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.
“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 satellites, 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 canceled. 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 routine 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