miss Hoshizaki appreciated having it pointed out.

“Okay, then can you solve this problem?” she asked.

“Oh?”

That was a mistake, I thought, feeling a twinge of pain in my heart at our senior’s careless remark. I assumed she’d only let it slip because Ms. Futarishizuka looked like a little girl on the outside.

The “little girl” got up from the sofa, walked over to her, and quickly snatched the mechanical pencil from her hands. Immediately, she started scribbling something in the notebook. She barely glanced at the problem and solved it in no time flat. It only took her a few seconds to write out the answer.

“How’s that?”

“What…?”

Ms. Futarishizuka put the pencil down on the table as Miss Hoshizaki frantically flipped through the pages of her textbook, doubtlessly checking the answer key in the back.

As her hand stopped, a look of amazement crossed her face. “No… That can’t be. It’s right…?”

“Of course it is. And I’ll thank you not to underestimate me when it comes to such child’s play.”

“……”

Miss Hoshizaki stared at the notebook in a daze. A moment later, her attention flashed over to me. “Hey, Sasaki, don’t tell me you could solve this, too.”

“Let me see,” I said, checking the problem she was pointing to in her notebook.

It was one of those quadratic functions taught in early math courses. The kind that asked for a minimum or maximum within a specific domain—although Ms. Futarishizuka had completed the square in one go without even drawing a graph.

“Right. Well, this one might be a little difficult.”

“All I asked is if you could solve the problem.”

“…If I had to, I think I could.”

“Ah…!” Now she was even more shocked.

I found myself a little curious about what position I held in her mind. I hadn’t seen math problems in a long time, and my heart rate had definitely sped up the moment I looked at this one. But my school experience came back to me surprisingly quickly.

“If you can’t solve that, then analyzing the UFO data is out of the question,” Ms. Futarishizuka remarked.

“But…but he’s just a bird…!”

“I took a little peek at what he’s up to, and that Java sparrow is doing some high-level math. If you’re not even at a college entry level, I doubt you could do the work, even if you are able to write the report to our boss.”

“……”

Miss Hoshizaki was at a loss for words.

I had no idea what Peeps was doing, either. Judging by the names of the functions in his programming code, I could just barely make out that he was doing a bunch of crazy calculations, but that was it. I’d have to discuss with Ms. Futarishizuka how to report it to our boss later.

After a little lively conversation, as the clock was just about to strike noon, we heard a pattering of footsteps outside. Everyone looked toward the hallway.

A man in a suit, looking to be in his sixties, appeared. Despite his age, he had a good build, and his expensive suit fit him very well. He stood up perfectly straight, too. If you were to look at him from the neck down, you’d have figured he was far younger than me, even. I’d love to know the secret to aging like that.

The man trotted over to Ms. Futarishizuka. “Mistress, might I have a moment?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“I just had a conversation with Miss Kurosu. I have a suggestion. May I take a portion of what you’ve prepared for everyone today? I remembered how you instructed me to prioritize her well-being as much as I could.”

My ears couldn’t help but perk up when I heard my neighbor’s name. Apparently, Ms. Futarishizuka’s personal cooks would be responsible for our lunch that day; I assumed that’s what the man was referring to. I’d heard Lady Elsa was helping them, too. That was why she wasn’t in the room with us.

“Oh?” said Ms. Futarishizuka. “Yes, I like that idea. Go ahead.”

“Understood.”

Clearly wanting nothing more than to put my neighbor in her debt, Ms. Futarishizuka nodded in agreement. I knew personally how scary her little acts of thoughtfulness could be once they started to pile up. She was conquering my neighbor’s needs hour by hour; I could only hope the girl would be able to navigate it.

The man in the suit bowed reverently and quickly left the room.

“I hope she’s gotten used to her new school,” I commented.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” said Ms. Futarishizuka. “That demon must have had plenty of other options, but he chose her. She’s got spunk.”

We gazed at the living room door, now closed, as next to us, Miss Hoshizaki began frantically tackling her math homework with renewed passion.

After dumping all our work regarding the UFO investigation on Peeps, we watched him struggle through the data on his laptop for most of the day. But as five o’clock approached, we saw a change in his demeanor. The golem stopped typing as my distinguished Java sparrow turned his gaze from the screen and hopped around to face us.

“I’ve figured it out,” he said.

“Huh? Figured what out?” I asked blankly. We couldn’t be getting any output on day one, could we?

But the Starsage didn’t seem offended by my careless question. Instead, he simply explained. “The message from the so-called unidentified flying object.”

“Wait, really?”

“I cannot vouch for its reliability, but I believe I’ve obtained some meaningful data.”

Ms. Futarishizuka and Miss Hoshizaki visibly reacted, quickly getting up from their seats and moving to see the laptop screen behind Peeps. The three of us, myself included, peered at the device atop the low table.

The screen’s background was black. I’d seen programmers and my company’s IT department doing things like this before, but it wasn’t clear to me exactly what information was being displayed; the screen was totally covered with strange fragments composed of numbers and letters.

And there, at the very bottom, were the English words Come here. Next to that, a series of numbers, each separated by commas. Was that a year, month, day, and time at the end? I saw that it even specified the Japanese time zone, so there wasn’t much room for doubt.

“First, I was unable to glean much from the data concerning its past appearances.”

“Yes, the bureau said the same thing,” remarked Ms. Futarishizuka.

From what our boss had told us, it seemed a lot of people were working on this, even outside the bureau. They probably had famous university professors and such on the job. If none of them could find anything, I doubted we had much of a chance.

“But as for the text you referred to as ‘Morse code’ from last night, I got some very interesting information from that. This is mere speculation, but I believe it’s pointing to a specific location using this world’s coordinate system.”

The sparrow unfurled one of his wings and pointed to the bottom of the black screen—the very part I’d been looking at. There were two numbers after the date and time. If they corresponded to latitude and longitude, they were very small; the integer portion was only a single digit. On the other hand, each included five additional digits after the decimal point. On a map, it would probably point to a totally empty spot in the open sea somewhere outside Japan.

“You aren’t trying to look good in front of your master, I hope,” warned Ms. Futarishizuka. “Are you sure you’re not just fudging the data to make it seem like you have something? To begin with, how on earth did you decide the data we brought back was a date and time?”

I agreed with what she was implying. Once you’d spent some time working as an adult, you came to realize that data mistakes were everyday occurrences. No matter how fair you tried to be, you’d unconsciously look for what you wanted. People could wind up making all sorts of decisions based on meaningless data.

But this didn’t seem like one of those cases. Pointing to the words Come here with the tip of his wing, Peeps said, “This goes for the numbers as well, but even these words appeared from the garbled text.”

“Are you serious?” asked Ms. Futarishizuka.

“If you don’t believe me, I can explain my data-processing methods.”

“But that means this has to be a prank,” she said.

“Indeed. I believe the chances of that are high.”

We hadn’t located the source of the Morse code message. It would make total sense if some amateur radio hobbyist had picked up our call and sent this back as a joke. Assuming a UFO had sent it was a huge stretch.

“Where do these numbers point on a map?” asked Miss Hoshizaki.

“I haven’t checked yet. Let’s have a look.”

The golem began to manipulate the laptop, bringing up a browser and then a map. It then entered the apparent coordinates from the black screen.

A pin appeared far away from Japan in the South Atlantic Ocean, a little ways below Ghana and Nigeria, out in the sea. The golem changed the magnification, but no matter how far it zoomed in, all we could see was ocean.

“Not even worth verifying,” murmured Ms. Futarishizuka. “It’s right near Null Island.”

“Null Island?” repeated Miss Hoshizaki. “Is that a famous place or something?”

“Famous, perhaps—for not actually existing.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“Sometimes when you’re handling geographical information like latitude and longitude, it’s useful to define zero-zero as a named piece of land. Essentially, it’s a fictional address for formal use. The name is like a joke in the industry, but it’s pretty clever, isn’t it?”

“It does roll off the tongue,” I agreed.

“You’re just full of weird trivia, aren’t you?” commented Miss Hoshizaki.

“When you get to be my age, you pick up a thing or two,” she replied.

Maybe we were too quick to assume the numbers referred to latitude and longitude. Peeps seemed to think the same; he quickly raised a doubt. “Please do say something if these numbers appear to have some other meaning.”

“For geographic Cartesian coordinates, they don’t have enough digits,” explained Ms. Futarishizuka, “and there should be six decimal places, not five. Perhaps it’s trying to express something else, but I’m afraid I have no idea what that might be.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t, either,” I said.

“I see…,” replied the sparrow, his disappointment sincere.

Leaving aside the data’s relation to the UFO, we didn’t even know whether his assessment was accurate. It felt kind of like finishing a quiz but not having the answer key to check your work.

“Hey, what if this is like a quadratic function graph or something?” Miss Hoshizaki suggested. “Like when you make it into a linear equation. If you take the numbers as the x and y coordinates of the vertex, then—”

“Try finishing your homework first, little high school girl.”

“C-couldn’t you at least consider it?!”

“Hey,” I interrupted, “it might not be a quadratic function, but what if we look at them as relative coordinates?”

“What would be the origin, in that case?”

“Ms. Futarishizuka, could we check the coordinates we were transmitting from last night?”

“Yes, at least those values wouldn’t pluck us from dry land and drop us right into the ocean.”

The girl in the kimono sat in front of the laptop, taking the golem’s place. Centering Japan on the map, she zoomed in several times and picked a point in the Kanto mountains. Then she copied its latitude and longitude before pasting it into a text editor and doing some math using the values Peeps had found. Finally, she displayed the new coordinates on the map. The pin landed right in a lake in the mountains of Nagano prefecture.

“Th-that’s it! That’s what I was trying to say!” exclaimed Miss Hoshizaki.

“Then you should have explained it better.”

“Well, she did give me the hint I needed,” I said.

“Exactly! I always knew you were cut out to be my buddy, Sasaki.”

Miss Hoshizaki snorted proudly; she seemed excited. I figured she was happy to feel like she’d actually done some work. Otherwise—as Ms. Futarishizuka had implied—she’d have gone the entire day just studying math.

“But would it even be possible for them to locate the source of the radio waves?” I wondered aloud.

“We were broadcasting for a pretty long time from the same spot last night,” Ms. Futarishizuka pointed out.

“Is it possible?”

“There are spy satellites that can use the speed of transmitted waves to determine their origin. Remember that the UFO is pretty high up there, too. I don’t think it’s impossible.”

“I see,” I said.

Adding to that, our target was very advanced, capable of freely moving around the globe. If they had better technology than humans did, they might be able to use it to overcome other obstacles, too.

Of course, this only mattered if the data was actually pointing to a location.

“That said, I think we’re just dealing with an amateur living nearby who spotted us going to and from the site,” remarked Ms. Futarishizuka. “On the weekends, cars with some pretty serious-looking antennas regularly park there.”

“Either way, we’re going to pay a visit to that spot tomorrow, right?” asked Miss Hoshizaki, looking excited. She could barely contain how happy she was at the prospect of a business trip.

“If the time listed is in our current time zone, we’ll make it if we leave in the morning,” I said.

“Since they’ve already set the table for us, it would be a waste not to sit down, hmm?”

Most importantly, we didn’t have any other ideas for how to move forward with the UFO investigation. Spurred on by Miss Hoshizaki’s enthusiasm, we decided to set off the next day for the spot up in Nagano indicated by Peeps’s coordinates.

I seriously doubted we’d find anything, but we might as well try.