webnovelvip Chapter 131 World Line Shift
Chapter 131 World Line Shift
(A huge thank you to "With Expectations" for the King of Gifts! Thank you for your support! Also, thank you to "Old Sun" for the God-level certification! Thank you to "Jade Fish" for the 30 Boba Milk Teas! Thank you to "-GGTO-" for the God-level certification! Two extra chapters today~)
Wednesday, November 9, 1988.
It was 7:30 a.m.
Tokyo, Shinbashi Station West Exit Plaza.
The chilly autumn wind swirled with withered, yellow ginkgo leaves across the gray concrete. The air was thick with the sour stench of a hangover and the anxious aura of a gathered crowd.
Commuters, who usually rush to work, were unusually crowded in one corner of the square today.
There were a dozen or so green public telephone booths lined up there.
A long, hopeless queue had formed in front of every phone booth. No one in the queue spoke; the only sounds were the impatient scraping of leather shoes against the ground and the clinking of coins being inserted into the coin slot.
Although power and signal have been barely restored in some areas, the accumulated panic from yesterday, coupled with the hundreds of thousands of concurrent query requests, has left civilian lines in an extremely unstable state.
"Connect me... connect me quickly!"
A middle-aged man in a beige trench coat pressed the receiver tightly to his ear, while his other hand gripped a handful of ten-yen coins.
He had just placed an order for 2,000 shares of Nippon Steel yesterday afternoon when the exchange crashed.
Then, the screen went black.
Now, he doesn't know if the money was actually sold, if it's still hanging in the air, or if it's just worthless paper. It was his savings, intended for his daughter's overseas studies.
"Beep...beep..."
Finally, a ringing tone came through the receiver.
The middle-aged man's face instantly lit up with an expression of wild joy, like a drowning person grabbing onto a piece of driftwood.
However, the next second.
"Sizzle—"
After a piercing electrical hum, there was that despairing busy tone again.
Clang.
The unswallowed coin was ejected and fell into the coin return slot.
"Damn it! Give me back my money!"
The middle-aged man broke down. He frantically pounded on the glass of the phone booth, screamed into the receiver, and spat all over the narrow space.
No one in the queue behind them tried to stop them, nor did anyone laugh. They just watched with grim faces, their eyes filled with the same fear.
In that instant, they realized something:
Without that thin telephone line connecting them, the bankbooks in their pockets would just be meaningless pulp.
……
10:00 AM.
Otemachi, NTT Headquarters Building, Conference Room 1.
The flashes of light were like a white storm, engulfing the figures on the stage.
The head of NTT's Public Relations Department stood in front of the microphone. This usually pampered bureaucrat was now covered in fine beads of sweat. He kept wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, but the sweat still trickled down his temples and into his collar, making his impeccably white shirt transparent and disheveled.
Regarding the communication disruption that occurred yesterday...
The minister's voice was somewhat hoarse, and it trembled slightly as it came through the microphone.
"After working through the night, the technical department has preliminarily determined that the surge in data caused by large overseas transactions overloaded the main control CPU of the Marunouchi D70 digital switch."
He turned a page of his speech and swallowed hard.
"This is also... the physical design limit. Faced with this unprecedented surge in traffic, the current switch hardware does indeed have objective bottlenecks."
The reporters in the audience immediately began to stir.
"You mean, this is force majeure?" an Asahi Shimbun reporter stood up, his tone aggressive. "The system crashed because everyone wanted to make phone calls?"
The minister avoided the reporters' gaze, lowered his head, and read into the microphone:
"This is a limitation of the times. Even AT&T in the US struggles to guarantee service when faced with this level of instantaneous concurrent requests..."
He is shirking responsibility.
He was trying to tell the entire Japanese nation: it's not that we are incompetent, it's that the enemy is too powerful, and it's that the technology of the times has not kept up with our needs.
This is an arrogant logic belonging to monopolistic giants.
Under normal circumstances, this explanation might get away with it.
But today, right next to the live broadcast of this press conference, another scene is being transmitted to every household.
……
12:30 PM.
Wenwen News produced an emergency special program titled "The Archipelago Shakes: The Day the Financial Blood Vessels Died."
Television signal switched on. Urgent message in red and white text scrolled across the bottom of the screen: "NTT communication disruption continues, trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange is completely halted, Bank of Japan holds emergency meeting."
The image is divided into left and right halves, creating a highly impactful contrast montage.
"Everyone, please look at this set of images."
The host's voice was calm and serious, with the background noise being the noisy sound of the live recording.
On the left side of the screen, it is marked "[Otemachi, in front of Mitsubishi Bank, 9:00 AM]".
It was unedited footage from a handheld camera, the lens shaky violently. The bank's rolling shutter door was half-closed, and the "Communication Failure, Service Suspended" notice on the ATM screen rattled in the wind.
In the scene, a middle-aged company president is gripping a bank employee's collar tightly, his voice hoarse and cracking: "My bank draft! That's my life-saving money! Is my factory going to go bankrupt because your lines are down?!"
Cries, shouts, curses, and sirens pierced the audience's eardrums through the loudspeakers.
A scene resembling hell.
"At the same time, right around the corner of this street."
The screen shifts to the right, displaying the message: "[Shibuya FamilyMart, 9:05 AM]".
The camera moves smoothly forward.
The store was brightly lit, with soft background music playing. At the cashier, a young clerk in uniform was smiling as he took a rice ball from a customer.
"drop--"
That was the sound of a barcode scanner reading a code. Crisp and short, yet it sounded particularly jarring in this chaotic morning.
Then came the "click-clack" of the cash register keyboard and the slight friction sound of the printer spitting out the receipt.
"The total is 350 yen. I'll take 500 yen from you and give you 150 yen in change. Thank you for your patronage."
Smooth, precise, and without any lag.
While the financial arteries of the entire country were clogged and broken due to NTT's switchboard, the data flow of this convenience store continued to operate smoothly.
The image freezes.
The studio lights came on.
The host adjusted his glasses, looked directly into the camera, and posed the question he had prepared long ago—a question that could kill the game:
"NTT just claimed at the press conference that the incident was due to 'trading volume exceeding physical limits,' and was an 'uncontrollable event of the times.'"
He pointed to the large screen behind him, which was frozen on the moment the convenience store cash register dispensed the receipt.
"So, we can't help but ask—why, under the same sky, right next to a paralyzed bank, does S-Food convenience store's data transmission run as smoothly as breathing?"
"Does this convenience store use technology from another era? Or is it...?"
The host paused, his tone becoming sharp.
"Is the so-called 'physical limit' just a fig leaf NTT uses to cover up its rigid system?"
The camera then pans to the guest seats next to them.
Seated there was a sharp-looking, aloof technical expert in a suit. His title was displayed on the subtitle: [Network Architect Engineer & Special Consultant to Saionji Corporation].
He wasn't holding a script, but rather a pointer stick, and turned to face the diagram board behind him.
Two completely different network topology diagrams were drawn on the board.
"The principle is not complicated."
He pointed his indicator stick at the graph on the left. It was a congested straight line, with countless red dots representing data stuck in the middle, unable to move.
"NTT is still using outdated 'circuit-switching' logic. To put it simply, it's like a one-way, narrow bridge. Once a car breaks down, the entire road is instantly locked. No matter how many emergency vehicles are behind it, they can only turn off their engines and wait."
"This is outdated technological thinking."
Then, his pointer slid to the right.
It was a complex network structure diagram. Data packets were broken down and flexibly moved through countless paths like water.
"S-Food's supply chain system uses 'distributed packet switching' technology based on the TCP/IP protocol."
The expert turned around to face the camera, the cold light of the studio reflecting off his lenses.
"For our system, the road is not a line, but a network. When a node in Marunouchi 'clots', the data will automatically detour through Chiba, Yokohama, or even go to Osaka before returning."
"This is not just a technological gap."
He put down his pointer and uttered the verdict that would make the headlines of the next evening paper:
"While NTT was still trying to repair that dilapidated carriage road, Saionji Corporation had already built airplanes."
"This is not a natural disaster. This is the necrosis of the mind."
……
2 PM.
The tide of public opinion has turned.
Initially, the public's anger towards NTT was limited to "bad luck" and "accident," believing it was just an occasional infrastructure malfunction.
But this episode of Wenwen News directly cut open the wound, exposing the pus inside.
It turns out that it wasn't that we "couldn't do it," but rather that we "didn't try."
It turns out that we paid such expensive phone bills, but we were supporting a bunch of old-fashioned people who are still stuck in the old era.
An anger of being fooled quickly spread across all levels of society.
Inside an electronics store in Ginza, a crowd gathered around a television set began to curse.
In the taxi, the driver listened to the radio broadcast and pounded on the steering wheel.
The housewives in the supermarket were gossiping, looking at the smoothly printed receipts in their hands, and then thinking about the unreachable phone at home, their eyes filled with disdain.
The major newspapers have noticed the shift in the political climate.
The Yomiuri Shimbun's evening edition front page abruptly removed its neutral report and replaced it with a shocking headline:
NTT's Arrogance: Who Will Pay for the 3 Trillion Yen That Evaporated?
……
3 PM.
Nagata-cho, House of Representatives Budget Committee.
This is the heart of Japanese politics, and at this very moment, the ultimate extension of the Saionji family's will.
The atmosphere in the huge conference hall was somber.
A lean, sharp-eyed legislator stood on the questioning platform.
He is Katsumata Tsuneo, a "reformist" member of parliament who is on good terms with the Saionji family. After receiving some kind of strong hint and endorsement, he decided today to become that "assassin".
"The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications."
Sheng Youheng's voice echoed under the dome through the microphone. He wasn't holding a prepared speech, but rather a screenshot comparing Wenwen News.
Please look at this picture.
The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, sitting opposite him, was ashen-faced. He held the reins of NTT's regulatory power, but at this moment he felt extremely uneasy.
"A private company, a company that sells rice balls and oden, has invested heavily in building a state-of-the-art distributed network to ensure smooth transactions of a few hundred yen."
Sheng Youheng suddenly slammed the picture onto the podium.
"And NTT, which receives a huge national budget and monopolizes the lifeline of Japan's communications, tells the public that the system crashed because 'there were too many people'?"
"This is not just a technical issue."
Katsuyuki's gaze swept over all the committee members present, finally fixing on the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.
"This is systemic corruption."
"NTT's monopoly has become the biggest blood clot obstructing the flow of the Japanese economy. They are resting on their past laurels while our national wealth evaporates in the waiting."
"I demand—"
Sheng Youheng raised his voice.
"Congress shall immediately establish a special commission of inquiry to thoroughly investigate NTT’s equipment procurement process, the destination of its technology research and development funds, and... whether it has used its monopoly position to obstruct technological innovation."
"If we can't remove this cancer, how can Japan become a financial empire? We're not even as good as a convenience store!"
"Whoosh—"
The meeting room erupted in commotion. Opposition lawmakers pounded their fists on the table in excitement, while certain factions within the ruling party began whispering amongst themselves, their eyes darting around.
The Postmaster General took off his handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He knew this was more than just an interrogation.
This is a declaration of war.
It was the massive capital hidden behind the scenes that, using public opinion as a weapon, officially swung a knife at the old telecommunications monopoly system.
Outside the window, the sun is setting.
The shadow of the National Diet Building stretched out long, covering half of Nagata-cho.
And in the courtyard of Bunkyo Ward, where the shadows cannot reach.
Satsuki clapped her hands, and the last bit of fish food crumbs fell from her fingertips in the wind.
A startled white butterfly fluttered its wings and flew across the turbulent pond, heading towards the storm-brewing Tokyo sky beyond the wall.
The wind rises from the tip of a blade of grass.