Shogo shot again, blowing off another part of the wall. Shuya also fired several shots into it with his SIG-Sauer.
“Noriko! Are you all right!?” Shuya yelled. Right next to him, Noriko answered, “I’m okay.” He could make out her response, which made Shuya realize his hearing was back. He saw her in the corner of his eye reloading 9mm Short bullets into the SIG-Sauer’s empty magazine. Of all the things he’d seen since the game began this one really sent his head reeling. How could a girl like Noriko be participating in a battle like this…
A hand appeared from the other side of the wall. The hand was holding a machine gun. It rattled again. Shuya and Shogo ducked.
Kazuo got up. As he continued shooting, he came forward. Then he ran behind the tractor. The distance between them was shrinking.
Shogo fired a shot, blowing off the tractor’s driving panel.
“Shogo,” Shuya called, after shooting twice.
“What?” Shogo answered as he reloaded his shotgun.
“How fast can you run the hundred-meter dash?”
Shogo took another shot (annihilating the tractor’s rear light) and answered, “I’m pretty slow. Maybe thirteen seconds. My back’s strong though. Why?”
Suddenly Kazuo’s arm stuck out from behind the tractor. Sparks flew as Kazuo revealed his head, but as Shuya and Shogo fired back, he ducked again.
“We can only retreat into the mountain, right?” Shuya spoke quickly. “I can run a hundred meters in almost less than eleven seconds. You and Noriko go ahead. I’ll keep Kazuo there.”
Shogo glanced at Shuya. That was all. He understood.
“At the place we were, Shuya. The place where we talked about rock,” Shogo said quickly. He gave Shuya his shotgun and retreated into a ducking position. He moved around over to Noriko.
Shuya took a deep breath and shot three times into the tractor with the shotgun, prompting Shogo to lift Noriko and run in the direction they’d come from. Noriko’s eyes flashed by Shuya’s for a moment.
Kazuo’s upper body appeared from behind the tractor. Shuya fired his shotgun several times. Kazuo, who had his gun pointed at Shogo and Noriko, ducked. Shuya realized he was out of shotgun shells so he picked up the Smith & Wesson instead and began shooting again. He immediately used up five bullets. He opened the SIG-Sauer and loaded the extra magazine Noriko had loaded with bullets and began shooting again. It was crucial he keep on shooting.
He saw Shogo and Noriko disappear into the mountain.
The SIG-Sauer was empty, and there were no more extra magazines. He could only reload bullets….
But then this time Kazuo’s arm appeared from behind the tractor’s blade. The Ingram machine gun rattled away. Just like before. Kazuo was running towards him.
Shuya had to get out of this gunfight. He held onto only the empty SIG-Sauer (he still had seven more individual 9mm Short bullets), turned around, and ran. If he could reach the mountain where there was plenty of cover, Kazuo wouldn’t be able to get too close to him. Shuya decided to head east. Noriko and Shogo would be headed west to get where they were yesterday. He wanted to lead Kazuo as far away from them as he could.
It all came down to his sprinting speed. He had to get as far away from Kazuo as possible in a short span of time. A machine gun basically offered a shower of bullets so it was impossible to dodge at a close distance. What mattered was how far he could get.
Shuya ran. As the fastest runner in the class (at least he thought so. He was even a fraction of a second faster than Shinji Mimura, unless, that is, if Kazuo wasn’t really trying during his test), he could only rely on his speed.
When he thought he was five meters away from a tree he heard a rattling sound. He felt a severe blow against the left side of his stomach.
Shuya groaned as he began losing his balance, but he kept on running. He ran into a row of tall trees and made his way up the slope. The rattling resumed and this time his left arm reflexively flinched up. He realized he’d been shot right above his elbow.
But he still ran. He continued east—hey, yo, that’s a forbidden zone—and moved north. More rattling. A thin tree to his right crackled and burst into matchstick-sized splinters.
More rattling. This time he wasn’t hit. Or maybe he was. He couldn’t tell anymore. He only knew he was being chased. At least he was buying time for Noriko and Shogo.
He made his way through the trees and vegetation, climbed a hill, and then descended it. He couldn’t even afford to worry that there might be someone else hiding in the dark, waiting to attack him. He had no idea how far he’d gotten. He wasn’t even sure which direction he was running. Sometimes it seemed like he could hear—sometimes it seemed like he couldn’t—the rattling sound. He couldn’t tell maybe because his hearing had been impaired by that explosion. In any case now was not the time to be relieved. Farther. He had to get farther.
Suddenly Shuya slipped. He’d somehow reached a cliff, and all of a sudden realized that the slope just dropped off. Just as he’d done when fighting Tatsumichi Oki, he tumbled down the steep slope.
He landed with a thud. He was no longer holding the SIG-Sauer. And as he tried to stand up he realized he couldn’t. He wondered, in a daze, am I delirious from blood loss? Did I hit my head?
Impossible. I’m not injured so badly I can’t stand up… I have to get back to Noriko and Shogo… I have to protect Noriko, I promised Noriko…
As he tried to get up, though, he fell forward and lost consciousness.
51
It was almost pitch dark, but beside the dimly moonlit window Shinji tossed the item in his hand once again onto the floor. The sound of it hitting the floor was muffled by the thick folded blanket, but there was a popping sound along with a ring.
Shinji immediately picked it up off the floor and then tucked the small plastic item inside the blanket. The sound stopped.
“Come on, let’s go,” Yutaka said. He’d been watching over Shinji, but Shinji signaled him to calm down. He repeated the test again.
Pop, zing. It made the same sounds. Shinji picked it up, and it stopped.
Was it all right? But if this malfunctioned, then all the careful preparations they’d made would come to nothing. One more try—
“We have to hurry” Yutaka said again, and Shinji’s face was about to flush with anger—but he managed to suppress it. Although he wasn’t entirely satisfied he said, “All right,” and concluded his test. He unhooked the lead wire connecting the battery and mini-motor which was used for the test and began peeling off the plastic tape attaching the motor unit to the battery.
Shinji and Yutaka were back at the “Northern Takamatsu Agricultural Cooperative Association, Okishima Island Branch.”
Along with the school and harbor fishery coop, it might have been one of the largest buildings on the island. The space, unlit of course and enveloped in darkness, was the size of a basketball court, and there was farming equipment strewn all over the area, including a tractor and combine harvester. There was also a light truck with a missing wheel lifted on a jack, probably to be repaired. Then in the corner were piles of sacks of various kinds of fertilizer. (And hazardous ammonium nitrate was further beyond them, stored in a large cabinet with a provisional lock that Shinji had busted open.) The slate walls were at least five meters high, and there was an upper floor attached along the north wall where more fertilizer, insecticide, and other supplies had been stored. On the opposite, or east, wall was a steel staircase diagonally descending from the second floor, and underneath the stairs was a large sliding warehouse door. Next to this sliding door, in front of the stairs in the southeast corner, was an officelike space made up of partition walls. Beyond its open door he could make out office equipment, including the outlines of a desk and fax machine.