On the following Wednesday Scott had big news, which he gleefully imparted the minute he showed up.

>>I have a new job and summer vacation. I'm working through July and then taking the whole month of August off!
>>What are you talking about?

It took some grilling before I finally understood. He was quitting his job at the end of the month—this was in July—and in September, fulfilling his dream, he'd be going to work at a sushi place. Thus, he'd have all of August for a summer vacation, and he apparently wanted to take a trip somewhere. It occurred to me to extend an invitation.

>>In that case, come on over to Japan. I'll show you around Akihabara, the place you're so interested in. Plus, the yen's low right now, so you can do it fairly cheaply.
>>Ah, that would be fantastic.

Scott really seemed to be up for it, but his next remark was addressed to Zhang, not me.

>>Eric, how about taking a trip during summer vacation? I'd like all three of us to get together if we can.

It took a while for Zhang to reply. He might have been checking his schedule for the summer or maybe he was reluctant to answer—from his silence you couldn't tell. When he finally answered, it was in his usual tone.

>>I wouldn't mind if the three of us got together, but I'll take a pass this time. Japan wouldn't be anything new for me.

>>Oh, that's right. You used to live in Japan.

>>All right then, how about getting together somewhere other than Japan? Suppose we meet in California. Eric's going to be living there pretty soon.

Since Zhang would be going to the USA to study in the fall anyway, we could meet somewhere near the university he'd be attending—that was the idea. For Scott, who was in New York, the prospect of a trip to the West Coast was probably appealing. It didn't appeal to me, though. If we met somewhere other than Japan it would mean taking my first trip overseas, and I'd be damned if I was going to let Zhang and his study plans determine where I'd be going. It occurred to me that, if we were going to meet at all, it should be in a country where all three of us would be strangers.

>>How about meeting somewhere other than Japan, the USA, or China?

Zhang replied.

>>A neutral country, you mean. But where?
>>The three of us can start looking for candidates right now. We can each go and search the Net for a good place to meet, and then come back here in half an hour to talk it over.

I had barely read Zhang's message when both he and Scott logged off. I quickly left the chess room too. I wasn't necessarily planning to go overseas, but I started surfing the Net with unusual enthusiasm.

Half an hour later Zhang suggested Honolulu and Scott suggested Belgrade. Zhang's reasoning was straightforward. He'd looked at a map of the world and apparently realized that the middle of the Pacific Ocean was the midway point among our respective locations. Hawaii was in the Pacific, and a lot of flights went there, making it easy for any of us to get there.

I objected, however. Hawaii was part of the USA, which violated the condition that we find a country where none of us lived.

>>This is like a thinking puzzle—you're supposed to solve it based on the stated conditions.

This time my attack was founded on sound reasoning, and Zhang reluctantly backed down.

Belgrade, the site suggested by Scott, was the capital of the former Yugoslavia and a very big city in the chess world. It was in there that Scott's idol, an American player named Robert Fischer, had made his legendary comeback and reclaimed the world championship 20 years earlier. Scott had always wanted to go there.

>>I checked, and you can get there from either Japan or China. I'd really like to go there.

That trip, however, would have cost far more than I could afford. I didn't know much about Belgrade in the first place, and neither Zhang nor I had any special feelings for the place motivating us to go out of our way to get there. I felt sorry for Scott but I had to decline his suggestion, and Zhang agreed with me.

Well then, what was my suggestion, they wanted to know. I had done my homework, and I named my choice: the Commonwealth of New Island. I directed them to the Commonwealth's official website, which was in English, and to another site describing the place in Japanese.

>>If you go to the website you'll see, New Island is a country that's not on the map.

New Island was an island in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia. Castaways had settled there in the eighteenth century, and the island had been granted autonomy by the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution. During the Cold War the intertwining agendas of the East and West led them to ignore its existence, so it had apparently disappeared from all the maps. When the Soviet Union collapsed, however, the island became an independent country and now seemed to be a sanctuary for freedom, taking in immigrants from all over the world. I went on.

>>An interesting country, isn't it? And the reason I found it is Zhang's "mystery coin."

As I was surfing the Net, I suddenly recalled the words "pub gun" and "mystery coin," so I did searches on them, which led me to a coin collector's website, where I saw a mysterious item known as a Roger coin. The creator of the website had acquired a gold-colored coin bearing the inscription "Commonwealth of New Island." Never having heard of such a country, he searched the name and came across an official website, illustrated with beautiful pictures, which described the country's culture and history. The site was entirely in English, so he selected one section of it, translated it into Japanese, and posted the translation, along with a picture of a one-Roger coin. While perusing this Japanese-language site, I continued:

>>Looks like you can't get there by plane, but there's regular boat service from a port town called Fremantle in Australia.

Australia was relatively close to both Japan and Shanghai, and it was an English-speaking country, which would make it easier for Scott. The location seemed suitable for all three of us, and the fact that it was an uncharted island had an attraction for me. I'd been hesitant about the prospect of overseas travel, but now I was all for it.

>>For three people from different countries who met playing Net chess, it seems like just the right country.

Even as I was pitching the idea to my friends, I began to think about going by myself.