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kashiwritesChapter 10
Chapter 11
They made him log out.
Miaki was already opening his security log, hoping against hope that some clue would appear to help him trace where Toshi might have gone, but Jin grabbed his arm and Julie leapt up from the restaurant table.
“No, Miaki, not now,” she said sternly. “We’re all going to log out. Come on.”
“No!” he cried. “I have to go after him!”
“Not right now,” she repeated. “We have to go outside and regroup.”
“Come on, Miaki,” Jin urged, her hand still on his arm. “She’s right. We have to think about this.”
Seeing that even Kenji was ready to try to block his progress through the system, Miaki had finally wrenched himself offline. He was barely conscious of his own body again before he was on his feet, flinging his goggles into the corner of his terminal cubicle, and ripping off his gloves.
“Why did you do that?” he yelled as the others came back to the real world with rather more control. “Why did you make me log off?? He was right there! We were so close! We could have done something!”
“No we couldn’t,” Jin said calmly. “If he can’t log off, there was nothing we could do to help him at that moment.”
“So we’re just going to leave him there??” Miaki demanded raggedly.
“Oh, calm down for a minute and think,” Julie retorted. “If we can’t log him off, all you’d do by chasing him around would be to make him more and more agitated and angry. Which is just what the virus wants.”
“We have to create a new strategy,” Jin added, “and find a way to enable him to log off. We can’t do that by running around after him, Miaki. You must see that.”
Kenji, leaving the others to their argument, had immediately moved to join the doctor, Chika, Mr. Woon, and the two professors hovering around Toshi’s real-world body. “How is he?” the young man asked quietly.
“Holding steady,” answered the doctor. “But I’ll need some way to disconnect him from this terminal and get him to sick bay – “
“No!” It was almost a scream. Miaki lunged to Toshi’s side and interposed himself between his cousin and the doctor. He faced all the school officials, desperation all over his dangerously white face. “You – you can’t disconnect him. You’ll kill him! You can’t cut him off while he’s still in there or – or he’ll die! I won’t let you do it!”
His panic was beginning to escalate into hysteria. Jin sidled in beside him and took one of his hands in both of hers. “Hush, Miaki,” she said soothingly. “They’re not going to do it, I promise. He’ll be all right.”
“That’s right, son,” said Mr. Woon. He motioned the professors and the doctor aside, and joined Jin at his young student’s side, peering in concern through his thick glasses. “Do not fear. We all know that Toshi must not be disconnected from the system. Doctor Yamamoto knows that as well as the rest of us.”
“Then why – “ Miaki gasped wildly “ – why did he say – “
“All I meant,” said the doctor, “was that it will be much better if we can maintain his connection through the terminals in sick bay rather than in this room. If we can’t find a way to move him there, then we’ll bring as much equipment here from sick bay as we can manage.” When Miaki just stared at him, trembling, he repeated softly, “Do you understand what I’m saying? I won’t disconnect him. He’s not going to die.”
Jin saw it before anyone else. She turned around and quickly pulled his chair over, in time for him to collapse into it, head in hands. He was shaking very badly.
“I’ll get a blanket,” said professor Ito, and left the room.
“Perhaps I should give him something to help him sleep,” the doctor murmured to Mr. Woon.
They didn’t, Jin reflected, know Miaki Nakamura very well.
Already, taking several deep breaths to steady himself, he was subduing most of the shaking, and now he looked up, jaw set. He ignored the scrutiny of the school officials, instead putting a hand on his cousin’s arm and peering closely at Toshi, still sitting quietly in his chair with all his VR equipment on. Toshi looked like he was merely asleep, but there was a light sheen of sweat on his skin.
Miaki now focused on Chika, who had remained in her chair on Toshi’s other side. “All right,” he said. “So he can’t log out. That means we need to analyze the virus even more deeply. I suspected there might be deeper layers that could create more problems; I just didn’t guess right about what they might be. So our first job is to figure out what it is in the virus that has disengaged his ability to log out of the network.”
“We’re already pretty deep,” she nodded. “I think we’re close. Hopefully it won’t take long.”
“Good. Because the longer he stays in there, the worse he’s going to get. So we have to be as quick as possible.”
“Miaki,” the doctor chided, “you can get started on things like that tomorrow. Right now you need to – “
He broke off at the sight of the young man’s cold, hard eyes fixed on his face. Miaki said quietly, “I’ll start on this now, while everything’s fresh in my mind. I’m not wasting a minute.” His hand tightened on Toshi’s arm. “And I’m not just going to leave him. Not now.”
Everyone in the room knew how his father had died. Everyone understood his intensity, and the terrible fear that underlay it.
“Very well,” the doctor nodded reluctantly. “At least let me order you some breakfast.” He surveyed Miaki’s four friends and smiled ruefully. “Can I assume you’re all going to stay awake and help him with this? Nobody’s going to be sensible and go back to bed?”
Chika snorted. “Doctor Yamamoto – do you think any of us would be able to sleep anyway? We might as well be doing something to help, if we’re going to be awake.”
The doctor raised an eyebrow at Mr. Woon, who smiled and nodded. “We train them to be independent,” he remarked. “Come, Kobayashi. Let us find a cart, and make a food run to the dining hall. May I have everyone’s orders please?”
All of the friends placed an order, Mr. Woon studiously noting everything in his palm computer, but Miaki waved him away. “I’m not hungry,” he said.
Mr. Woon turned his chair around and leaned a hand on each of the arms, virtually forcing the young man to look at him. “You will eat,” said the man. “You will not help Toshi if you yourself collapse. Now. Tell me what to bring you.”
Not many people could stare Miaki down, but if there was anyone who could do it, it was Mr. Woon. Miaki lowered his eyes and muttered, “Okay, sorry,” and placed an order. Jin could have hugged Mr. Woon at that moment.
Woon and Kobayashi were barely at the door before Miaki had again dismissed them from his mind and returned to Toshi’s situation. “First,” he said crisply to Julie, “would it be possible to put his indicator ring on his finger and be able to find him inside the system again?”
She considered the question. “I’ll see what I can do. Normally the signal rides in on top of your login, so if you’re already logged in, it can’t piggyback because the opportunity is gone. But I’ll see if I can tweak a graft of some sort. Even then it might be weaker than usual, but it will be something.” She pulled out her wand, flipped open a little panel on the side, and began to play with the internal controls.
“Thanks,” Miaki nodded. “When you think you’ve got something, I’ll run to Toshi’s room and bring back the ring. Now. Next issue.”
And so it went, for the rest of the night. Miaki led the charge in the latest battle against the virus, calling on personnel and resources as the need arose. After Kobayashi had helped bring in the food, and Ito had brought in some blankets, the two professors joined in with the strategizing. The VR terminals could also be used in a merely computing capacity, so while the plotting students couldn’t go online, they could still accomplish almost everything they needed to. It just took a little longer than it would have if they were inside the system.
At one point, after Miaki and Chika had explained some of their analysis of the virus, and Kenji and Julie had then explained how that analysis interfaced with the login/logout process, and Jin had further explained how it might affect the pathways that could be used to travel through the network, she noticed Ito and Kobayashi exchanging a wide-eyed look.
She remarked with a little smile, “I guess we’re pretty used to this by now. Stop us if we get too absorbed.”
But rather than stopping the five of them, Ito and Kobayashi joined in as well as they could. Ito, in particular, had a lot to contribute with her deep knowledge of the structure of the network itself. Before the night was through, she had taught the students some very quick ways of devising shortcuts from one section to another, so that if they needed to head Toshi off somewhere, they’d be better able to do it. Kobayashi, the simulation developer, had some interesting theories on how the virus might be infiltrating Toshi’s login settings to prevent his logging off.
About two hours into their session, Julie interrupted, asking Miaki to go get his cousin’s ring. After they slipped it onto Toshi’s finger, Miaki was about to grab the VR goggles when Kenji pulled them away.
“Are you crazy?” he demanded. “You have to stay away from him as much as you can. I’ll go in and look.” He plopped himself down at a terminal, did a quick login, and after a couple of minutes, took himself out again. “Yes,” he nodded, “I could see where he was. He’s actually back in the main folder of the simulations, but it didn’t look as though he was trying to get into one. I didn’t go too close, but I think he was sleeping, actually.”
Doctor Yamamoto, who had remained in the room to monitor Toshi’s physical condition, nodded. “Even inside the system, I don’t think his brain could keep processing without occasional normal sleep breaks. I was hoping the virus wouldn’t keep him from sleeping. Things could get very bad if that was one of its effects.”
Chika mused, “Maybe we can use that to our advantage along the way. We might accomplish a few things while he’s asleep.”
Miaki paused in the midst of the frenzy of planning, and once again put a hand on his cousin’s arm, looking at Toshi’s still, almost serene face. “He almost looks peaceful, doesn’t he?”
But then the planning began again, and continued for several hours more. And as dawn approached at last, everyone began to yawn, and even Miaki started feeling the fatigue. Reluctantly, he agreed with the doctor that he’d have to sleep a little bit, and upon receiving assurances that nothing would be done to try to move Toshi to sick bay without his knowledge, he got up from his chair and stretched.
But before he headed for the door out of the VR room, he paused and looked at Mr. Woon. “I think,” he said, then took a breath as though to fortify himself. “I think you should get in touch with my aunt and uncle about this.”
“Yes,” Woon nodded. “I was going to, as soon as it was morning. Would you like to speak with them when I do?”
Miaki grimaced. “No. They’ll be on the next shuttle to the school. We’ll talk when they get here.” He turned to leave, and then hesitated again, facing the door. “She’s...going to blame me for this,” he muttered, and then left the room.
Jin wondered why he would think such a thing, after the way his aunt and uncle had taken care of him after his father died, but she saw what he meant the following afternoon, after they’d all gotten some sleep and then spent a few more hours plotting a strategy for going back into the system. As before, they were in the VR room, where part of their plotting involved trying to figure out how to get Toshi moved to sick bay. While the other students slept, he had been lifted from his chair and laid on a wheeled stretcher in front of the terminal. He now had several tubes attached to him, as well as sensors whose readings were reflected on the screens of some portable medical monitors that had been moved here from sick bay. His fever had grown a little worse during the night, but otherwise, he still seemed to be holding his own.
“Feeding tubes,” Doctor Yamamoto was muttering to a nurse as the five students and two professors stood around him, taking a break from their work. “We’ll need to bring a supply of them in so we don’t keep having to run back and forth.”
“Feeding tubes!” came a female voice from the door. “What is wrong with my son??”
A woman rushed in, small and blonde, pushing through the students to halt beside the stretcher. She was followed more slowly by a somewhat taller dark-haired man, who regarded the still form on the stretcher with stricken eyes. Behind the two of them came Mr. Woon.
“What is the matter with him?” the woman demanded again.
“Aunt Keiko,” Miaki said. “He’s caught a virus. We’re trying to cure him.”
She noticed him for the first time, whirling to peer into his face. “Hello, Miaki,” she said softly. “What’s happened? What sort of virus? Why isn’t he in sick bay? Why is he still wearing VR equipment if he’s sick?”
Everyone saw him hesitate, as her eyes widened in apprehension. “He’s...trapped in the network, Aunt Keiko,” Miaki said.
“No! Oh no! What can you mean? How can he be trapped there?”
“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “But we’re trying very hard to get him out.”
“’We’,” she repeated, finally registering the other students. “Miaki – these are the students from last year, aren’t they? The ones you and Toshi got into trouble with? What have you done? You promised it was all over – that you wouldn’t get involved in anything dangerous again! Did you do this? What have you done to him??”
“It wasn’t – I didn’t – “
Her husband slipped an arm around Miaki’s shoulders. “Keiko,” he chided, “I’m sure whatever happened was an accident.”
“Was it?” she demanded of her nephew. “Can you tell me this had nothing to do with you, or the troubles last year?”
“Well, I...that is...indirectly...”
“Oh Miaki!” Keiko burst into tears. “You promised you wouldn’t let anything like that happen again! How could you have let this happen?” She turned away from him and bent over Toshi’s unmoving form, a hand pressed to her mouth as the tears spilled down her cheeks.
Miaki pulled away from his uncle’s arm and sat down at a terminal, quickly slipping his feet into the boots and his hands into the gloves. Ignoring several people calling his name, he put on the VR goggles, and logged into the system.
Chapter 12
