43

Five hours had passed since the Macintosh PowerBook 150's connection to the internet had been cut off with a warning beep. Shinji Mimura scrolled through a document in one of the windows on the display monitor of the 150 that was now reduced to a word processor.

He'd worked on the phone, checked the connections, and rebooted over and over but the gray monitor responded with the same message. Finally, after disconnecting all the modem and phone cords, he came to the conclusion his cell phone had completely broke down. Without a phone line he couldn't even access his home computer. And of course, calling all the girls he'd ever gone with and sobbing over how he was, "About to die, but I loved you the most," was out of the question. He still believed he could get to the bottom of this and considered taking apart his cell phone—but then stopped. A chill ran down his spine.

It was obvious now why he wasn't able to dial in anymore. The government had managed to locate the line test number used by the DTT technician, the number used for the special phone with the counterfeit

"Second ROM" he'd painstakingly built. They'd cut off all connections including this one. The question was…how had they managed to do this? His hacking had been flawless. He knew that much. The only way he could imagine the government discovering his hacking was through some method outside their computer's internal security system, their warning system, and other manual monitoring systems. And now that they knew—

The moment Shinji realized what it was, his hand went for the collar around his neck. Now that the government knew, it wouldn't be all that surprising if the bomb went off, would it? They probably wouldn't spare Yutaka either.

Thanks to this realization, the government-supplied water and bread they had for lunch tasted even worse.

After Yutaka saw Shinji turn off the laptop, he asked for an explanation. Shinji only replied, "It's no good. I don't know why, but it's not working. Maybe the phone's broken." Ever since then Yutaka's mood became gloomy, and he slouched back to the way he'd been earlier that morning. Other than the occasional gunshots and brief exchanges it remained silent. Shinji's great escape plan that mesmerized Yutaka had completely fallen apart.

But—

I'll still make them regret they didn't kill me right away. No matter what. He thought a little, then dug into his pants pocket and pulled out an old pocketknife he carried around with him ever since he was a kid. There was a small tube tied to the keyring on the knife. Shinji examined the scratched up tube.

His uncle had given him the knife a long time ago. And the tube was, that's right, like the earring on his left ear, another memento from his uncle. Like Shinji, his uncle had kept it chained to a small knife and always carried it around.

The thumb-sized tube, with its rubber ring under the cap, was a waterproof case used by soldiers. It was normally used to hold a document with name, blood type, and history of illness in case of injury. Others used it as a matchbox. Until his death, Shinji assumed his uncle kept that sort of thing in it too. But after he died, when he opened the tube, Shinji found something completely different inside. In fact the tube's casing itself was carved out of a special alloy and contained two smaller cylinders inside. Shinji took out the two cylinders. He had no idea what they were. The only thing he could tell was that their contents were supposed to be mixed.

The thread of the screw from one of the cylinders fit perfectly into the other one. The reason why they were kept apart was that it was risky to connect them. And once he found out what they were for, after some research (no wonder they were separate—otherwise, you couldn't carry those cases around), he still had no idea why his uncle carried this around wherever he went. It served no particular purpose. Or maybe like the earring Shinji wore, his uncle had merely held onto it to remind himself of someone. Anyway, it was another piece of evidence from his uncle's past for Shinji to ponder over. Shinji turned the squeaky cap and opened it. He hadn't opened it since his uncle died. He dropped the two cylinders into the palm of his hand. Then he opened the seal of the smaller cylinder. It had been stuffed with cotton to make it shockproof. There was the dull yellow of brass underneath the cotton.

After examining it, he returned both cylinders back into the larger container and screwed the cap back on. He'd thought that if he ever had to use this, it would be after they escaped the island, or after messing up the school computer. It might have been handy after they equipped themselves and attacked Sakamochi and the others—but now this was all they had.

He flipped out the blade from his pocketknife. The sun had moved west, and the bushes reflecting against the silver steel were dark yellow. Then he pulled out a pencil from his school coat pocket. It was the pencil they all used to write the phrase, "We will kill," before the game began. Because he'd used it to mark the forbidden zones and check off the names of dead classmates, its point was now blunt. Shinji sharpened the pencil with his knife. Then he pulled out his map from another pocket and turned it over. It was blank.

"Yutaka."

Yutaka had been hugging his knees and gazing at the ground. He looked up. His eyes were shining. "Did you come up with something?" he asked.

Shinji wasn't exactly sure why Yutaka's response ticked him off. It might have been the tone of his voice, or maybe the words. Shinji felt like saying, what the hell—here I am banging my head against the wall trying to come up with an escape plan and all you've been doing is sitting on your ass! You swore you were going to get back at them for Izumi Kanai, but you haven't done squat. You think this is a fast food restaurant where I'm working the register? You want some fries with that?

But Shinji restrained himself.

Yutaka's round cheeks were sunken and his cheekbones stuck out. It was only natural. He must have been worn out by the pressure of this game that could end at any moment for them. Ever since he was a kid Shinji was always the best athlete in the class. (Although this changed in his second year in junior high, when he was joined by Shuya Nanahara and Kazuo Kiriyama. He could beat them in basketball, but he wasn't sure about other sports.) His uncle had taken him mountain climbing ever since he was a kid, and he was confident in any competition that required stamina. But not everyone was built like The Third Man. Yutaka was a poor athlete, and when the cold season came he was often absent. Fatigue must have been overwhelming him, and it might be numbing his thinking too. That was when Shinji realized something important. Wasn't the fact that he was even a little upset at Yutaka an indication of his own fatigue? Of course, given how their chances of survival were close to nil, it would have been much stranger not to be worn out.

No.

I have to be careful. If this were a basketball game, you'd just feel bad about losing—but in this game you end up dead.

Shinji shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Yutaka asked.

Shinji looked up at him, forcing a smile. "Nothing. Hey, I just want to take a look at the map. Okay?" Yutaka came over to Shinji.

"Hey," Shinji raised his voice. "There's a bug on your neck!" Yutaka touched his neck.

"I'll get it," Shinji stopped him and approached Yutaka. He fixed his eyes on the nape of Yutaka's neck—but he was searching for something else.

"Oh, it's moved," he said and got behind him. Shinji examined his neck again.

"Did you get it?"

As he listened to Yutaka's shrill, terrified voice, Shinji took a closer look. Then he lightly brushed away the nape of Yutaka's neck. He crushed the imaginary bug with the sole of his sneakers and (pretending) he picked it up and (pretending once again) tossed it out.

"I got it," he said. He was now facing Yutaka and added, "Looked like a little centipede."

"Oh man," Yutaka rubbed the nape of his neck and looked over where Shuya had (apparently) tossed it, grimacing.

Shinji broke into a slight grin and said, "Come on, let's look at the map." Yutaka looked over, then knit his brows when he saw that it was turned over. Shinji waved his index finger to get his attention and scribbled on the back of the map. His writing wasn't very neat. Several scrawled letters appeared at the edge of the paper.

They can hear us.

Yutaka's face twitched and asked, "Really? How can you tell?" Shinji quickly put his hand over Yutaka's mouth. Yutaka understood and nodded.

Shinji released his hand and said, "I just know. I know a lot about insects. That one wasn't poisonous." Then just to be sure, he scribbled again, Pretend to check map. Don't say anything to make them suspicious.

"Well, now that the computer's failed, there's nothing we can do," Shinji said, providing some fake commentary. Then he wrote: They heard my explanation and cut the Mac connection. I screwed up. They know some of us are going to resist so they're monitoring our conversation. Should have known.

Yutaka took out his pencil from his pocket and wrote under Shinji's scrawled letters. His writing was much neater than Shinji's.

How can they use a monitoring devise on such a big island? He had copied Shinji's spelling for monitoring, but "device" was spelled incorrectly. Whatever. This wasn't composition class.

"So I think we should look for others. We can't do much on our own. So…" Shinji said as he lightly tapped on his collar with his finger. Yutaka's eyes widened as he nodded. Shinji then scribbled again: I checked your collar. It doesn't seem to have a camera. Only listening device. I don't think they're any cameras in the area. Maybe satallites, but the woods are covering us. They can't see what we're doing now. Spelling wasn't Shinji's strongest suit either. Yutaka's eyes widened again, and he glanced upward. The branches were swaying, cutting them off completely from the blue sky.

Yutaka's face then stiffened suddenly as if he'd realized something. He gripped his pencil and wrote on the back of the map: Mac stopped working because you told me about it. If not for me, you would have succeeded!

Shinji poked Yutaka's shoulder with the index finger of his left hand and smiled at him. Then he scribbled: Don't sweat it. Should have been more careful. Collars could have gone off the moment they heard, but they're "mercifully" letting us live.

Yutaka touched the nape of his neck, eyes wide. He stared at Shinji and then tightened his lips and nodded. Shinji nodded back at him.

"I wonder where they're hiding out—"

I'm writing my plan here. Fake our conversation. Just go with the flow. Yutaka nodded and then quickly responded, "Hmm, but I'm not sure we can trust anyone." Good going. Shinji grinned. Yutaka grinned back.

"That's true. I think we can trust Shuya. I want to hook up with Shuya." If comp worked we could have saved others but now we can only worry about saving ourselves. All right with that?

Yutaka considered it and then wrote, Not looking for Shuya?

Right. Can't afford to worry about others anymore.

Yutaka bit his lip, but finally nodded.

Shinji nodded back. If this works out, game will get held up. Might give others chance to escape. Yutaka gave two small nods.

"You think everyone's hiding in the mountain like us? Maybe some of them are hiding in houses?"

"Maybe…"

Shinji was deliberating over what to write next when Yutaka wrote, What's the plan?

Shinji nodded and gripped his pencil. I've been waiting for something to happen since morning. Yutaka tilted his head, his pencil down. Announcement that game has been canseled. I'm still waiting

.

Yutaka looked surprised and tilted his head in bewilderment. Shinji grinned at him. When I got access to school comp, I found all backup files. And file search apps. Then before I downloaded, I infected them all with virus.

Yutaka silently formed the word "virus?" with his mouth. Hey, Yutaka, how about writing it out?

Shinji wrote, Virus would enter school comp system if they search files or backups. Would wreak havoc on the system and freeze game.

Impressed, Yutaka gave several brief nods. Shinji knew it was a waste of time, but wrote it out anyway, I designed virus. It's cool. It's like getting athlete's foot, but 100x worse. Yutaka held back the urge to laugh, but gave a broad grin.

It'll destroy all data and play "The Star Spangled Banner" on repeat. It'll drive em crazy. Yutaka held his stomach, doing his best not to laugh, and pressed his hand against his mouth. Shinji also did his best not to burst out laughing.

Now they've discovered me, maybe they won't get those files. Then game will have to stop. But it hasn't. So they've only done rutine checks. I didn't go through any main files.

"Why don't we go find them then?"

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Yeah, but we have a gun."

My plan: make them get files. Will activate virus.

Shinji pulled his laptop over and showed Yutaka the document he'd been looking over. It was a 42-line text file.

The data download had been interrupted, but of all the copied files this was the most important one. The horizontal text. Each row began with a listing on the left, from "M01" to "M21," followed by "F01" to

"F21," in succession. Each listing was accompanied by a ten-digit number resembling a phone number, all in succession as well. Finally there were what appeared to be random sixteen-digit numbers. A small comma was inserted between these three listings. The file name at the heading was cryptic.

"guadalcanal-shiroiwa3b"

What's this? Yutaka wrote.

Shinji nodded. These are the #'s assigned to our collars.

Yutaka gave a huge nod as if to say, Oh. So "M01" was Male Student No. 1 (Yoshio Akamatsu), and

"F01" was Female Student No. 1 (Mizuho Inada, that weird girl). Collars are like cell phones. Each band has a number and password. Use numbers to set them off. So

Shinji stopped and looked at Yutaka. Then he continued If data's infected with virus we won't have to worry about collars blowing us up. Virus will keep spreading. If they have backup files they can't stop it. If they reprogram to stop virus we'll be in trouble, but it will still buy us time.

"How about tossing pebbles at certain places to see if someone comes running out?"

"Wait, what if it's a girl? She might scream. That could be dangerous, not just to us, but the girl. I mean, assuming she's not 'bad.' "

"Huh."

How will you make them do it?

Outside school building did you see room for SDF?

Yutaka nodded.

Computers in there, remember?

Yutaka's eyes opened wide again as he shook his head. /

couldn't afford to.

Shinji chuckled a little. I got a good look. They have a row of desktop computers and large server. Someone stuck out though. It was an ensine. Or was it "ensign"? Forget it. He had a pin on his uniform. He was the tech. A computer runs this whole game. All we have to do is attack the school so they think we might ugh, another word I can't spell aniyulate their data. We need to get materials we can actually blow up the entire computer. So

Shinji stopped writing. He spread his hands with the exaggerated motion of a magician. Then he wrote on the map BOMB THE SCHOOL ESCAPE BY SEA

Yutaka's eyes were now bulging. He mouthed the word "Bomb?"

Shinji grinned.

"Maybe we should look for some weapons though. That fork is pretty useless."

"Uh huh. Yeah."

We need gasoline. There's a gas station at the harbor, but we can't get there. There are several cars here though. Maybe have fuel? Worst case use oil. We also need fertilizer. Yutaka knit his brows, puzzled. Fertilizer?

Shinji nodded and tried to write out the name of the fertilizer compound, but he didn't know how to spell it. He was a casualty of spellcheck. Anyway, what mattered was the molecular formula. Amoniem nitrate. If we find it, we can make bomb with gasoline.

Shinji pulled out his knife and the tube tied to it. He showed it to Yutaka. This is a detonater. Too complicated to explain why I have one. I just do. Yutaka looked thoughtful. Then he wrote That uncle?

Shinji grinned and nodded. Yutaka knew because Shinji was always going on and on about his uncle. Yutaka wrote

How are we going to bomb the school? We can't get near it. Make a giant sling with trees?

Ah ha. Shinji smiled. No. Not precise enough. Too bad we don't have a bunch of bombs. But we have only one detonater, so we have only 1 chance. Rope and pulley. Yutaka opened his mouth as if to say, Oh.

Can't get near school, but can go to mountain area and area on other side of school. Shinji flipped over the map and indicated the areas to Yutaka. Then he flipped it back over. Tie rope from flats to mountain. About 300 m. Stretch it tight so we can slide bomb down on puley. Then cut rope when it's on top of school. My special SLAM DUNK. Once again impressed, Yutaka nodded enthusiastically.

"It might be best to find weapons during the day."

"Yeah, I think so too. It'll be easier than finding someone."

Let's get to work. There's a pulley by a well L saw. Get gas from cars. Fertilizer and rope? L don't know. Can we find rope that long?

They fell silent, but then Yutaka quickly wrote

Let's go for it.

Shinji nodded and continued

We might kill Sakamochi and soldiers. But all we have to do is make them think data's damaged. Then he pointed at his neckband these can't kill us.

Then escape by sea?

Shinji nodded.

But I can't swim he looked at Shinji warily.

Shinji interrupted Yutaka's writing and wrote Full moon tonight. Use tide current. According to my calculations tide will carry us at 6-7 kph. If we swim fast it will take <20 min. to reach next island.

Yutaka's admiration burst beyond the expression in his eyes as he shook his head vigorously. What about guard ship?

Shinji nodded.

They might find us but because game's run by computers my guess is they will be lax. One ship for each direction is kinda lame. Their weakness. Once computers down they won't know where we are. Guard ship will only be able to chase us on their own. If they have satallites, cameras can't see at night. We don't have to worry about our heads blowing up. We have chance to escape. It won't be easy.

I have another idea.

Shinji dug into the day pack and pulled out a small transceiver. This was another item he found in someone's house.

/ can increase output by customizing. Not hard. At sea I'll send out an SOS. Yutaka's face beamed. Some ship will pick us up.

Shinji shook his head. No. Government will come at us so we give them false location. We escape in opposite direction.

Yutaka shook his head. Then he wrote out

SHINJI YOUR AWESOME

Shinji shook his head and smiled.

"All right, then." He looked at his watch. It was already 4 p.m.

"We'll take off in five minutes."

"Uh huh."

Shinji felt worn out from all the handwriting, which he didn't do very often. He tossed his pencil. Like a PC communication log file, the back of the map was filled with letters. (He would have preferred to communicate by laptop, but Yutaka didn't know how to type.)

Then he grabbed the pencil and added

Not a great plan. Our chances are slim. This is all I can think of He shrugged and looked at Yutaka. Yutaka gave him a cheerful smile and wrote Let's go for it!

22 students remaining