![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kashiwritesChapter 9
Chapter 10
Toshi was gone from the gazebo by the time Miaki got there. It had taken a few minutes to locate the terminal his cousin had entered the system through, because he’d either forgotten or deliberately neglected to take his indicator with him before he’d logged on. The indicators worked both inside the system and to some degree in real life, but it was obvious immediately that Toshi’s ear ring was still in his room. So Miaki had done no more than throw on a tee-shirt and an old pair of shorts and then peek into Toshi’s room to make sure, and then he ran, from VR room to VR room, searching.
He met Julie and Kenji in one of the rooms, and they came with him for the rest of the search. It was Kenji who suggested they look in the less-used rooms first, and this cut a lot of time from the hunt. It wasn’t long before they came upon Toshi, in full equipment, sitting silent and still at his terminal.
“Damn,” Miaki muttered, grabbing the goggles at the next terminal. “I should have guessed he’d try this tonight, after he told me – but never mind. Kenji, can you message Jin to get the doctor here, before you follow us in? There’s more going on with Toshi than we knew about. He might need some kind of help after he logs off.”
He would have wanted someone to send Jin the message anyway, but he thought it wiser to have Kenji lagging behind a bit just now. If Toshi had reached some kind of crisis, it was just possible that there was another layer to the virus problem, and knowing that the first infection had been designed to trigger at Kenji’s presence...well, it was probably safer not to risk that he was the trigger for any further developments.
Miaki, too, could be a possible trigger, and he was well aware of that. As he and Julie popped onto the path heading to the gazebo, he said, “You’d better take the lead, Jules. I don’t think I should get too close, and I don’t dare touch him.”
“Got it,” she nodded, then smiled a little. “You know...that’s the first time you’ve called me ‘Jules’.”
“Is it? I guess I don’t usually do that, do I?”
“No. That’s usually...well, Toshi’s nickname for me.” She touched his arm, a little awkwardly, but then turned briskly back to the problem at hand. “Okay, so we know he doesn’t have his indicator with him. We’ll have to search for him by other means.”
“What sort of means do you have in mind?” Miaki wondered.
“Well, it might depend on whether he’s fighting the effects of the virus, or giving in to it. Got any theories about that?”
Miaki considered this for a moment. “He’s been fighting pretty hard the last three days, so there’s that. On the other hand...he was exhausted from it, when I visited him earlier. He had to tell me to leave, because the virus was making him hate the sight of me there. And he threw something at the door just after I got out. So it’s possible he was cracking right then. Dammit – I should have gotten the doctor or something right then – I should have realized – “
“Miaki, stop it!” Julie rebuked him sharply. “Don’t spiral into self-blame now. It won’t do any good, and I need your analytical brain, not your emotional brain. So quit it.”
He closed his eyes and held himself still, until he was able to look at her and nod. “Right. Sorry. So...he might have been cracking, but since he was able to warn me and hold back till I left, he might just have been allowing himself to vent a little. And yet, the fact that he came inside, into the network, when he knew he shouldn’t – that suggests that that might have been the moment he started to crack. He might have resisted at first, even after he got in here, but...I don’t think he’d have been able to maintain control for very long. He...he was so exhausted, Julie...” Again his control threatened to falter, and he stopped speaking.
“Okay, then. It’s only been a few minutes, but it’s probably safest to assume that he’s at least begun to lose control of himself, even if he’s not all the way gone. He may still have some fight in him, but it’s weak, and probably won’t last. Which means,” Julie frowned, calling up a ring of holoscreens around her, “that we start looking for trails of mayhem.”
“For what?” Miaki burst out.
“Think about it. Look what he did to the water controls. And to Akio. He was playing pranks. That’s probably going to escalate.”
“I see, yes, of course you’re right. And since the virus is directing him to – “ Miaki hesitated, remembering what Toshi had said about the virus’s utimate goal. No – he couldn’t tell that to Julie, yet. He couldn’t bear it. “Since it’s directing him to make mischief against me especially...” He called up his own holoscreens and began to work quickly, frowning. “I’d better protect all my own systems, fast. He could try to kick me out of the system the same way he did Akio. And probably worse than that.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, let’s do that first. Can I help?”
“Yes. I’ll password protect all over the place, but he’ll probably be able to guess any password I come up with. Can you give me some, to throw him a little, as we go along? And I’d really appreciate if you could help me devise some security measures too.”
At that moment, Kenji joined the other two in the gazebo, and Julie cried, “Our other security expert! Right on cue. Have we got a job for you!”
Miaki worked hard to ignore his personal increasing agitation, as they worked as quickly as possible through every aspect of his network information (login, settings, records of every sort, even the password into his bedroom and his retina scan). He wanted more than anything just to get on with finding Toshi and dragging him out of the network, but he knew that this task had to be done first. He’d be totally useless if he couldn’t even log on, wouldn’t he? But the knowledge that Toshi’s condition was getting worse and worse, the longer it took to find him, ate at the back of his mind and kept distracting him.
Thank goodness for Julie, who wasn’t going to let anything slow them down. And Kenji’s security creations were always a marvel to behold. Between the two of them, if Toshi thought he was going to infiltrate and play with Miaki’s personal information, well, it would probably take a miracle.
Jin came into the picture partway through the exercise, and quickly let them know that Chika was staying out of the VR system for now, so she could interface between the doctor and the four of them. The doctor had arrived to keep an eye on Toshi’s physical condition outside, and Mr. Woon was on his way. Professors Ito and Kubayashi would be along shortly as well.
She scanned what the others had done so far, and discovered a couple of “back doors” that Toshi still might have been able to get through if he found them. Kenji and Julie quickly dealt with those.
At one point, Miaki grumbled, “Now I feel like I’m living in a fortress.”
“Well, we are,” Julie said sensibly, “when you think of how secure ISCE is from outside influences. But I know what you mean.”
“As long as it doesn’t restrict you yourself from moving around in the system,” Jin added, “it shouldn’t be too bad. The ‘fortress’ feeling is mainly psychological.” She paused a moment, frowning. “I wonder,” she murmured, and seemed to sink into thought.
“I think we’re done setting up all the protections you need,” Julie said in the meantime. “Now we should start looking for signs of Toshi.”
“Wait,” Jin interrupted. “It just occurred to me...if Toshi wants to create problems for Miaki, but he’s blocked in every way...you know he’s going to try something else that will bother Miaki even more, probably, than direct attacks. If the virus is pushing him to get at Miaki, he’s not going to be able to let up. He’s going to move from direct to indirect.”
“Such as what?” Julie wondered.
Miaki understood immediately, and blurted, “You. All of you. That’s who he’ll go after next. I should have thought of it, but Jin’s right. Now that I’m protected – all of you are vulnerable instead.”
“Damn,” Julie said. “Of course that’s what he’ll do. This is getting more and more complicated.”
“Well,” Kenji said, “complicated or not, we have to do something about it.” He was already recreating patches and programs similar to what he’d devised for Miaki’s protection. “And we start with you, Jin, because you’re who Toshi will go after next.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she shook her head uncomfortably. “I think he’s more likely to go after one of you, since it’s you two who are creating the blocks against him. If he can get both of you, the rest of us will be much more vulnerable.”
Julie gave her a very pointed look. “If he’s under the influence of the virus, he won’t be thinking like that, even if it’s more logical. He’ll be thinking more emotionally. And he’ll know – if he wants to hit Miaki with a painful blow right away – he’ll hurt you. So you’re first, period.”
“Jin.” Miaki drew her attention with a light touch on her arm. “Julie’s right. Toshi knows. He’ll hit you first. He knows.”
They stared at each other in brief silence, until Jin lowered her eyes and nodded. “All right,” she murmured.
“And we have to do it now, quickly,” Kenji added, his eyes never leaving the holoscreens. “I think it’ll take him a few minutes to think of this, especially if he spent any time trying to fight the virus when he first got in. This is our only chance.”
Since they had done it once already for Miaki, it took much less time to apply the same protections to Jin. Then there was a very brief argument between Julie and Kenji, about which of them should be protected first, each one urging for the other’s protection. Finally Miaki stepped in, interjecting tersely, “I’ll just be arbitrarily sexist here and say ladies first. Kenji, get started. Julie – shut up.”
It didn’t take long anyway, so it might not have mattered all that much. Soon, both Kenji and Julie were protected, and then Chika, and finally the two professors, Ito and Kobayashi.
“And now,” Julie announced, heaving a sigh of relief, “we can get looking for Toshi.”
Again Kenji was working busily on a holoscreen. “I attached a log to your protections, Miaki,” he said. “I put it there right at the beginning. It should show if you’ve had any probes or outright attacks in the last few minutes.”
He sent the location to Miaki, who opened it up for a look. “Damn,” Miaki said in disbelief. “He’s already tried to probe my personal settings four times.”
“And mine twice,” Jin added.
The others hadn’t been probed yet, but obviously it was coming. The four of them stared at each other in aghast silence, until Julie let out a long breath. “Wow,” she said. “Got in just under the wire, didn’t we?”
“Kenji – thank you!” Miaki said fervently. “In fact, thanks to all of you. Toshi and I are both going to owe you a lot, when all this is over.”
Kenji smiled a bit shyly, then returned yet again to his holoscreens. “You’ll also see,” he commented, “that we can backtrack the probe to get close to his location, at least at the time he made the probe or the attack. He might reroute later if he notices we’re figuring out where he is, and that’ll complicate things. But if we can go after him quickly right now, we might catch him.”
Miaki smiled. “Kenji, you’re a genius.”
“I’ll say he is,” Julie agreed. “That’s my boy.” Then she laughed as he ducked his head, embarrassed.
“Right, then,” Miaki said, smile fading. “Let’s go find him.”
Julie and Kenji took the lead, getting the readings from the logs. Already Jin’s security had been tested one more time, and Julie’s almost immediately afterward. Jin kept a running message stream going outside to Chika, who sat ready to log in if she was needed, and Chika messaged back with intermittent suggestions from Ito and Kobayashi, who were now also on the scene in the VR room.
Toshi’s physical body, Chika reported, was suffering no worse ill effects than the slight fever he had already been experiencing. The doctor would send word if anything changed in that respect.
After a moment or two of analysis, Miaki said, “I think I know where he is. I think he’s somewhere around the simulations folder.”
“That makes sense,” Jin nodded. “He’s most familiar with that area.”
It only took another moment or two until they were there; the gazebo entrance had originally been designed as their entrance into the simulations, after all, so it had all the shortcuts built in. But instead of stepping into a specific simulation, as they usually had before, they just went into the main folder itself. They found themselves in the graphic representation of a fast-food restaurant.
“What the – ?” Miaki looked around in bewilderment. The main folder last year had looked like a doctor’s waiting room, with examination room doors leading from it.
Julie laughed. “Someone told me they changed it every year, but I haven’t come in by this route so far this year, so I hadn’t seen this yet.” She shook her head. “Someone around here sure enjoys himself, getting ready for the next school term.”
“So, what have we got on the menu?” Jin wondered, stepping up to the food bar. The serving area was divided into several sections, with each offering in each section labelled with the appropriate file name. All one had to do was point to the serving one desired, and it would open up and the scene would change. She could see the eight quarantined simulations, the ones containing the virus nodes, off in their own little section to the side. It had been labelled “Food Poisoning.”
“The question now,” Julie mused, looking over the choices at Jin’s side, “is whether we can narrow this down enough to save ourselves some time, or whether we’re going to have to jump into every separate simulation to see if we can find Toshi.”
Maiki’s taut voice came from behind her. “Never mind,” he said. “We don’t have to look at all.”
The young women turned quickly, to see Toshi himself sitting at a small table in the restaurant, a plate of food in front of him (with a small label on it: “constellations”). He definitely hadn’t been there when they’d first arrived, so he could only have popped into the main folder in the last few seconds.
“Well,” he said, smiling brightly, “you finally got here. I decided to start without you. Sorry.”
“Well, hi there, Tosh,” Julie said, stepping closer to the table and smiling back. “We’d have gotten here sooner, but we weren’t sure where you were. Have you been waiting long?”
“You know exactly how long I’ve been here,” he retorted, his eyes glittering with humorous malice. “And you’d have been here sooner, but I know you’ve been very busy with other things.” He raised an eyebrow at Miaki, who had fallen back behind the other three. “All covered in armour, I see. And hiding behind your pals, here.”
“Well,” Miaki shrugged, “I know you’re not crazy about my being very close to you. So I thought I’d keep my distance.”
“Coward,” Toshi sneered.
“What I’m wondering,” Julie said, drawing his attention again, “is why you came in here again.”
“Maybe I like it in here.”
“You do remember what happened to Akio, right?”
He hesitated uncomfortably. “Yes, I...yeah, I do.” He shifted in his chair. “Maybe you’ve noticed I’m nowhere near the firewall?”
“Do you think you’ll be able to keep yourself under enough control, then? Enough not to repeat something like that? I’d hate to see you have to face that again. It hurt to see how shaken up you were last time.”
Good, thought Miaki. She’s being empathetic. That has to reach him. Best that I just keep my mouth shut. He even wondered, momentarily, if he should log out and leave this to his friends. But...no. He just couldn’t.
“I...I don’t....want to do that,” Toshi said, staring fixedly into the plate of food on the table before him. “What happened to Akio. I...I won’t do it again. I...don’t want to...”
“I know what you mean,” Julie nodded. She stepped a little closer and then, finally, slipped gingerly into the seat across the table from him. “It was pretty scary, wasn’t it?”
Toshi averted his face. “Is he still...all right?”
“He’s fine, Tosh, don’t worry. No lasting damage. Though I wish,” she added with a droll smile, “maybe the jolt had toned down that blue hair, just a bit.”
His lips curled up slightly. “Well...I could arrange for a repeat performance if you really want it.” At the long, uncertain pause which followed this statement, he glanced quickly up at her, then grimaced and looked down again. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Miaki and Jin shared a hopeful look. Julie’s soft approach seemed to be working, and keeping the hostility down. Kenji didn’t move, but remained utterly still, watching Julie intently.
She went on quietly, “We’re all working as hard as we can, to get rid of this virus once and for all. I hope you know that, my dear. I know it’s hard, while all you can do is wait for us. I guess it must seem like we’re taking a long time.”
His hands twisted together on the table. “It’s all right, Julie,” he murmured. “I know you’re trying.”
“Do you think it was really a good idea,” she asked carefully, “to come into the network again?”
Again the curl of his lips, but this time there was a faintly bitter twist to the smile. “No,” he whispered. “It was stupid.”
“So there must have been a reason why you did?”
“I...I just couldn’t stand it,” Toshi said. “I – I needed it so bad, I couldn’t stand it any more. It felt like a drug – and I was in withdrawal – and I – I just couldn’t stand it.”
“Oh, Tosh. I’m so sorry.”
Miaki closed his eyes painfully, and felt Jin’s hand on his arm. He should have tried to get some help. He shouldn’t have left him alone.
“Yeah, well...” Toshi shrugged disspiritedly. “It’s kind of late now, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily,” Julie said. “At least that gives us a better idea what we’re up against. Maybe we can work faster now, you think? Because that gives us another clue about the virus, that we can put together with all the other clues. So maybe...maybe you can log out with us, and we’ll find the cure a lot...more...quickly...”
Her voice trailed away as she saw, disconcertingly, that his fists had clenched on the table, and he had begun to laugh.
“Oh Julie, Julie,” Toshi said, a tinge of despair tingeing the laughter. “It’s never going to happen. I wish it could, but – you’re never going to fix this. There’s just no way.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there’s one big clue that you’re missing – and it trumps everything else. You don’t have time to cure this thing, my pretty pal. It’s going to eat me alive before you ever get the chance!”
Forgetting caution, Miaki lurched forward, slapping his hands down on the table. He leaned over his cousin, demanding in his fear, “Why? Toshi, why? Tell me! What’s going on?”
Toshi leaned back, malice and despair fighting for dominance on his face. “I’m in here till the virus kills me – or I kill you. I could feel it almost right away. I can’t log out of the system. You hear, Miaki? I can’t log out!”
But he could jump to another location. And that was what he did, winking out of sight, leaving his cousin staring in horror at an empty chair.
Chapter 11
Chapter 10
Toshi was gone from the gazebo by the time Miaki got there. It had taken a few minutes to locate the terminal his cousin had entered the system through, because he’d either forgotten or deliberately neglected to take his indicator with him before he’d logged on. The indicators worked both inside the system and to some degree in real life, but it was obvious immediately that Toshi’s ear ring was still in his room. So Miaki had done no more than throw on a tee-shirt and an old pair of shorts and then peek into Toshi’s room to make sure, and then he ran, from VR room to VR room, searching.
He met Julie and Kenji in one of the rooms, and they came with him for the rest of the search. It was Kenji who suggested they look in the less-used rooms first, and this cut a lot of time from the hunt. It wasn’t long before they came upon Toshi, in full equipment, sitting silent and still at his terminal.
“Damn,” Miaki muttered, grabbing the goggles at the next terminal. “I should have guessed he’d try this tonight, after he told me – but never mind. Kenji, can you message Jin to get the doctor here, before you follow us in? There’s more going on with Toshi than we knew about. He might need some kind of help after he logs off.”
He would have wanted someone to send Jin the message anyway, but he thought it wiser to have Kenji lagging behind a bit just now. If Toshi had reached some kind of crisis, it was just possible that there was another layer to the virus problem, and knowing that the first infection had been designed to trigger at Kenji’s presence...well, it was probably safer not to risk that he was the trigger for any further developments.
Miaki, too, could be a possible trigger, and he was well aware of that. As he and Julie popped onto the path heading to the gazebo, he said, “You’d better take the lead, Jules. I don’t think I should get too close, and I don’t dare touch him.”
“Got it,” she nodded, then smiled a little. “You know...that’s the first time you’ve called me ‘Jules’.”
“Is it? I guess I don’t usually do that, do I?”
“No. That’s usually...well, Toshi’s nickname for me.” She touched his arm, a little awkwardly, but then turned briskly back to the problem at hand. “Okay, so we know he doesn’t have his indicator with him. We’ll have to search for him by other means.”
“What sort of means do you have in mind?” Miaki wondered.
“Well, it might depend on whether he’s fighting the effects of the virus, or giving in to it. Got any theories about that?”
Miaki considered this for a moment. “He’s been fighting pretty hard the last three days, so there’s that. On the other hand...he was exhausted from it, when I visited him earlier. He had to tell me to leave, because the virus was making him hate the sight of me there. And he threw something at the door just after I got out. So it’s possible he was cracking right then. Dammit – I should have gotten the doctor or something right then – I should have realized – “
“Miaki, stop it!” Julie rebuked him sharply. “Don’t spiral into self-blame now. It won’t do any good, and I need your analytical brain, not your emotional brain. So quit it.”
He closed his eyes and held himself still, until he was able to look at her and nod. “Right. Sorry. So...he might have been cracking, but since he was able to warn me and hold back till I left, he might just have been allowing himself to vent a little. And yet, the fact that he came inside, into the network, when he knew he shouldn’t – that suggests that that might have been the moment he started to crack. He might have resisted at first, even after he got in here, but...I don’t think he’d have been able to maintain control for very long. He...he was so exhausted, Julie...” Again his control threatened to falter, and he stopped speaking.
“Okay, then. It’s only been a few minutes, but it’s probably safest to assume that he’s at least begun to lose control of himself, even if he’s not all the way gone. He may still have some fight in him, but it’s weak, and probably won’t last. Which means,” Julie frowned, calling up a ring of holoscreens around her, “that we start looking for trails of mayhem.”
“For what?” Miaki burst out.
“Think about it. Look what he did to the water controls. And to Akio. He was playing pranks. That’s probably going to escalate.”
“I see, yes, of course you’re right. And since the virus is directing him to – “ Miaki hesitated, remembering what Toshi had said about the virus’s utimate goal. No – he couldn’t tell that to Julie, yet. He couldn’t bear it. “Since it’s directing him to make mischief against me especially...” He called up his own holoscreens and began to work quickly, frowning. “I’d better protect all my own systems, fast. He could try to kick me out of the system the same way he did Akio. And probably worse than that.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, let’s do that first. Can I help?”
“Yes. I’ll password protect all over the place, but he’ll probably be able to guess any password I come up with. Can you give me some, to throw him a little, as we go along? And I’d really appreciate if you could help me devise some security measures too.”
At that moment, Kenji joined the other two in the gazebo, and Julie cried, “Our other security expert! Right on cue. Have we got a job for you!”
Miaki worked hard to ignore his personal increasing agitation, as they worked as quickly as possible through every aspect of his network information (login, settings, records of every sort, even the password into his bedroom and his retina scan). He wanted more than anything just to get on with finding Toshi and dragging him out of the network, but he knew that this task had to be done first. He’d be totally useless if he couldn’t even log on, wouldn’t he? But the knowledge that Toshi’s condition was getting worse and worse, the longer it took to find him, ate at the back of his mind and kept distracting him.
Thank goodness for Julie, who wasn’t going to let anything slow them down. And Kenji’s security creations were always a marvel to behold. Between the two of them, if Toshi thought he was going to infiltrate and play with Miaki’s personal information, well, it would probably take a miracle.
Jin came into the picture partway through the exercise, and quickly let them know that Chika was staying out of the VR system for now, so she could interface between the doctor and the four of them. The doctor had arrived to keep an eye on Toshi’s physical condition outside, and Mr. Woon was on his way. Professors Ito and Kubayashi would be along shortly as well.
She scanned what the others had done so far, and discovered a couple of “back doors” that Toshi still might have been able to get through if he found them. Kenji and Julie quickly dealt with those.
At one point, Miaki grumbled, “Now I feel like I’m living in a fortress.”
“Well, we are,” Julie said sensibly, “when you think of how secure ISCE is from outside influences. But I know what you mean.”
“As long as it doesn’t restrict you yourself from moving around in the system,” Jin added, “it shouldn’t be too bad. The ‘fortress’ feeling is mainly psychological.” She paused a moment, frowning. “I wonder,” she murmured, and seemed to sink into thought.
“I think we’re done setting up all the protections you need,” Julie said in the meantime. “Now we should start looking for signs of Toshi.”
“Wait,” Jin interrupted. “It just occurred to me...if Toshi wants to create problems for Miaki, but he’s blocked in every way...you know he’s going to try something else that will bother Miaki even more, probably, than direct attacks. If the virus is pushing him to get at Miaki, he’s not going to be able to let up. He’s going to move from direct to indirect.”
“Such as what?” Julie wondered.
Miaki understood immediately, and blurted, “You. All of you. That’s who he’ll go after next. I should have thought of it, but Jin’s right. Now that I’m protected – all of you are vulnerable instead.”
“Damn,” Julie said. “Of course that’s what he’ll do. This is getting more and more complicated.”
“Well,” Kenji said, “complicated or not, we have to do something about it.” He was already recreating patches and programs similar to what he’d devised for Miaki’s protection. “And we start with you, Jin, because you’re who Toshi will go after next.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she shook her head uncomfortably. “I think he’s more likely to go after one of you, since it’s you two who are creating the blocks against him. If he can get both of you, the rest of us will be much more vulnerable.”
Julie gave her a very pointed look. “If he’s under the influence of the virus, he won’t be thinking like that, even if it’s more logical. He’ll be thinking more emotionally. And he’ll know – if he wants to hit Miaki with a painful blow right away – he’ll hurt you. So you’re first, period.”
“Jin.” Miaki drew her attention with a light touch on her arm. “Julie’s right. Toshi knows. He’ll hit you first. He knows.”
They stared at each other in brief silence, until Jin lowered her eyes and nodded. “All right,” she murmured.
“And we have to do it now, quickly,” Kenji added, his eyes never leaving the holoscreens. “I think it’ll take him a few minutes to think of this, especially if he spent any time trying to fight the virus when he first got in. This is our only chance.”
Since they had done it once already for Miaki, it took much less time to apply the same protections to Jin. Then there was a very brief argument between Julie and Kenji, about which of them should be protected first, each one urging for the other’s protection. Finally Miaki stepped in, interjecting tersely, “I’ll just be arbitrarily sexist here and say ladies first. Kenji, get started. Julie – shut up.”
It didn’t take long anyway, so it might not have mattered all that much. Soon, both Kenji and Julie were protected, and then Chika, and finally the two professors, Ito and Kobayashi.
“And now,” Julie announced, heaving a sigh of relief, “we can get looking for Toshi.”
Again Kenji was working busily on a holoscreen. “I attached a log to your protections, Miaki,” he said. “I put it there right at the beginning. It should show if you’ve had any probes or outright attacks in the last few minutes.”
He sent the location to Miaki, who opened it up for a look. “Damn,” Miaki said in disbelief. “He’s already tried to probe my personal settings four times.”
“And mine twice,” Jin added.
The others hadn’t been probed yet, but obviously it was coming. The four of them stared at each other in aghast silence, until Julie let out a long breath. “Wow,” she said. “Got in just under the wire, didn’t we?”
“Kenji – thank you!” Miaki said fervently. “In fact, thanks to all of you. Toshi and I are both going to owe you a lot, when all this is over.”
Kenji smiled a bit shyly, then returned yet again to his holoscreens. “You’ll also see,” he commented, “that we can backtrack the probe to get close to his location, at least at the time he made the probe or the attack. He might reroute later if he notices we’re figuring out where he is, and that’ll complicate things. But if we can go after him quickly right now, we might catch him.”
Miaki smiled. “Kenji, you’re a genius.”
“I’ll say he is,” Julie agreed. “That’s my boy.” Then she laughed as he ducked his head, embarrassed.
“Right, then,” Miaki said, smile fading. “Let’s go find him.”
Julie and Kenji took the lead, getting the readings from the logs. Already Jin’s security had been tested one more time, and Julie’s almost immediately afterward. Jin kept a running message stream going outside to Chika, who sat ready to log in if she was needed, and Chika messaged back with intermittent suggestions from Ito and Kobayashi, who were now also on the scene in the VR room.
Toshi’s physical body, Chika reported, was suffering no worse ill effects than the slight fever he had already been experiencing. The doctor would send word if anything changed in that respect.
After a moment or two of analysis, Miaki said, “I think I know where he is. I think he’s somewhere around the simulations folder.”
“That makes sense,” Jin nodded. “He’s most familiar with that area.”
It only took another moment or two until they were there; the gazebo entrance had originally been designed as their entrance into the simulations, after all, so it had all the shortcuts built in. But instead of stepping into a specific simulation, as they usually had before, they just went into the main folder itself. They found themselves in the graphic representation of a fast-food restaurant.
“What the – ?” Miaki looked around in bewilderment. The main folder last year had looked like a doctor’s waiting room, with examination room doors leading from it.
Julie laughed. “Someone told me they changed it every year, but I haven’t come in by this route so far this year, so I hadn’t seen this yet.” She shook her head. “Someone around here sure enjoys himself, getting ready for the next school term.”
“So, what have we got on the menu?” Jin wondered, stepping up to the food bar. The serving area was divided into several sections, with each offering in each section labelled with the appropriate file name. All one had to do was point to the serving one desired, and it would open up and the scene would change. She could see the eight quarantined simulations, the ones containing the virus nodes, off in their own little section to the side. It had been labelled “Food Poisoning.”
“The question now,” Julie mused, looking over the choices at Jin’s side, “is whether we can narrow this down enough to save ourselves some time, or whether we’re going to have to jump into every separate simulation to see if we can find Toshi.”
Maiki’s taut voice came from behind her. “Never mind,” he said. “We don’t have to look at all.”
The young women turned quickly, to see Toshi himself sitting at a small table in the restaurant, a plate of food in front of him (with a small label on it: “constellations”). He definitely hadn’t been there when they’d first arrived, so he could only have popped into the main folder in the last few seconds.
“Well,” he said, smiling brightly, “you finally got here. I decided to start without you. Sorry.”
“Well, hi there, Tosh,” Julie said, stepping closer to the table and smiling back. “We’d have gotten here sooner, but we weren’t sure where you were. Have you been waiting long?”
“You know exactly how long I’ve been here,” he retorted, his eyes glittering with humorous malice. “And you’d have been here sooner, but I know you’ve been very busy with other things.” He raised an eyebrow at Miaki, who had fallen back behind the other three. “All covered in armour, I see. And hiding behind your pals, here.”
“Well,” Miaki shrugged, “I know you’re not crazy about my being very close to you. So I thought I’d keep my distance.”
“Coward,” Toshi sneered.
“What I’m wondering,” Julie said, drawing his attention again, “is why you came in here again.”
“Maybe I like it in here.”
“You do remember what happened to Akio, right?”
He hesitated uncomfortably. “Yes, I...yeah, I do.” He shifted in his chair. “Maybe you’ve noticed I’m nowhere near the firewall?”
“Do you think you’ll be able to keep yourself under enough control, then? Enough not to repeat something like that? I’d hate to see you have to face that again. It hurt to see how shaken up you were last time.”
Good, thought Miaki. She’s being empathetic. That has to reach him. Best that I just keep my mouth shut. He even wondered, momentarily, if he should log out and leave this to his friends. But...no. He just couldn’t.
“I...I don’t....want to do that,” Toshi said, staring fixedly into the plate of food on the table before him. “What happened to Akio. I...I won’t do it again. I...don’t want to...”
“I know what you mean,” Julie nodded. She stepped a little closer and then, finally, slipped gingerly into the seat across the table from him. “It was pretty scary, wasn’t it?”
Toshi averted his face. “Is he still...all right?”
“He’s fine, Tosh, don’t worry. No lasting damage. Though I wish,” she added with a droll smile, “maybe the jolt had toned down that blue hair, just a bit.”
His lips curled up slightly. “Well...I could arrange for a repeat performance if you really want it.” At the long, uncertain pause which followed this statement, he glanced quickly up at her, then grimaced and looked down again. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Miaki and Jin shared a hopeful look. Julie’s soft approach seemed to be working, and keeping the hostility down. Kenji didn’t move, but remained utterly still, watching Julie intently.
She went on quietly, “We’re all working as hard as we can, to get rid of this virus once and for all. I hope you know that, my dear. I know it’s hard, while all you can do is wait for us. I guess it must seem like we’re taking a long time.”
His hands twisted together on the table. “It’s all right, Julie,” he murmured. “I know you’re trying.”
“Do you think it was really a good idea,” she asked carefully, “to come into the network again?”
Again the curl of his lips, but this time there was a faintly bitter twist to the smile. “No,” he whispered. “It was stupid.”
“So there must have been a reason why you did?”
“I...I just couldn’t stand it,” Toshi said. “I – I needed it so bad, I couldn’t stand it any more. It felt like a drug – and I was in withdrawal – and I – I just couldn’t stand it.”
“Oh, Tosh. I’m so sorry.”
Miaki closed his eyes painfully, and felt Jin’s hand on his arm. He should have tried to get some help. He shouldn’t have left him alone.
“Yeah, well...” Toshi shrugged disspiritedly. “It’s kind of late now, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily,” Julie said. “At least that gives us a better idea what we’re up against. Maybe we can work faster now, you think? Because that gives us another clue about the virus, that we can put together with all the other clues. So maybe...maybe you can log out with us, and we’ll find the cure a lot...more...quickly...”
Her voice trailed away as she saw, disconcertingly, that his fists had clenched on the table, and he had begun to laugh.
“Oh Julie, Julie,” Toshi said, a tinge of despair tingeing the laughter. “It’s never going to happen. I wish it could, but – you’re never going to fix this. There’s just no way.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there’s one big clue that you’re missing – and it trumps everything else. You don’t have time to cure this thing, my pretty pal. It’s going to eat me alive before you ever get the chance!”
Forgetting caution, Miaki lurched forward, slapping his hands down on the table. He leaned over his cousin, demanding in his fear, “Why? Toshi, why? Tell me! What’s going on?”
Toshi leaned back, malice and despair fighting for dominance on his face. “I’m in here till the virus kills me – or I kill you. I could feel it almost right away. I can’t log out of the system. You hear, Miaki? I can’t log out!”
But he could jump to another location. And that was what he did, winking out of sight, leaving his cousin staring in horror at an empty chair.
Chapter 11
