After leaving the bar, the two walked along the pitch-black streets, lit only by the dim moonlight reflected off the snow. Everything seemed lonely and desolate.
Their warm breath condensed into mist before them, only to be quickly scattered by the north wind.
Neither of them was particularly sensitive to the cold, but the ruined scenery still affected their mood somewhat.
Gin took the liquor she had just bought and poured a little into her mouth.
"Too weak."
"That's normal. Sake is usually watered down."
Gin drained the bottle as if she were drinking water, then flung it far away. "What's so special about that Japanese officer named Yashida?"
"If my original intelligence was correct, he used to be a minor official in charge of prison management. Logan was a prisoner right under his nose back then."
Su Ming took out a cigarette, put it between his lips, and lit it before looking up to get his bearings.
"The nuke missed?" Gin had heard Howard boast more than once about the power of his nuclear weapons, yet the bar owner had said nothing much happened in town at the time.
"I should remind you that this wasn't General Doolittle's problem. Howard definitely messed something up. It was supposed to hit the military port, but it landed in the mountains on the other side of the city. Missing by dozens of kilometers? There had to be something wrong with the deceleration parachute he designed."
Su Ming voiced his guess. After all, none of Howard's inventions had ever been reliable.
According to the bar owner, the atomic bomb had barely affected this place at all. They were only evacuated later to avoid the fallout.
Civilians, soldiers, and prisoners were all evacuated. It was a complete mess at the time, and not long