Part 1 (2/2)

Much later, Taki reawoke He assu time later, he been awake earlieror had that been a dream The doctorno he was in school and the earthquakeyes, the earthquakewhy don't I remember? I was knocked out Of course As his eyes adjusted to the room, he saw and remembered that it wasn't a drea in every direction ahs of death

Taki tried to cry out to a figure walking nearby but only a low pitchedoddand odd snize It was foulthe stench of burnedburned what? The odor h his lands Taki knew that he was very hurt and very sick and so were a lot of others It took hihts Thinking hurt - it concentrated the aching in his head, but the effort took away some of his other pain, or at least it successfully distracted hi on it

There were cries fros, obviously in agony Screams of ”Eraiyo!”, (”the pain is unbearable!”) were constant Others begged to be put out of their misery Taki actually felt fortunate; he couldn't have screaer felt the need to

Finally, the saain ”I hope you'll stay with us for a few minutes?”

The doctor srunt and the raising and lowering his eyelids ”Let ood conditionestured across the room ”I don't mean to sound cruel, but, we do need your bed, for those seriously hurt”

The doctor sounded truly distraught What had happened?

A terrified look crossed Taki's face that ceded into a facial plead His look said, ”I can't speak so answer my questionsyou must knohat they are Where am I? What happened? Where is my class?”

”I understand your name is Taki homosoto?” the doctor asked

”Your school identification papers”

Taki blinked an affirh out a response

”There is no easy way to tell this We must all be brave Ameri- ca has used a terrible weapon upon the people of japan A spe- cial new boer even a shadow of itself A weapon where the sky turns to fire and build- ings and our peopleand those who seem well drop in their steps from an invisible enemy Al

As I said, you are a lucky one”

Taki helped over the next days at the Communications Hospital in as left of don Hiroshi+, he moved the dead to the exits so the bodies could be creot ht from pyres for weeks after the blasts

He helped distribute the kanpan and cold rice balls to the very few doctors and to survivors ere able to eat He walked the streets of Hiroshi+ that could help Walking through the rubble of what once was Hiroshi+-for A their pikadon, or flash-boom weapon, on civilians, woly death, everywhere; froes a cross the wide Motoyas River

The Aioi bridge spontaneously becaainst the Ae, which was to be the hypocenter of the blast if the Enola Gay hadn't et by 800 feet A tall blond man in an American military uniform was tied to a stone post He was an American POW, one of 23 in Hiroshi+ma A few dozen people, women in bloodstained ki rocks and insults at the lifeless body How appropriate thought Taki He found hi in He threw rocks at the head, the body, the legs He threw rocks and yelled He threw rocks and yelled at the res ached

Another 50,000 japanese died from the effects of radiation within days while Taki continued to heal physically On August 17, 9 days after the atoasaki and 2 days after E japan's surrender, a typhoon swamped Hiroshi+ma and killed thousands more Taki blamed the Americans for the typhoon, too

Taki was alone for the first time in his life His family dead, even his little sister Taki homosoto was now a hibakusha, a survivor of Hiroshi+ and dishonorable fact he would desperately try to conceal for the rest of his life

Forty Years Later

January, 1985, Gaithersburg, Maryland

A pristine layer of thick soft snow covered the sprawling office and laboratory filled campus where the National Bureau of Stand- ards sets standards for the country The NBS establishes exactly what the time is, to the nearest millionth of a s to the accuracy of the weight of an individual atoical benchrees, if for no other reason than convenience

It was the NBS's turn to host the National Coovernment was ostensibly supposed to interface with academia and the business world At this exclusive symposium, only two years before, the Departuidelines which detailed security specifications to be used by the Federal agencies and recommended for the private sector