The Coin, by Muphrid. All her life, Haruhi's been searching–not just for espers or aliens but for others who want to find them, too. Now, she realizes her power to reshape the world…and that the people around her have never believed in something they didn't know to be true.

Chapter One

So I kept the coins. I didn't buy a drink. A can of soda isn't worth giving up a glimpse of something unusual, but by the time two o'clock arrived, I was starting to regret my decision. I was thirsty—no, I was dying. I was parched like the plains of Antarctica. Can you believe that? That Antarctica is drier than any other place on Earth? You wouldn't think so, but I've always believed the truth is strange, so I accepted it right away.

I was thirsty, though, and I wasn't going to admit it or duck out of the classroom like it was an emergency. Some people would undoubtedly notice, especially if they were called Kyon. I know that's stubborn, but I won't apologize for it. I've always believed that feelings of thirst and hunger were just primordial, instinctive weaknesses. Do you know how long people have been on this earth? Millions of years. Who know when they stopped being dumb animals and started thinking intelligently. The point is this: people have made huge evolutionary strides. You'd think we'd have had enough time to grow beyond these inconvenient feelings. We should be glowing white energy beings by now, feeding off the light of the sun or something. Even plants can do that. All these instinctive sensations—hunger, arousal, fatigue, fear—they're distractions. They don't do anything useful except keep us alive and procreating.

We should do more than that. We should be better than that.

It didn't matter if I went into afternoon classes thirsty or distracted. The morning was out of the way. This was the easy stuff. The moment of inertia is the mass times the square of the distance. The torque is the force times the distance times the sine of the angle between the two. Easy. I think I knew all that in middle school. I generally have a rule: the best way to go through class is to keep your mind empty of other things. It's a good rule, and it works, but that day, with those two coins in front of me, it was going to be a challenge to keep my mind on the board and nowhere else. I looked out the window. I slid two reeded-edged coins across my desk, working that hour at lunch through my mind. I'd misplaced that third fifty-yen piece of mine that those girls picked up. I had two left. They were identical in every way.

There were a few interesting possibilities—an alien invasion, for instance. People touch coins all the time, you know. The aliens could be using vending machines to surreptitiously change out the money supply, to substitute their radioactive or drug-laced coins for our own. It would be the first-strike in an all-out war!

"Oi," said Kyon, muttering to his desk. "Can't you contain your excitement back there, for the sake of people who actually have to listen?"

Why should I? That's what makes people boring sometimes. They smile and nod dutifully when they want to jump up and down and shout. It's dishonest. More people should show what they really want and not be so intimidated that they hide it.

"Suzumiya-kun!"

I sat upright. "Yes, Teacher?"

"Are you paying attention?"

"Yes, Teacher." Like anyone would say any different.

"Then you can tell me the limit of the sequence on the board?"

I squinted. 2, 9/4, 64/27…

"Euler's number," I said.

There was a gasp in the classroom. Kyon turned all the way around in his seat.

"What?" I said. "It's obvious, isn't it?"

The teacher frowned, returning to lecture. "As Suzumiya-kun says, the answer is indeed Euler's number, e. One typically sees this identity as a limit: as n goes to infinity, the sum of 1 and 1/n is raised to the nth power, like so…"

Kyon shook his head, turning back around to face the board. "Lend me some of your casual knowledge," he muttered, "so I can make perfect marks without thinking, too."

Answer my call a little faster next time, and maybe I'll have a few minutes to teach you something.

Teacher left me alone for the rest of his time, and I pushed the coins back and forth across my desk again. It was a bit early to assume there was a full-on alien conspiracy to contaminate the Japanese monetary supply—that I admit. After all, I had only one coin I thought had been changed. You'd need at least five or seven to be reasonably sure of all that, to rule out all the mundane, simple explanations that normal people would assume.

By the time the final bell rang, I had a good list of the more interesting possibilities. Aside from an alien conspiracy, I figured the likely candidates were these: an unknown, undiscovered element disrupting the vending machine mechanism, the hole in the fifty-yen coin being used as a gateway for sliders, and…hm, I can't remember the last one—

"Aren't you a bit too far into Haruhi-land today?"

Packing up his things, Kyon stood in front of his desk, eying me.

"Haruhi Land?" I said. "You think we should have an SOS Brigade theme park?"

"What? What on earth would give you—"

"We could have a roller coaster!" I said. "We could make a giant Mikuru-chan ride, With the curves and loops going around her huge—"

Kyon slapped both hands over my mouth, looking over his shoulder. "Be serious, will you?"

I pulled his wrists away. "I'm always serious."

"That's what frightens me most," he said. "All right, forget the theme park, at least for today. What was it that had you goofing off in class before now, hm?"

"You're interested?"

"I'm interested in getting a head start on trouble."

"And why am I trouble?"

"Do I really need to answer that?"

I scowled, but I let it go. Kyon can be that way sometimes—resistant and stuffy. If the SOS Brigade gazes into the precipice of the unknown, then sometimes I think Kyon is always checking over his shoulder, making sure he can see the ground we're standing on. That used to irritate me before, and sometimes, it still does. When I came to North High, I thought it would be full of wild and interesting people, but it wasn't. Half our class I already knew from middle school. The other half seemed about the same. It was nothing like I'd heard about, nothing like I thought it would be, but there was this guy in front of me who had the courage to ask questions. Sometimes they were dumb, but he asked them anyway, not caring if I thought he was an idiot for asking. He gave me the idea for the SOS Brigade, and that's why we're here today. I realized later that the fair thing to do would be to give Kyon his due credit for that.

But not too much.

Besides, that day I could see that he and I weren't quite on the same wavelength. I told him what I thought of the coins from lunchtime, and the first thing out of his mouth was,

"Oh, it's a glitch."

Well, no kidding it could be a glitch! Use your imagination for a second, won't you?

"An alien conspiracy to replace our pocket change." He frowned. "Hm, I guess that's a reasonable conclusion."

Good, now you're getting it…wait, what did you just say?

"It all makes sense," he said, nodding solemnly. "The Haruhi I know would never be so fascinated by some simple mechanical glitch. It's not in her nature. She's always looking for gremlins from neutron stars or something like that. She'd find something so trivial as a computer chip making an error utterly boring. No, aliens are the only explanation. The extraterrestrials have conspired to make my life easier by making an exact duplicate of you—that is, of the real Haruhi—and toning down her proclivity for bizarre plots and ideas. I must say, I'm very pleased with their work."

I think I'd know if I were something as extraordinary as an alien. Or a clone. Or an alien clone. I'm not going to turn into some giant, naked monstrosity and bring humanity together in some orange-colored soup. I'm Suzumiya Haruhi, and that's that.

"Oh, so they programmed you to think you were Haruhi, too? Well, maybe it's for the best. If you're more normal or more easily fascinated by mundane things, perhaps it'll make all our lives easier. After all, with Haruhi's looks and a tweaked mindset, I must say—"

I gave him an elbow to his stomach for his trouble.

"All right, all right," he said, coughing between words. "Are you really serious about this, Haruhi?"

As serious as Hatoyama is prime minister.

"Hatoyama hasn't been prime minister since Kan."

That's beside the point. Kan-san always seems like he's on edge, like he'll punch through a table or something and scare a room full of kids. Hatoyama should come out of retirement.

"It would never happen, not after what he did with the base on Okina—wait, why are we still talking about this?"

You started it, correcting me.

"Hey, Kyon!" somebody called across the room. It was one of our classmates. I'd seen him before.

"Yo, Kunikida."

The boy approached us, smiling. "How are you, Suzumiya-san? I was impressed you figured out Teacher's problem earlier. How did you recognize it was a limit to Euler's number so quickly?"

"Anybody who knew anything about math could tell right away," I said. "Didn't you?"

He and Kyon exchanged a glance. "Anyway, I just wanted to get your attention," said Kunikida. "I think one of your friends is looking for you."

"One of our friends?" said Kyon. "Who?"

"The girl with short hair? She used to wear glasses? Nagato-san was it?"

"Strange. Nagato's usually in the club room as soon as classes are over. What could she want now?"

"Why don't you ask her?" asked the boy. "She's just outside, see?"

He was right. A group of three girls left the classroom, and that's when Kyon and I saw her. She was standing on the far side of the hallway, a green hardcover in her right hand. She stared, but she was frozen there, like a statue. That's Yuki for you. She can be shy at the strangest times.

"Yuki!" I said. "Don't stay out there; come inside!"

She didn't move.

"Yuki!" I said again. "Can you hear me?"

"Haruhi." Kyon picked up his bag, looking to the doorway. "Are you going on to the club room?"

"Of course. We've got to have big plans to look at this—"

"All right. I'll bring Nagato as soon as we're finished."

"Oh really?" I said. "You and Yuki have to talk about something privately? Planning something special?"

"We'll be there as soon as we can," he said.

Don't just walk away like you don't hear what I'm telling you.

But he didn't hear that either. He slung his bag over his shoulder and trotted to the hallway, hunching over at the waist to talk in a low voice to Yuki. She didn't say anything—nothing I heard, anyway—but she led him away, out of sight.

I packed my things and left. As I turned the corner, leaving the hallway where our classroom is, I saw Yuki and Kyon still talking—or I guess I should say, Kyon was talking and gesturing like usual, with Yuki facing him and only him, hardly moving at all.

It must've had to do with her family. Kyon told me that once, though I don't quite remember when. Yuki lives alone, after all. She has problems with her family, and being such a shy, quiet girl, she doesn't like to talk about it. I thought for a while she might leave before second year started—Kyon said we should raise hell if it came to that—but she's still here. She's our Yuki. The brigade wouldn't be the same without its soft-spoken bookworm character. You have to have that for balance.

Still, it wasn't that long ago that Yuki was so sick. To think, not one of her family came to help her at all! That's not right. I know Kyon thought I should stay out of it unless things looked desperate, and if that's what Yuki wants, fine, but someone should teach those people a thing or two. You can't leave a girl like Yuki all by herself all the time. She might just snap when nobody's looking. For Yuki's sake, I hope we do as much for her as she does for us, but she never says. I guess if she did, she wouldn't be that quiet character, would she? I'm glad she's opened up to Kyon, but even Yuki shouldn't get too many ideas. She can't have Kyon all to herself. He's an important member of the brigade, too.

But he's not the only one. Or I should say, they're not the only ones. I crossed over the courtyard into the club annex. I could already smell the hot tea from outside the room. I turned the knob.

"Afternoon!" I called, walking inside.

"Ah, good afternoon." The boy at the table smiled, dealing out a hand of six playing cards. "As always, it's a joy to see you, Suzumiya-san."

That's Koizumi-kun, my deputy brigade chief. Unlike Kyon and his snarky attitude, Koizumi-kun is a calm and agreeable person. He's a philosopher of sorts, and because of that, he understands what we're trying to do. We scour the world for the extraordinary, and in that, Koizumi-kun is my trusted right-hand man. Well, Koizumi-kun? What's the game?

"Two-ten-jack." He dealt two hands: one for himself and another for the empty chair across from him. The rest of the deck he placed in-between, neatly lining up the edges. "I'd hoped my partner would be here by now. Can I interest you in joining me instead?"

"No thanks. We've got big things to do today!"

Koizumi-kun smiled again. "As expected from our illustrious brigade chief. I await your plans eagerly."

See? That's why we need Koizumi-kun around here. The mysterious transfer student is just as much a seeker of the unusual as I am.

"Suzumiya-san, good afternoon!" At the far end of the table, our resident maid poured a cup of green tea. "It's matcha today; I hope you enjoy it!"

"Why matcha?" I asked.

"I enjoy sifting the powder. The sieve is quaint but effective."

" 'Quaint'?"

She flinched, spilling a stream of tea on the table. "Ah, I mean—oh no, I'm getting it everywhere!"

That's our Mikuru-chan. She's getting better at this—being clumsy when it's cute. It's taken a little time to train her, but I think she understands her role here now. Every organization needs someone like her: an irresistible character whose looks and mannerisms make men (and some women) fall over to be near her. That's not the only reason, though. It's rare that you find someone so fascinated by baseball bats or a wooden wheel—by things that are ordinary because we've forgotten what's special about them.

As Mikuru-chan scrambled for a dry rag, I gulped down the cup of tea and set it on the table. "All right," I said. "Clean the mess, Mikuru-chan, and then listen up!"

"Eh?" She looked back and forth. "Are we getting started so soon? Kyon-kun and Nagato-san—I haven't seen either of them."

"I already saw them; they'll be late and pay the appropriate penalty. Yuki's asking Kyon on a date or something."

Koizumi-kun's eyes widened. He sat up, coughing, and spat out some of his tea.

"Is that true?" asked Mikuru-chan.

"Who knows? But that's not what we need to get started with. Today, the SOS Brigade has a mystery!"

"Ah, what a wonderful surprise," said Koizumi-kun. "As you know, I'm a fan of mysteries. I've actually been consulting a collection of detective stories recommended by Nagato-san, starting with Edgar Allan Poe and his tales of C. Auguste—"

"It's not that kind of mystery," I said, "though if Koizumi-kun has a scenario planned for summer vacation, by all means!"

"I'll endeavor to put plans in motion immediately," he said. "I must admit, I'm very much looking forward to an overseas venture. Tsuruya-san's castle should provide a unique and challenging atmosphere." He smiled to himself. "But perhaps that is a discussion for another time. I believe I've become carried away with this digression."

"Not to worry," I said. "The puzzle we have today concerns these!"

I slammed the coins on the table and let the two of them witness the truth of things.

"Eh? A hundred and fifty yen?" Mikuru-chan picked up the fifty-yen piece and looked through its hole. "The aliens are defrauding us of pocket change?"

Why does everyone keep saying that?

Koizumi-kun eyed the other, the hundred. He slid it off the table, into his hand, and held it up to the light. "Perhaps, Suzumiya-san, you could explain to us what it is that's puzzling about these coins?"

"They used to be the same," I said. "They were identical fifty-yen coins before I put them in the vending machine this afternoon."

"I see. Are you certain you made no mistake? Or perhaps the mechanism experienced a—hm, how should I say it—a glitch?"

Glitch and pocket change—are they the words of the day around here?

"I didn't make any mistake," I said, "and if the machine was broken, then everyone would've caught on and milked it dry. There's something unusual going on. Maybe it's only a one-in-a-thousand chance, or maybe only one-in-a-million, but defying the odds is what the SOS Brigade is all about! Am I right?"

"Of course," said Koizumi-kun. "The brigade stands by its leader in pursuing the unknown."

"That's the spirit! Okay, I have a plan to investigate this. We need to be scientific and thorough. We might have real, documentable evidence of something extraordinary here!"

"That sounds like fun," said Mikuru-chan. "I'm very interested in seeing scientific methods in practice from this ti—I mean, this area. How do we get started?"

"I'm glad you asked. Koizumi-kun?"

"Yes?" he said.

"Excuse us for a few minutes."

He raised an eyebrow. "But of course." He took one last sip of tea, and when he was in the hallway, I locked the door behind him.

"But, but, Suzumiya-san, I thought we didn't have to do that anymore!"

Don't be silly, Mikuru-chan. Our resident Lolita-type mascot character can't be restricted to just a sailor uniform or a maid outfit. You have to be flexible. You have to be versatile. You have to be able to wear as much—or as little–as the situation requires.

That's what I love about Mikuru-chan's body. She makes everything between bunny girl outfits to a nun's habit look sexy.

A nun, huh? That could be fun. But that wasn't what I was going for. Don't worry, Mikuru-chan. We won't be exposing too much of your body. I actually think one of your best outfits is one of the least revealing, and for what I have in mind, we have to be at least a little tasteful. What a shame that others can't enjoy your body like I do.

That made me wonder…

"Mikuru-chan." I pulled gently on her uniform, exposing her shoulder. "How do you feel about dressing up with me? Do you enjoy it as much as I do?"

She looked at me, tilting her head. "Why does Suzumiya-san ask that now?"

"No reason," I said. "I just thought, you know, who would ever dress up in bunny girl outfits or a maid costume if they were all by themselves? You wouldn't, would you? No one would."

"I guess that's true." She nodded once, affirming it. "The outfits Suzumiya-san gives me to wear are pretty. I like trying them out from time to time."

There we go, Mikuru-chan! That's the spirit!

"But I can take off my clothes slowly and by myself, too!"

Now where's the fun in that? Honestly, you should be used to this by now. All right, all right, off with the skirt, off with the blouse. Everything must go!

It didn't take long to get Mikuru-chan into the outfit we needed. As she dusted off her mittens, I went to the door. "Koizumi-kun, we're almost ready!" I called out. "Are Kyon and Yuki back yet?"

"Unfortunately, I still seem to be alone here," he said.

That's fine. I didn't know what was taking the two of them so long, but we could get started without them. All we had to do first was a short supply run…

#

"Um, excuse me!"

Our destination was the square outside the train station. Efficiency was the thing. The scientific method tells us that for a rare event to be tested and probed fully, you need a huge number of trials. That's basic probability. What we needed a lot of were coins, the more the better. I'd thought for a moment we should knock over a pachinko parlor; that would've been fun. We'd have needed a car or a van of some sort. Probably a van. Koizumi-kun would watch the van. Mikuru-chan and I would make a disturbance to distract the staff—this I'll leave to the imagination—while Kyon and Yuki would hack or bust into the machines and bag the cash. They'd get away with Koizumi-kun, who could explain away his presence to anyone suspicious without a problem. You see, that'd be efficient. That'd be simple. Kyon would've shot it down in a heartbeat, I'm sure, because he has no imagination. Koizumi-kun might cautiously advise against it, and Mikuru-chan would cry, hoping not to get arrested and go to jail.

That's fine. A simpler, low-risk approach would do just as well, especially to get Mikuru-chan outside in festive gear.

"Um, excuse me!" She rang a bell on a stick and stood stiff as a board in her outfit: the red Santa suit I'd given her for Christmas with white mittens for her hands. "Please, the children of Bangladesh need you!" she said, and in her other hand, she offered a red bucket. She trembled, looking around nervously. "Suzumiya-san, am I doing this right?"

"Of course!" I said. We weren't that far away—Koizumi-kun and I, that is. It'd be suspicious to people if someone like Mikuru-chan were accompanied by the two of us, so we hid behind a support pole. That was the safest thing. After all, if you left Mikuru-chan by herself, especially in that kind of outfit, she'd probably be dragged into an alley by an unsavory old man and forced to polish his cane or something. It's a brigade chief's duty to protect her members from things like that.

She nodded slowly and started again. "Please, help the people of Bangladesh!" she cried. "Their cities are falling to the Earth's core from earthquakes! Their roads are twenty meters underwater! The fires have turned all the trees to ash, and, um, the government has banned them from the Facebook, too! It's a humanitarian crisis, so please, help them!"

A couple of business men walked by with big grins on both of their faces. "This is for you, little lady," one of them said, and they each stuffed a folded banknote into the bucket.

Mikuru-chan smiled. "Thank you very much!" She looked to our pole. "Suzumiya-san, that was ten thousand yen!"

And that's why the brigade needs Mikuru-chan. See, Kyon? This is your punishment for being late—missing Mikuru-chan's award-winning performance.

"And why should I be punished, hm?"

That was Kyon with Yuki. They were standing in plain sight, drawing Mikuru-chan's attention, so I dragged them behind the pole with us.

"You do realize that four high-school students can't possibly fit behind a thin white pole," said Kyon. "It's a bit impossible."

"Shh!" I said.

"And what are you making Asahina-san do? You leave a not for us to come to the usual place, and I find you've got Asahina-san dressed up ringing a bell like she's in the Salvation Army?"

Exactly that. Honestly, what took you so long? We had to go find a bell and bucket that were the right look and everything!

"Nagato needed a minute of my time, that's all. So what now? We watch you continue to swindle people of their hard-earned money?"

They're donating to a good cause. They just misunderstand what cause it is.

" 'Misunderstand,' you say?" He raised an eyebrow. "The only thing I misunderstand is how it got to be Christmas again."

Most kids I know welcome the chance for presents again.

"True that." He smiled to himself, peering around our hiding pole. Really, Kyon—are you sure you don't want to tip her yourself?

"Ah, Suzumiya-san." Koizumi-kun waved a hand in front of my face. "Forgive my interruption, but I think we have a situation developing."

I looked back, around the pole. Some boys eyed Mikuru-chan like a pair of hawks. "Come on, pretty Santa," said one of them. "Why don't you come home with us, and we can unwrap your present?"

"EH?" said Mikuru-chan, eyes wide.

"Hey!" I called out, marching up to them. "No one says improper things to Mikuru-chan, and no one touches her!"

"Says the ear fetishist," Kyon muttered.

Yuki blinked. "What is a—"

"Never mind that!" He looked around. "Did I say that out loud?"

You know, you guys are really killing the moment here. I've got these two brats who care nothing for Mikuru-chan's dignity, and you're talking about ear fetishes?

"Our sincerest apologies," said Koizumi-kun. "We would very much like to see you dismiss the rabble, Suzumiya-san."

That's more like it!

"We aren't going to be 'dismissed' or whatever so easily!" one of the boys shot back. "What are you doing to do to stop us?"

Take one more step, and I'll show you. I have a black belt. No, I have so many black belts, the last one the masters gave me was ultraviolet!

Kyon winced. "That doesn't even make sense!"

Why don't you stay out of this? I'm trying to scare this brat off, but all you're doing is encouraging him. See? He's making a fist; he's taking a step. That just means I'll have to teach him—

CRUNCH! A dust cloud rose, swallowing the boy and his friend whole.

"Haruhi, Asahina-san, here!" A hand grasped my elbow and yanked me into the clear. Koizumi-kun too—he covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and guided Mikuru-chan by the shoulders to safety. There were pebbles sprayed out from the ground. The boy who challenged me, who thought he could look at Mikuru-chan, stood at the edge of a man-sized sinkhole.

"What the hell?" said his friend.

The first boy backed away. He stumbled; he tripped. He rolled his ankle and landed flat on his ass. Hopping gingerly, he limped away. He put his arm over his friend's shoulder, and the other carried him. Serves him right. He's at least thirty-four thousand, two hundred and seventy-six years too early to be thinking about violating Mikuru-chan!

"As opposed to thirty-four thousand, two hundred and seventy-seven years?" said Kyon. "Or, as opposed to, say, you?"

Shut up!

"Still," said Mikuru-chan, "it's frightening to think the pavement was so fragile underneath."

"It must be a freak phenomenon," said Koizumi-kun. "A broken water pipe could've leaked into the space beneath us, eroding the rocks until they lacked the integrity to maintain the sidewalk above them. Truly an unfortunate calamity."

That must've been it. Crazy, really. To think I dared that kid to take one more step, and he did. He could've been killed if he'd stepped just a few centimeters to the side. That'll teach a brat to hit on Mikuru-chan, I guess, but…

"Guys," I said. "Let's go. We can do plenty with what we've gotten so far. I don't think we'll get any more donations today unless we say we're with the road bureau."

Mikuru-chan dropped her bell in the bucket, making an unholy noise and spilling some of the loose change we'd gathered. I helped her pick some of it up, but that's when I saw them: Kyon, Yuki, and Koizumi-kun. At the pole we'd been hiding behind, they were talking. Yuki spoke so softly, and Kyon and Koizumi-kun leaned in, straining to hear. After a while, Koizumi-kun answered her, whispering, with a serious look on his face.

"What's this you're all up to?" I said. "The brigade chief tolerates no surprises unless they're good ones, in which case she'll happily accept."

The boys jerked—hands caught in the cookie jar, I took it. Yuki didn't move.

"You're quite right, of course," said Koizumi-kun smoothly. "I apologize for being so improper. In light of the erosion problem in this area, Nagato-san and I were debating the problem of…oh, what was it? Let me see. I seem to have forgotten the whole conversation now that I'm distracted. How very silly of me. It was—"

"Turbulence in fluid flow," said Yuki.

"Oh, of course! The solution to the Navier-Stokes equation in three dimensions, a most puzzling problem."

"That requires you to hold your face so close to Kyon's?" I said.

He stepped back. "Forgive me. I gave in to temptation…"

Kyon took two steps back.

"All right," I said, "come on, let's pack it all up. We have some searching to do. Mikuru-chan, let's go!"

"What about the Bangladeshi children?"

"I made all that stuff up! Come on!"

"So they didn't get banned from the Facebook?"

#

We made a run on the bank with the money Mikuru-chan collected: a grand total of about fifteen thousand yen. The teller gave me a cross look when I asked him to break the bills into fifty-yen coins, but it was Kyon who gave me the crosser look. He eyed the bucket as we undid each roll of coins and poured them in.

"I'm going to have to carry all these, aren't I?" he said.

Bingo!

We returned to school around five that afternoon, and that's where the real part of the plan had to come through. We had around three hundred coins from our SOS donation fund. The only reasonable thing to do was test the vending machine: send them all through and see when the magic happens.

"That's ridiculous," said Kyon as we gathered in the courtyard. "How long is that going to take?"

How should I know? Do I look like a human calculator to you?

"Seven hundred and ninety-two seconds to pass every coin through this mechanism," said Yuki.

Kyon twitched. "Nagato," he said, "was that a joke?"

"Perhaps."

That's good, Yuki, but it's not enough just to send every coin we have through there all willy-nilly. We have to be scientific about this!

"Your idea of science frightens me," said Kyon.

Oh shut up.

Honestly, if he just took a moment to listen, he'd see that it was a simple plan. If just one coin went through that machine and changed, I wanted to know everything there was to know about what it used to look like and what it became. That's why all five of us would have a job to do. From the bucket of coins, Mikuru-chan would start. She'd take one out and number it with a felt-tip marker. She'd hand it off to Koizumi-kun, who'd take photos front and back, and Yuki would do the same after each coin was fed through the machine, the job of which belonged to…

"Me," said Kyon.

Bingo again!

"And what are you doing?"

Oversight, of course. Someone has to make sure things run smoothly.

He slapped his palm to his forehead. "This is madness. These coins may as well be the last Greeks guarding the pass of Thermopylae. Not one of them is going to come out the way you think."

"There are three hundred of them," said Koizumi-kun.

"That's not the point! If the odds of this machine spitting out the wrong coin are just one in a hundred thousand, the chance of even one of these coins seeing anything 'interesting' are—gods, what would they even be?"

What are you saying? We need more coins? I mean, we could get more. Mikuru-chan?

"EH?" she squeaked.

Or if Mikuru-chan's frightened from all those perverted eyes watching her, then maybe Yuki wants to dress up?

She looked to Kyon, who twitched nervously. "You don't need my permission…" he said. He rubbed his forehead, letting out a heavy sigh. "Anyway. Haruhi, if you're bent on this, fine. Let's do it. After all, Nagato said it would take only a little over ten minutes, right?"

"The estimate was sound until Suzumiya Haruhi announced her amended plan," said Yuki.

"And now?" asked Kyon. "How long do you think this plan of Haruhi's will take?"

All eyes turned to Yuki, who blinked once before her lips parted again.

"Longer," she said.

Well it shouldn't have taken so much longer, but it did. Mikuru-chan smeared the black marker ink on the coins as she passed them and fell behind, keeping Koizumi-kun and the rest of the assembly line waiting. Yuki and Koizumi-kun's phones ran out of space to hold all six hundred photos that were needed, but that didn't take too long to fix, as Yuki uploaded the images from each onto some private server she had somewhere. Still, I'm most disappointed in Kyon. Really, how do you injure yourself putting coins down a slot and hitting coin return over and over?

"I'd like to see you do that three hundred times without twisting or spraining something," he said, wringing out his fingers.

We filled the bucket back to the top again and headed back to the club room, but already, something wasn't right. I asked Yuki on the way up if any coins seemed unusual coming out of the machine.

"I received only fifty-yen coins," she said.

Every one?

"Yes."

How could that be? I knew what I'd seen. Even if whatever happened was rare, like a disease that only affects one person out of the seven billion on this earth, there had to be some reason for it. I had two fifty-yen coins in my hand that afternoon, and one of them came back different. That was a fact. I wouldn't forget it. I didn't mistake it. Whatever happened then, there should've been evidence of it in these three hundred coins we'd collected.

But there wasn't. We unpacked our laptops and went over every image individually. Some of us were faster than others—Yuki flipped through the whole set in less than ten seconds while Mikuru-chan fumbled on her keyboard and found herself on a blue screen for half an hour—but the conclusion was the same. Even I…won't deny it.

We had a useless bucket of fifty-yen coins, none of which had been affected or changed in any way.

"Well, on the bright side," said Koizumi-kun, "we have fifteen thousand yen to spend on activities and events. We could put the proceeds to an end-of-term party or use it as an entrance fee into another sporting event. I would be delighted to dust off my athletic shoes if our brigade chief wishes."

It was a bucket of useless metal discs. I didn't care what we did with it. The sun was low in the sky, the shadows from the trees and buildings long and growing by the second. I stood by the window and made the final order of the day.

"Go home, everyone," I said. "You're all dismissed."

The chairs dragged against the floor. "Um," Mikuru-chan began, "will we try to get more coins tomorrow?"

I doubt it.

"Have a good evening, then, Suzumiya-san," she said.

Good night.

"I look forward to seeing you tomorrow," said Koizumi-kun.

Bye.

There was a quiet set of footsteps, almost inaudible. See you later, too, Yuki.

The door closed. Someone was still there.

"You staying here all night?" I asked.

Kyon drummed his fingers on the table. "Who can say."

You know what? I don't get that guy. Sometimes, I think I understand him, but then he does something like this and surprises me. I understand myself just fine. I still remember the events in my life that are important to me. I hear the crowds at Kōshien cheering as a home-run ball soars into the stands, but their cries are like a lonely child's in a vacuum—they're small. They're meaningless. They're insignificant. I see through the darkness on a muggy night in July, four years ago, but still I can't make out that mysterious guy's face. These are the things that have made me who I am. They're why I search for something bigger than myself, why I know there are mysteries in the universe to solve.

Kyon doesn't talk that way. Sometimes—even most of the time—I feel like he'd rather sip tea and sit in the club room all day, letting the world pass by.

"You're really down about this magic coin thing not working out, huh?"

You make it sound like it's totally a figment of my imagination.

"Are you going to let it go?" he asked.

"So what if I do?" I responded. "You've been saying it's silly all day. If you want to gloat or something, do it somewhere else!"

It was getting late. The sun fell beneath the horizon, but the sky was still light. Everything outside had faded to where I could just make out Kyon's reflection in the window. He sat back with a pensive look, and said,

"It's unlike you to give up so easily on something you've set your sights on."

What's that supposed to mean?

"It means the brigade supports you in whatever you choose to do," he said. "Asahina-san, Koizumi, Nagato…"

Yeah, and?

"Are you staying much longer?" he asked.

Maybe.

He scooted back in his seat, rising. "Then you have a good night, too, brigade chief."

Night.

He turned the doorknob, stopping there. "Oh, and Haruhi?"

What now?

He frowned. "Never mind."

The door closed.

Like I said. That guy confuses me sometimes.

I walked home alone after dark. The brigade "supports" me, he says. Well of course they do. They're all interesting characters. They're looking for the extraordinary with me.

Honestly, I don't know why that boy is still here if he doesn't want to be so badly.

Well, let me take that back. I don't know why he hangs around us, acting the way he does, but the brigade wouldn't be the same without him, either. It's great to have the cute, Lolita girl; the quiet book-lover; and the mysterious transfer student, but put the three of them together? That's not enough. It's not balanced. It doesn't fit all the way. You need an everyman to keep them all in check—someone who protects Mikuru-chan, who brings Yuki out her shell, who tempers Koizumi-kun's philosophizing and digressions.

You need someone like Kyon to keep me, the brigade chief, from riding roughshod over people so they can't fight back. And you know what's worse? Just when he thinks he's won, that I won't push this "magic coin thing" anymore, he backs off and says I should keep going for it. To be honest, I don't really know what to say about that. All I wanted to do was find something really exciting in this world. Is there time to still do that? Sure. I've been this patient. I can wait and keep looking. Maybe it really was a simple glitch in the mechanism. It's probably not the first vending machine that acted funny. It won't be the last.

I walked by that vending machine on the way home. I didn't plan it that way, but maybe my body did, or my mind, subconsciously…whatever. Just that afternoon, at lunchtime, I'd been thinking. I was content with things, at least a little bit. I could stand that there were no storm clouds on the horizon or signs of UFOs watching. I guess I thought that they were still out there but they'd be found later, in their own time. A fritzy vending machine spitting out the wrong coins—I'd latched on to it without really thinking at all.

I dug into my pockets. I found the pair of coins: the fifty and the hundred. I dropped the smaller, hollow one into the machine. This would be the end of it. Once the machine took my money, once I guzzled down a can of water and sugar and threw it away, there would be nothing more to think about, nothing else to test.

I put the reeded edge of the hundred-yen coin to the slot.

And I pulled it back. I pocketed that coin and walked away. As much as I thought about that time four years ago when spring receded and the days grew hot, muggy, and long, I had nothing to remember that Tanabata by. Rain had washed away my chalk drawing. I had no photo or drawing to capture John Smith's likeness. Though this simple hundred-yen coin meant nothing in reality, I kept it anyway. It was a glimpse of something extraordinary, even if that glimpse was false.

But Kyon was right, despite his backtracking. Come tomorrow, I thought I'd drop the whole thing and move on. The best thing to do was look forward and not dwell on things that weren't what you thought.

I walked in the door to my house. It was cool inside. The television was on but muted.

"I'm home," I said.

"Welcome home," said my mother, chopping onions in the kitchen. "I didn't think it'd take you so long, but I got started with dinner."

I made a face.

"I don't think I'll make you or your father deathly ill just by holding a knife, see? The tomatoes are diced over there, too. Everything's ready; you should be able to jump right in without any preparation."

"All right." I slipped off my shoes. "Let me just put my stuff away."

"Long day?" asked Mother.

"A little bit."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Kan-san's not having a good day, either."

Kan? What about him?

"Look at the television."

I stepped into the living room. There was no sound, but the headline at the bottom of the screen made it clear.

"He's resigning?" I said. "Why?"

"Apparently, he went to an elementary school today to read to some children. One of the kids started bothering him, and—oh, I don't know what it is the boy said, but it made Kan-san so angry. He made a scene and frightened the whole class! Can you believe it? They have parents all over saying he made their children cry."

Fretful Kan got angry…

"But that's not the most interesting part," said Mother. "It seems his old master Hatoyama-san is taking over again. Never would've expected that, not after the way he was shown the door."

Kan and Hatoyama. Kyon and I were just talking about them this afternoon. I said that Hatoyama should be prime minister again, regardless of the reasons he left. I said that Kan would blow up, that he was always on edge, that he would be liable to do something stupid, like…

"Mother," I began, "what did Kan-san do to scare those children?"

She put down the chopping knife and glanced at the ceiling in thought. "Why, I think he threw a fit and chopped through the table he was sitting at." She laughed. "Broke it cleanly in two. Can you believe it?"

Author's Notes

The limit mentioned that resolves to Euler's number (e) does exist. It's not, in my opinion, the most elegant way of concluding that e is a special number, but it seemed the best fit here. This limit ultimately comes from the study of compound interest.

Edgar Allan Poe's tales of Dupin are often cited as the seminal works of detective fiction. In the first tale, "The Muders in the Rue Morgue," Dupin performs a Sherlock Scan deduction just as Conan Doyle's detective later would, though the techhnique can be traced even further back. Even so, "Rue Morgue" is an interesting piece, as it was written before many of the detective-story conventions in place today. For example, the killer in the story is no man—rather, it's a pet orangutan.

The Navier-Stokes equation describe fluid flows under certain idealized assumptions. If you can prove or disprove the existence and smoothness of solutions in 3D, you could win a million dollars. I've been told the N-S equation is buried somewhere in the second season opening sequence, but I've yet to see it first-hand.

While none of those disasters really affected the country of Bangladesh, the government there did indeed ban Facebook within the country at one point in May 2010.

Naoto Kan succeeded Yukio Hatoyama in June 2010 as prime minister. He is not, to my knowledge, prone to punching through tables at the slightest provocation.

The Salvation Army does indeed operate in Japan, though I can't speak to how well they'd be recognized.

For more notes on this chapter and others, visit my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com.