Battle Royale (33 page)

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 ll saw. Get gas from cars. Fertilizer and rope? ll 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

44

On the southern side of the northern mountain, a boy sat
on
a spot on a slope covered with thick vegetation. He was looking at himself with a mirror he held in his left hand, neatly arranging his pompadour with the comb in his right. Ever since the game began he might have been the only student in class, including the girls, who felt like he could afford to take good care of his hair. But that was only natural. Although he had a thuggish-looking face, he paid an inordinate amount of attention to his personal appearance, and although no one knew exactly why, this boy was known, or no, had been known until now as "Zulu," he was in any case…

Queer.

As for his location, he was at a horizontal distance directly two hundred meters west of where Shinji Mimura and Yutaka Seto were hiding. He was also approximately six hundred meters northwest of the medical facility where Shuya's trio was. In other words, he was right above the farmhouse where Shuya Nanahara had witnessed Kaori Minami get shot by Hirono Shimizu. If he looked up he would have had a clear view of the platform where the bodies of Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano were still lying, bathed in the light of the setting sun.

This student arranging his hair had seen the corpses of Yumiko Kusaka, Yukiko Kitano, as well as that of Kaori Minami. He had actually seen more. Kaori Minami's was the seventh corpse he'd seen.

Ugh, yuck. Leaves stuck in my hair again! Every time I lie down, this happens.

With the pinky of his right hand, the boy brushed the blade of grass from his hair and then looked beyond his own face in the mirror to the woods approximately twenty meters below him.

Ka. Zu. O. Are you asleep?

The boy's thick lips twisted into a smile.

Aren't you being careless? Well, even you could probably never guess that after you'd failed to kill me I'd be following you.

Yes, this queer boy who was holding a mirror and comb was the only member of the "Kiriyama family"

who'd escaped Kazuo's massacre by not showing up at the assigned meeting place. And now he, Sho Tsukioka (Male Student No. 14), was the only surviving member of the Kiriyama family. In the shrubbery was Kazuo Kiriyama himself, who'd already finished off six students. For the last two hours Kazuo had remained still, though.

Sho looked back at himself in the mirror, this time checking his complexion as he recalled how Mitsuru would always warn him against referring to Kazuo as "Kazuo-kun." Mitsuru would say something like,

"Hey Sho, you have to call the boss, boss." But even bold Mitsuru seemed to have a hard time with a

"feminine guy," so as soon as Sho would respond with a casual sidelong glance, saying, "Oh, give me a break. Don't be so picky, it's not very manly," and Mitsuru would just grimace, mumbling and letting it go at that.

Call him boss, huh? Sho thought as he looked over each of his eyes in the mirror. But you ended up getting killed by that so-called boss. You're a fool.

It was true. Sho Tsukioka had been more cautious than Mitsuru. It wasn't as if he had a clear sense of Kazuo the way Mitsuru had imagined right before his death, but Sho had always held the basic belief that betrayals happen all the time. That's how the world is. One could say that, compared to Mitsuru, who was just a good fighter, Sho, who'd seen more of the adult world as a result of going in and out of the gay bar his father ran ever since he was a kid, was more sophisticated.

Instead of heading straight to the southern tip of the island, as Kazuo had requested, Sho moved inward from the coast, weaving his way through the woods. This ended up being a hassle, but it probably only cost him ten more minutes.

He ended up seeing it all from the woods along the beach. Three bodies, two wearing coats and one in her sailor suit, sprawled on the rock stretching out into the ocean across the beach. There was Kazuo Kiriyama, standing quietly in the crevice of the rock, hidden in shadows from the moonlight.

Mitsuru Numai appeared almost immediately. After a brief exchange, he was pummeled by machine gun bullets and left on the rock that was drenched with blood now (its stench even reached Sho)....