A quarter of an hour and some outrageous yen later, the taxi stopped at the entrance to the Sakura River Park and this broke into the carefully constructed timetable of Koyuki Himekawa very punctually and very expensively.
She did not wait her change, but she got out of the car and stood in a scene of colors that radically contrasted the navy corporate uniform in which she had been dressed, and was a stark reminder of the fact that even the best laid down time table can be sabotaged by haphazard environmental influences.
This was no ordinary park. The seasonal light show with its sheer excess of LED lights and projected fairytale imagery turned the otherwise relaxed banks of the frozen, winding Sakara River into a shimmery, crystal tunnel. Blue and white photons by thousands flew along the willow trees and hedges, and a glittering communication way was plowed through, where crowds of wrapped couples and visitors with cameras came flocking. Its pictorial beauty, of an artistic and romantic kind, was the very opposite of the silent intellectual atmosphere Koyuki had been looking forward to in the hour before Professor Ito had commenced his keynote.
Koyuki turned on the GPS tracker on his burner phone; the secret green dot indicated the rough position of Professor Ito: drifting somewhere in the glowing area unaware that his absence was already causing a logistical disaster at the Tier A Symposium.
She maneuvered through the oceanic crowd without bumping into families or getting engulfed by selfie sticks in the precise rhythm an operation of micromanagement that should demand a liaison agent to handle a conference. Her time piece within said forty minutes till keynote. Forty minutes, which was quantitatively and qualitatively crucial.
The closer she came to the park the heavier was the air with the scent of sweet street food and the far, muted tones of a holiday carol, played through hidden speakers. One would have liked to stop and study the architectural marvel of the illuminations; but the view of such a painstaking labor and artistic planning of so delightful a scene caused Koyuki to think of her own proposed gala arrangements with an almost heart saddening haste.
At last the GPS dot became stable. Koyuki came round a corner close to an artificialized pond, wherein a big, multicolored projection made spectacular, rolling snow flakes. And there he was.
Professor Ito was a man of thirties, and the distinguished though somewhat shabby outfit of tweed was worn by a man of late fifties, who sat alone on a stone bench. He was not attentive to the lights, or even to his phone; he was very serious about a tiny, quite pathetic looking snowman by the bench this a piece of work certainly the property of a child, and with only one arm, and topped by a yellow traffic cone in a very bright orange.
"Professor Ito?" Koyuki came on, with a calm, but professional impatience in her voice. My names are Himekawa Koyuki, Executive Liaison in the Winter Academic Research Paper Symposium. Sir, you are set to start with the opening keynote in the next thirty five minutes.
Professor Ito looked slowly, and turned his very broad, harmless eyes to her. He was a very good natured, and somewhat distracted. "Ah. The young girl working in the logistics department. Did Yuu send you? I am not sure that I can leave now, Himekawa san.
"But… why, Professor?" Koyuki begged, and her eyes were dashing frantically to the snowman. We are ready to go into the hall, the data is already in, the international feed is waiting, -
It is the angle of repose, the Professor interfered, his gloved finger in the side of the snowman. "Fascinating. The structure of this specific mass of snow which is likely of high content of ice crystals due to the temperature variation during the night enables it to maintain such a remarkable vertical stability even though the thinly densified accumulations are on the lower part of it. It is counterintuitive to the conventional estimates of load bearing capacity of gravity effects.
Koyuki looked, her senses so shocked by the unheard of union of material science and confectionary art that they were even momentarily paralyzed.
Professor, we are talking of the logistical meltdown of a Tier A international conference, said she with caution. I am certain that the angle of repose is interesting, but your audience is impatient.
The Professor dismissed the audience with a wave of the hand. It is structural analysis in the real life! I said to Yuu Young man, do not commit the error of putting the abstract over the empirical! He appeared to be very distraught. My whole keynote is on the integration of theoretical framework. Unless I come to understand the principles of this lopsided, cone hatting constructions, my whole performance will become hollow.
Koyuki came to understand two very important things, first, that this man had the characteristics of a true academician, and was inclined to collect in the rut of details; second, Yuu Shirogane, the King of Logic, had anticipated exactly this sort of unaccountable crisis. What then could make him grant her the title of Crisis Manager?
She understood that logical appeal was not going to be sufficient; she had to appeal to him at an academic level.
Koyuki, crouching in a low position next the bench, spoke in a tones of conspiracy, in her low tenor voice. Empirical confirmation of your theoretical framework is the Symposium. Assuming that the framework is so strong, it should withstand the disorder of a full time schedule. Let us return. Should you have any doubts about the stability of the snowman following your conversation I do promise you a complete 3D laser scanning crew that will be deployed this evening in order to produce the exact data you will need. Write a second paper about the unusual stability of urban snow structures.
The Professor opened his eyes which had been fixed on the cone hat with delight. "A 3D laser scan? Anomalous stability? The equipment is available to Yuu people?
"They do. It will be waiting for you. But you must go back now to confirm your main theory.
Koyuki had managed to capitalize on the intellectual inquisitiveness of the Professor to his own benefit. The snowman was pushed out of the limelight. He got up, and incorporated the recollection of the conehatted wonder into his mental system.
"Brilliant! The hypothesis has to be proved! Come, Himekawasan! We have structures to uphold!"
Koyuki was no longer waiting to get a taxi. She caught the Professor by the arm, and ran away through the dazzling light, in which she hoped they could gain upon the relentless clock and provide empirical evidence at any rate as well as an interesting keynote.