"They've got a beer here I want you to try—my treat. As the Aussies say, it's my shout."

Scott had led us to a big beachfront brewery. Along with rows of fermentation tanks, the brewery also housed a pub, crowded on this Wednesday afternoon. We took a table by a window offering a view of the nearby fishing port and the Indian Ocean. The beer Scott treated us to was a dark amber color. According to an advertising insert in the pub's menu, it was called Roger's Beer.

"Look at this!"

Zhang was pointing to the ad.

"Did you bring us here because of this?"

Scott winked at us.

"Of course. I arrived in Australia last week and discovered this beer at a pub in Perth. I found out they make it in Fremantle, so naturally I knew that this would be the beer for us."

Zhang held out her coin.

"Well, then, let's toast the Roger coin with Roger's beer."
"And to the three of us meeting like this."
"Kanpai!"

Our glasses clinked together. I had automatically raised a toast in Japanese, and my companions responded in kind. In English I guess it would have been "cheers." In Chinese they say "kanpei," which is written just like "kanpai," and then they have to drain their glasses in one go. I said it was funny how things differed from country to country, and Scott's eyes twinkled behind his spectacles.

"Oh! That reminds me—I have a little present for both of you."

He reached into one of the pockets of the trench coat he had now taken off and brought out several bills. Red, blue, and green, they were adorned with unfamiliar designs and imprinted with a man's profile and some sort of crest or coat of arms.

"They say Australia is the only country that occupies a whole continent. I traveled north of Perth, though, and visited an independent country situated inside Australia. So—how could that be?"

"These bills will tell us the answer?"

It was Zhang asking, and Scott nodded, smiling.

"Yes. In place of New Island, I discovered Hutt River."

Sipping our beer, we discussed the mysterious existence of the Principality of Hutt River. Zhang and I questioned Scott on various points and started piecing together an explanation, and he helped us along little by little. Eventually we got the whole story.

In 1970 a certain farmer, rebelling against the agricultural policies of the state of Western Australia, declared his farm a sovereign state. The government of Australia didn't recognize its sovereignty, of course, but the self-declared state refused to obey what it deemed unreasonable tax laws and has continued to call itself a sovereign principality to this day. Prince Leonard, the self-styled head of state, is an invited guest at ceremonial events in various parts of the world, and tourists sympathetic to his cause come from all over the world to visit his domain. Hutt River isn't fictional—it's considered by many people to be a real country.

Scott, who was one such person, had taken a tour of the principality and had bought a five-bill set of Hutt River currency as a souvenir.

"It's too bad that they didn't have any coins, but Prince Leonard himself sold me these bills. You can each take one for yourself."

Zhang chose a yellow two-dollar bill, and I took the blue ten-cent bill. The color and the number ten were right in sync with my thinking puzzle.

"I have a bill to show you. It's not a present, though—sorry."

I took out the old Australian ten-dollar bill and laid it alongside the ten-cent bill from Hutt River. Neither one was a fake; both were real banknotes issued by real countries. Reality was where the stories that we found so entertaining came from.

"Because of this ten-dollar bill, the story went around in Japan that a counterfeiter ended up getting his portrait on a real bill in Australia. What do you think caused this misunderstanding?"

This time the other two tried to figure out the answer to my puzzle. Questioning extended the reach of the imagination, and a single fact blossomed into a story.

In the nineteenth century a British architect named Greenway was convicted of fabricating documents related to a contract and was transported to Australia. His talents as an architect were recognized in Australia, however, and he went on to design a lot of famous buildings at public institutions. Because of his achievements, not only was he pardoned for his crime, he was recognized as a major figure of Australia's pioneer era and had his likeness printed on the ten-dollar bill."

When these facts were reported in Japan, the part about fabricating documents was misinterpreted as forging checks. Even an authoritative biographical dictionary described Greenway as a counterfeiter, and this led newspaper reporters in Japan to spread erroneous information about him. A novelist took this bogus information and used it as the basis for a story about counterfeit money.

Zhang laughed.

"Well, you might say it's just another case of Japanese people being bad at English."

She did have a sarcastic streak. She didn't seem quite as sharp-tongued as when we'd conversed online, though, probably because of that merry little smile.

Scott was laughing too.

"Foreign languages are hard. If you're not familiar with the other person's culture, there's a gap there that can lead to misunderstandings, and things can really fall apart."

I leaned forward.

"Yeah, but that's what's so interesting. Imaginations started expanding based on a misunderstanding, and out of that gap came a story."
"Yeah," said Zhang. "I started talking to you two because of a hiccups gap."

Scott nodded.

"That's right. And since the three of us started talking together, our imaginations have expanded in all kinds of ways, haven't they."

Scott gestured with both hands at the table. There, along with glasses and dishes, were three pieces of a story: a ten-dollar bill, a ten-cent bill, and a one-Roger coin. These three pieces, a mix of fact and fiction, represented a happiness worth far more than their monetary value. It was the story now shared by the three of us, the story that had brought us to the place where we now sat laughing together.

With my imagination expanding, I could see how interesting the world really was. My old sense of helplessness was carried away as if by the wind, effortlessly, and I felt as though I too would be able to really do something.

We'd been influenced by any number of stories. Then we'd met, and the world had become a more interesting place to be. If we kept creating and sharing stories, maybe we could make an impact on the real world. That's what those three pieces were telling us.

Eventually Scott opened his chessboard and set it on the table. He wanted to give us a chance to enjoy the presence of a responsive opponent, something we couldn't do when playing on the Net. We each played one another, and then Zhang and I teamed up against Scott. People around us started watching us play, and a lively ring of spectators gradually formed. I felt like telling them why the three of us had met up there. There'd actually be a lot of stories involved if I wanted to explain how three people from three different cities—Tokyo, Shanghai, and New York—came to be playing chess there. Based on looks alone, nobody in the world would be able to solve that puzzle.

So I'd like to tell the story. The key words I have to use, of course, are Net chess, mystery coin, and uncharted land.