Battle Royale

When they heard the two distant shots, Yutaka cringed. Shinji stopped typing on the keyboard.

"Hey—"

Shinji nodded. "Another gunshot."

He quickly returned to his computer, though. It seemed harsh, but he couldn't afford to be concerned with others.

Yutaka looked down at Shinji's fingers. He was holding the Beretta. Shinji had handed it to his towel-bandaged hand and requested he keep watch.

"Hey, Shinji. What are you trying to find on that laptop? Won't you tell me now?" After Shinji had booted up the communications software and dialed up with the cellular phone, he kept typing away at that keyboard, only occasionally exclaiming "Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!" or "Oh damn, oh yeah, right," without giving Yutaka a single explanation.

"Hold on a sec. I'm almost there."

Shinji was typing again. At the center of the gray screen, English sentences interspersed with "%" and "#" characters streamed by. Shinji seemed to be responding to them.

"All right."

Shinji stopped typing after the requested data began to download. The basic operation was Unix, but he'd set up a separate graphics window to indicate the download status in Mac format. Shinji stretched his arms over his head. Now he'd just have to wait for the download to be completed (of course once it was he'd have to rewrite the log entry to erase all traces of his operation). Then he had to come up with a strategy based on the data he received. He'd either have to rewrite the data or come up with his own program to deceive his opponents. The latter would be a hassle, but he probably wouldn't need more than half a day to do the job.

"Shinji, tell me what's going on," Yutaka insisted. Shinji smiled, moved back from the laptop, and leaned against the tree again. He had to admit, this was exciting. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. It was only natural, though. Although he wasn't sure when he told Yutaka, "It's a PowerBook 150," now he was certain— they were going to win.

He spoke slowly, "I've been trying to figure out how to escape." Yutaka nodded.

"And so..." Shinji pointed to his neck. He himself couldn't see it, but he assumed Yutaka could see the silver collar wrapped around his neck, the same one Yutaka had on his neck. "The first thing I wanted was to get rid of this. This is giving our positions away to that bastard Sakamochi. For example, the fact that we're together. Thanks to this device, even if we try to escape, they'll locate us, or worse yet, they can just send a signal to blow up the collars and kill us. So I needed to figure out how to get rid of this collar."

Shinji opened up his hand. Then he shrugged. "But I gave up. You can't pry it loose without knowing how it's built. Sakamochi said it would explode if you took it apart, and I doubt he was bluffing. The outer casing must be loaded with a fuse wire for the device. It's probably set to ignite once you cut it. It's too dangerous to cross that bridge. I thought of inserting a metal plate inside the band, but it would be too thin to protect my neck from being blown to bits." Yutaka nodded again.

"That's how I came up with the idea of controlling the school computer that's tracking us and controlling the ignition signal. Get it?"

It was of course his uncle who'd taught him the basics of computer programming, but ever since his death Shinji was as passionate about improving his skills on his uncle's computer as he was about basketball. As a result he became extremely adept. He learned how to tap into an international line that was strictly prohibited by the government and obtain even higher levels of computer skills and new information on the entire world through the real internet. (What the nation called "the internet" was really a joke, a closed net referred to as "Greater East Asia Net.") While he might not be executed for these actions, they were illegal enough to send him away for a two-year stint at a juvenile prison for ideological offenses. That was how he acquired the skill to escape detection. Of course he never told anyone about it, but he'd shown some websites to Yutaka (mostly pornographic ones, come on, gimme a break). In short, Shinji was good at computer hacking.

"I looked for a personal computer. I already had a cell. I guess you're allowed to keep your stuff in this stupid game. I should have brought my notes, but I can't complain, since I found this laptop. Now all I needed was electricity. I yanked that battery out of a car. I had to adjust the voltage, but that was pretty easy."

As Shinji explained, Yutaka finally began to grasp how the PowerBook and cell phone functioned together. But then a thought suddenly occurred to him and he said, "Hey, but didn't Sakamochi say we couldn't use phones? So cell phones are an exception?"