Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 12 (section)

===Record 61: If That’s All===

'''04/28/1998

'''9:41

Second period was a study hall with Sensei.

She walked into the classroom, told us to start studying, and took a nap. I went to the cafeteria and studied up on taking breaks and eating.

A lot of us had the same idea, so there were a fair number of people around.

The cafeteria TV was showing footage of Kansai, something we never could have seen just a few years ago.

They were starting to construct a humongous tower there. It was called Babel, it was supposed to be more than 3km tall once complete, and it would be able to send Words to the entire world. In other words, it was a communication tower.

The Great Canopy covering the planet prevented the launch of communication satellites, so the entire world was focused on the tower. Oftentimes as a possible threat.

Everyone thought the city with a facility capable of communicating with the entire world would become the new center of the world.

That should have been an issue for the grownups to worry about, but Babel’s inventor apparently wanted a student to be the first one to use it. That was what the TV program was talking about. A student news competition called the Battle of Babel would be held in Osaka and the winner would get to use it first. It would take a full year starting from next April. Some current seniors said they were intentionally failing their classes so they could repeat the year and compete.

How would this turn out? Not that it was any of my business.

'''Author Comment:

Sensei is sleeping because springtime is for napping.

The protagonist says the Babel stuff is none of his business, but this is also when he’s deciding whether or not he will go to the Mountain.