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.
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. I 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.
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 spell-check. 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.
From mountain to flat—no, wrong. Tie rope from flats to mountain. About 300 m. Stretch it tight so we can slide bomb down on pulley. 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.
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 and wrote: 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 satellites, 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.
I can increase output by customizing. Not hard. At sea I’ll send out an SOS. We can say our boat overturned or something.
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,