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kashiwritesChapter 1
Chapter 2
After supper, they all met in Miaki’s room. It was the sort of conference they’d had so frequently before, and they fell easily into the same rhythms as last year. Toshi draped himself backwards on his cousin’s desk chair, Miaki sat cross-legged at one end of the bed, Chika sat on another corner of it, Kenji plopped himself on the floor, leaning back against the closet door, Jin occupied the visitor’s chair, and Julie stood leaning against the door of the room.
They had quickly decided, back in the dining hall, that perhaps they’d better temporarily drop the subject once Kenji had mentioned his worries about his father. For one thing, they didn’t want any of the other students to overhear them, and start hovering around the table, wide-eyed. (“They’re starting another adventure! Come on over and listen!”) But they also felt, somehow, perhaps irrationally, that issues stemming from last year’s doings were their private problem, for them to analyze and solve.
That was part of what ISCE was all about, when you thought of it: taking the most brilliant cyber- and astro-students in the world, and not only teaching them to excel even more at what they were already so good at, but also teaching them to think independently and most of all, think on their feet. It was by no means an automatic thing, that they’d turn to their teachers or the administration of the school (or even their own governments) when they had world-scale problems. Even last year, they’d only begun to broadcast all their findings to the broader world when it had become clear that the conspiracy was so vast that they couldn’t clear it up themselves.
And in fact, they’d grown more cautious and wary after what had happened last year. Two of ISCE’s own teachers had been in cahoots with Kazuo Tanaka, who was himself a government official. They were fairly confident that Mr. Woon had rooted all taint out of the school since then, and yet they remained cautious. Plus, Julie had reasoned, if this turned out to be a false alarm, there was no point in bothering Mr. Woon with it yet, sympathetic though he might be.
No...it was not at all an automatic thing, for them to consider asking anyone else for help. Not just yet.
“So,” Toshi said, taking charge. “Tell us what makes you worry about your father, Kenji.”
“You say it was more an attitude than what he actually said,” Chika put in. “What sort of attitude do you mean?”
Julie burst out, “And why did you go visit him in the first place? You have to know he’s only going to try to upset you.”
Kenji stared at his hands, elbows propped up on his knees, and shrugged uncomfortably.
Miaki supplied softly, his gaze never leaving the other student, “You just don’t walk out on your father, no matter what he’s done.” Kenji flashed him a glance, part unease and part gratitude, then returned to his contemplation of his hands.
“But that’s neither here nor there at this point,” Chika briskly returned them to the main point. “Now that he’s been there, he says he saw something worrisome. So what exactly do you believe you saw, Kenji?”
He bit his lip. “He kept talking about future plans...like he was going to be there, involved in them. Like – like he was on vacation for a while, but would soon be back.”
“Oh boy,” Toshi frowned. “You don’t suppose someone’s hoping to bust him out of jail or something?
Julie chewed a fingernail. “Who would be left, who could pull it off? The police of all the governments were pretty thorough, going through these guys’ records and finding their accomplices, weren’t they?”
Chika agreed, “They certainly got anyone with any clout at all. Anyone who could do the sort of cyber work we do. I’m sure there are some stragglers left, but they wouldn’t be of the same calibre, and couldn’t hack into the jail’s systems. Someone with those skills would have been found by now.”
“Unless,” Jin mused, “the conspiracy had kept some people in reserve, and only contacted them in person rather than electronically. Using paper records, maybe.”
The others stared at her as though she’d lost her mind, but Miaki smiled. “People used to do that all the time, you know,” he reminded them.
“You’re not going to tell me,” Julia exclaimed, “that there’s someone who’d be involved in that sort of conspiracy, but who lives their life entirely without the net, without email, without – “
“Of course not,” Jin said. “They wouldn’t have to live without the net world in their regular life – just in their contacts with other conspirators. So there would be no electronic trail to be detected.”
Toshi whistled. “I see your point. That would definitely be the way to preserve at least a few people safely, even if the others got caught. Then that’s probably it. Someone’s probably going to try to get Mr. Takana out of jail. Someone the police still have no clue about.”
“That might be true,” Kenji said, still frowning unhappily at his hands. “But I think – I think he might be planning something at the school too.”
Chika stared at him. “You can’t be serious. Another teacher?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but...” The young man took a deep breath and seemed to summon resolve. “As I was leaving, the last thing he said to me was,” now he looked Miaki straight in the face, “’Have a good time with those Nakamura boys. Because they won’t last long once they get to school’.”
Miaki’s face had gone white. Jin, watching him, felt a pang of the grief from last year, remembering the despair she had sometimes seen on his face back then. The cousins were now looking at each other, sharing that communicative look she also remembered, the one that shut everyone else out.
Toshi murmured, “We already know that we need to be on guard. Don’t worry. We beat him once, remember. And I won’t let him touch you. If I have to, I’ll build cyber walls around you so thick that an electron couldn’t wiggle its way through.”
“He said ‘boys’, not ‘boy’,” Miaki answered softly.
“Dammit!” Kenji burst out, heels of his hands pressed to his forehead. “How can this be happening again? Why can’t I keep him from dragging you into his plotting again?”
In an instant, Miaki was on his feet, springing off the bed and then kneeling at Kenji’s side. He pulled the other’s hands down and made him look into his face. Miaki smiled. “I was dragged into his plots before you even knew they existed,” he reminded the other student. “None of this is your fault. No matter what he does, none of the blame is yours. You know I’ll never think that again.”
Again, the intense memory, as Jin recalled Miaki’s brief breakdown when, in rage and despair at discovering exactly who had murdered his father, he had taken Kenji hostage inside a VR simulation, and threatened to keep him there unless his father gave himself up. When Kenji had bitterly answered that his father didn’t care about him and would never do it, Miaki had lost control and beaten him up pretty badly. Although this had helped the group discover that those strange simulations were actually capable of affecting things in the real world, it had still been an experience that shook both of the young men very deeply.
Miaki had sworn on the most sacred thing he could think of – the life of his beloved dead father – that he would never do such a thing to Kenji again. And Jin knew him well enough now to know that it was a vow he would never break.
Now he put a hand lightly on Kenji’s hair. “We’re both his victims,” he said gently. “We won’t survive without each other’s help. You help me, and I’ll help you. And he can’t possibly defeat us then, can he? My friend.”
Kenji stared at him, lips trembling. Then he took a breath and managed a trembling smile. “No. He can’t. I – I’ll try to remember that.”
“Right, then,” Toshi said. “I guess we need to get organized again. He may just be bluffing, but we’d better not assume anything.”
Miaki stood. “Jin,” he began, turning toward her, but she was already speaking.
“I’ll start going through ISCE teachers’ records, as deeply as I can get. And the same with the prison officials’ and employees’ records.”
Julie began, “I guess I can double check the simulations in the system for this year, in case – “
“No,” Chika interrupted suddenly. “Toshi and I can do that. I think you should do your own special thing – since you’re so good on security issues, why not hack into the jail’s security system, and see if there are any loopholes?”
“Great idea,” Julie nodded. “And not just loopholes – there might be little tags here and there, giving someone just enough direction to get in and make it look legitimate. I’ll check it all.”
“Then I guess,” Kenji sighed, “I’d better start double checking the security at school, to make sure nobody can get in from outside and start trying to hurt Miaki or Toshi.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” Chika wondered. “I mean...as far as I know, nobody has ever hacked into ISCE before.”
“If they had,” Toshi quipped, “then somebody would finally have found out where the school is located.” The others laughed quietly, and Miaki cast him a grateful glance for lightening the mood a little.
“I don’t think anyone has,” Kenji agreed. “Hacked into the system, I mean. Well, that is, they’ve never found out where the school is either. But anyway, what if Yoshida left something behind? He could have left a hole that one of the other conspirators could come in through, later on.” Yoshida had been one of the teachers working with Tanaka.
Miaki regarded him, frowning. “He really could have, couldn’t he? For that matter, so could Suzuki. We’ll need to check whether she did anything like that herself. I think I’ll work with you on that, Kenji, if you don’t mind.”
“So,” Toshi said brightly, “it looks like we’re doing extra projects again this year. Such diligent students we are! Wouldn’t our teachers be proud!”
“Well,” Miaki drawled, “they would be if we told them about it.”
“Yes, there is that.”
“And anyway,” Julie said staunchly, “sleep is over-rated. We all did just fine without it last year. Why should we start slacking off and letting ourselves sleep this year?”
Chika sighed. “Yashin’s going to wonder why I don’t message him as much as I promised. Ah well. We could be dealing with fate of the world things again, here, so he’ll have to understand.”
“Don’t tell him!” Kenji blurted. Then ducked his head. “I mean…at least, not until we’re sure about things. It’s kind of humiliating.”
“It’s alright, I understand that. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Again,” Chika smiled, then turned serious again. “He could help us, though, if we get really stuck. If we end up needing someone working from the outside, let’s talk about it again and see if he could help. But in the meantime, I agree – let’s keep it just to ourselves for now.”
“Okay,” Kenji nodded in relief. “I can live with that.”
“One thing to keep in mind,” Miaki told everyone, “is that we probably aren’t dealing with ‘fate of the world’ things this time. There’s no way there could be a second conspiracy on the scale of the first one, or a whole chunk of the original conspiracy that all the police in the world just seemed to have missed somehow. This may be something serious, but in comparison to what we had to work through last year, this is still going to be relatively small-scale.”
“Even if it involves your safety and mine?” Toshi laughed. “My personal safety seems kind of large-scale to me.”
“Yes, good point,” Miaki smiled. “I take it all back, then. But seriously, everyone. It may get pretty involved, but I think we can at least relax about the world implications. Looking at the larger picture, we’re much safer than we were through everything last year. Maybe that’ll help you all sleep more easily.”
Kenji muttered, half to himself, “I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep easily again, even if they lock him in the lowest dungeon of the highest security prison there is.” At this remark, the rest of them looked soberly at each other, but he didn’t notice, frowning intensely at his hands.
“Well,” Chika stirred, standing up, “we’ll see what we can do about that. I think it’s time we ladies went back to our own dorm wing, and get settled, and let you cousins get unpacked.” She nodded at Miaki’s suitcases, stacked neatly in a corner. “Kenji, you might try some warm milk before you go to bed if you’re serious about not being able to sleep.”
“In fact,” Julie suggested, reaching a hand down to him to help him stand, “why don’t we pop back to the dining hall and order a couple of glasses? I could probably use one too.”
The three of them departed, Julie waving a diaphanous sleeve at everyone as she slipped out the door. Jin stood up from where she’d been sitting.
Before she could leave, “So Jin,’ Miaki said casually, leaning back on his elbows on the bed, “what do you think? Akio or Kenji, for Julie?”
The girl raised an eyebrow at him. “Are those her only choices, then?”
Miaki laughed. “Ouch. You got me there. You’re right – stupid question.”
She smiled. “Not really. I’d say it’s fifty-fifty, actually, or maybe 55 for Kenji, 45 for Akio. But maybe they’re all just good friends instead.”
“Right. Well, anyway. I was wondering if you’d be interested in being my VR partner again this year, or would you like to work with someone else’s style this year? I won’t be offended if you’d like to try someone else for a change.”
“Of course I’m your partner,” she answered promptly. “My own style doesn’t fit with anyone else the way it does with yours. That was a stupid question too. Now I think I’d better go, myself. I haven’t finished unpacking either.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
When she was gone, Miaki found his cousin watching him, smiling. “What?”
“Oh, I don’t know. What do you think,” Toshi mused, “Jin, or Jin, for Miaki?”
Miaki grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, then laid back on the bed, hands intertwined behind his head. “We’re all just friends, Tosh.”
“Of course you are,” Toshi agreed.
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
After supper, they all met in Miaki’s room. It was the sort of conference they’d had so frequently before, and they fell easily into the same rhythms as last year. Toshi draped himself backwards on his cousin’s desk chair, Miaki sat cross-legged at one end of the bed, Chika sat on another corner of it, Kenji plopped himself on the floor, leaning back against the closet door, Jin occupied the visitor’s chair, and Julie stood leaning against the door of the room.
They had quickly decided, back in the dining hall, that perhaps they’d better temporarily drop the subject once Kenji had mentioned his worries about his father. For one thing, they didn’t want any of the other students to overhear them, and start hovering around the table, wide-eyed. (“They’re starting another adventure! Come on over and listen!”) But they also felt, somehow, perhaps irrationally, that issues stemming from last year’s doings were their private problem, for them to analyze and solve.
That was part of what ISCE was all about, when you thought of it: taking the most brilliant cyber- and astro-students in the world, and not only teaching them to excel even more at what they were already so good at, but also teaching them to think independently and most of all, think on their feet. It was by no means an automatic thing, that they’d turn to their teachers or the administration of the school (or even their own governments) when they had world-scale problems. Even last year, they’d only begun to broadcast all their findings to the broader world when it had become clear that the conspiracy was so vast that they couldn’t clear it up themselves.
And in fact, they’d grown more cautious and wary after what had happened last year. Two of ISCE’s own teachers had been in cahoots with Kazuo Tanaka, who was himself a government official. They were fairly confident that Mr. Woon had rooted all taint out of the school since then, and yet they remained cautious. Plus, Julie had reasoned, if this turned out to be a false alarm, there was no point in bothering Mr. Woon with it yet, sympathetic though he might be.
No...it was not at all an automatic thing, for them to consider asking anyone else for help. Not just yet.
“So,” Toshi said, taking charge. “Tell us what makes you worry about your father, Kenji.”
“You say it was more an attitude than what he actually said,” Chika put in. “What sort of attitude do you mean?”
Julie burst out, “And why did you go visit him in the first place? You have to know he’s only going to try to upset you.”
Kenji stared at his hands, elbows propped up on his knees, and shrugged uncomfortably.
Miaki supplied softly, his gaze never leaving the other student, “You just don’t walk out on your father, no matter what he’s done.” Kenji flashed him a glance, part unease and part gratitude, then returned to his contemplation of his hands.
“But that’s neither here nor there at this point,” Chika briskly returned them to the main point. “Now that he’s been there, he says he saw something worrisome. So what exactly do you believe you saw, Kenji?”
He bit his lip. “He kept talking about future plans...like he was going to be there, involved in them. Like – like he was on vacation for a while, but would soon be back.”
“Oh boy,” Toshi frowned. “You don’t suppose someone’s hoping to bust him out of jail or something?
Julie chewed a fingernail. “Who would be left, who could pull it off? The police of all the governments were pretty thorough, going through these guys’ records and finding their accomplices, weren’t they?”
Chika agreed, “They certainly got anyone with any clout at all. Anyone who could do the sort of cyber work we do. I’m sure there are some stragglers left, but they wouldn’t be of the same calibre, and couldn’t hack into the jail’s systems. Someone with those skills would have been found by now.”
“Unless,” Jin mused, “the conspiracy had kept some people in reserve, and only contacted them in person rather than electronically. Using paper records, maybe.”
The others stared at her as though she’d lost her mind, but Miaki smiled. “People used to do that all the time, you know,” he reminded them.
“You’re not going to tell me,” Julia exclaimed, “that there’s someone who’d be involved in that sort of conspiracy, but who lives their life entirely without the net, without email, without – “
“Of course not,” Jin said. “They wouldn’t have to live without the net world in their regular life – just in their contacts with other conspirators. So there would be no electronic trail to be detected.”
Toshi whistled. “I see your point. That would definitely be the way to preserve at least a few people safely, even if the others got caught. Then that’s probably it. Someone’s probably going to try to get Mr. Takana out of jail. Someone the police still have no clue about.”
“That might be true,” Kenji said, still frowning unhappily at his hands. “But I think – I think he might be planning something at the school too.”
Chika stared at him. “You can’t be serious. Another teacher?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but...” The young man took a deep breath and seemed to summon resolve. “As I was leaving, the last thing he said to me was,” now he looked Miaki straight in the face, “’Have a good time with those Nakamura boys. Because they won’t last long once they get to school’.”
Miaki’s face had gone white. Jin, watching him, felt a pang of the grief from last year, remembering the despair she had sometimes seen on his face back then. The cousins were now looking at each other, sharing that communicative look she also remembered, the one that shut everyone else out.
Toshi murmured, “We already know that we need to be on guard. Don’t worry. We beat him once, remember. And I won’t let him touch you. If I have to, I’ll build cyber walls around you so thick that an electron couldn’t wiggle its way through.”
“He said ‘boys’, not ‘boy’,” Miaki answered softly.
“Dammit!” Kenji burst out, heels of his hands pressed to his forehead. “How can this be happening again? Why can’t I keep him from dragging you into his plotting again?”
In an instant, Miaki was on his feet, springing off the bed and then kneeling at Kenji’s side. He pulled the other’s hands down and made him look into his face. Miaki smiled. “I was dragged into his plots before you even knew they existed,” he reminded the other student. “None of this is your fault. No matter what he does, none of the blame is yours. You know I’ll never think that again.”
Again, the intense memory, as Jin recalled Miaki’s brief breakdown when, in rage and despair at discovering exactly who had murdered his father, he had taken Kenji hostage inside a VR simulation, and threatened to keep him there unless his father gave himself up. When Kenji had bitterly answered that his father didn’t care about him and would never do it, Miaki had lost control and beaten him up pretty badly. Although this had helped the group discover that those strange simulations were actually capable of affecting things in the real world, it had still been an experience that shook both of the young men very deeply.
Miaki had sworn on the most sacred thing he could think of – the life of his beloved dead father – that he would never do such a thing to Kenji again. And Jin knew him well enough now to know that it was a vow he would never break.
Now he put a hand lightly on Kenji’s hair. “We’re both his victims,” he said gently. “We won’t survive without each other’s help. You help me, and I’ll help you. And he can’t possibly defeat us then, can he? My friend.”
Kenji stared at him, lips trembling. Then he took a breath and managed a trembling smile. “No. He can’t. I – I’ll try to remember that.”
“Right, then,” Toshi said. “I guess we need to get organized again. He may just be bluffing, but we’d better not assume anything.”
Miaki stood. “Jin,” he began, turning toward her, but she was already speaking.
“I’ll start going through ISCE teachers’ records, as deeply as I can get. And the same with the prison officials’ and employees’ records.”
Julie began, “I guess I can double check the simulations in the system for this year, in case – “
“No,” Chika interrupted suddenly. “Toshi and I can do that. I think you should do your own special thing – since you’re so good on security issues, why not hack into the jail’s security system, and see if there are any loopholes?”
“Great idea,” Julie nodded. “And not just loopholes – there might be little tags here and there, giving someone just enough direction to get in and make it look legitimate. I’ll check it all.”
“Then I guess,” Kenji sighed, “I’d better start double checking the security at school, to make sure nobody can get in from outside and start trying to hurt Miaki or Toshi.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” Chika wondered. “I mean...as far as I know, nobody has ever hacked into ISCE before.”
“If they had,” Toshi quipped, “then somebody would finally have found out where the school is located.” The others laughed quietly, and Miaki cast him a grateful glance for lightening the mood a little.
“I don’t think anyone has,” Kenji agreed. “Hacked into the system, I mean. Well, that is, they’ve never found out where the school is either. But anyway, what if Yoshida left something behind? He could have left a hole that one of the other conspirators could come in through, later on.” Yoshida had been one of the teachers working with Tanaka.
Miaki regarded him, frowning. “He really could have, couldn’t he? For that matter, so could Suzuki. We’ll need to check whether she did anything like that herself. I think I’ll work with you on that, Kenji, if you don’t mind.”
“So,” Toshi said brightly, “it looks like we’re doing extra projects again this year. Such diligent students we are! Wouldn’t our teachers be proud!”
“Well,” Miaki drawled, “they would be if we told them about it.”
“Yes, there is that.”
“And anyway,” Julie said staunchly, “sleep is over-rated. We all did just fine without it last year. Why should we start slacking off and letting ourselves sleep this year?”
Chika sighed. “Yashin’s going to wonder why I don’t message him as much as I promised. Ah well. We could be dealing with fate of the world things again, here, so he’ll have to understand.”
“Don’t tell him!” Kenji blurted. Then ducked his head. “I mean…at least, not until we’re sure about things. It’s kind of humiliating.”
“It’s alright, I understand that. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Again,” Chika smiled, then turned serious again. “He could help us, though, if we get really stuck. If we end up needing someone working from the outside, let’s talk about it again and see if he could help. But in the meantime, I agree – let’s keep it just to ourselves for now.”
“Okay,” Kenji nodded in relief. “I can live with that.”
“One thing to keep in mind,” Miaki told everyone, “is that we probably aren’t dealing with ‘fate of the world’ things this time. There’s no way there could be a second conspiracy on the scale of the first one, or a whole chunk of the original conspiracy that all the police in the world just seemed to have missed somehow. This may be something serious, but in comparison to what we had to work through last year, this is still going to be relatively small-scale.”
“Even if it involves your safety and mine?” Toshi laughed. “My personal safety seems kind of large-scale to me.”
“Yes, good point,” Miaki smiled. “I take it all back, then. But seriously, everyone. It may get pretty involved, but I think we can at least relax about the world implications. Looking at the larger picture, we’re much safer than we were through everything last year. Maybe that’ll help you all sleep more easily.”
Kenji muttered, half to himself, “I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep easily again, even if they lock him in the lowest dungeon of the highest security prison there is.” At this remark, the rest of them looked soberly at each other, but he didn’t notice, frowning intensely at his hands.
“Well,” Chika stirred, standing up, “we’ll see what we can do about that. I think it’s time we ladies went back to our own dorm wing, and get settled, and let you cousins get unpacked.” She nodded at Miaki’s suitcases, stacked neatly in a corner. “Kenji, you might try some warm milk before you go to bed if you’re serious about not being able to sleep.”
“In fact,” Julie suggested, reaching a hand down to him to help him stand, “why don’t we pop back to the dining hall and order a couple of glasses? I could probably use one too.”
The three of them departed, Julie waving a diaphanous sleeve at everyone as she slipped out the door. Jin stood up from where she’d been sitting.
Before she could leave, “So Jin,’ Miaki said casually, leaning back on his elbows on the bed, “what do you think? Akio or Kenji, for Julie?”
The girl raised an eyebrow at him. “Are those her only choices, then?”
Miaki laughed. “Ouch. You got me there. You’re right – stupid question.”
She smiled. “Not really. I’d say it’s fifty-fifty, actually, or maybe 55 for Kenji, 45 for Akio. But maybe they’re all just good friends instead.”
“Right. Well, anyway. I was wondering if you’d be interested in being my VR partner again this year, or would you like to work with someone else’s style this year? I won’t be offended if you’d like to try someone else for a change.”
“Of course I’m your partner,” she answered promptly. “My own style doesn’t fit with anyone else the way it does with yours. That was a stupid question too. Now I think I’d better go, myself. I haven’t finished unpacking either.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
When she was gone, Miaki found his cousin watching him, smiling. “What?”
“Oh, I don’t know. What do you think,” Toshi mused, “Jin, or Jin, for Miaki?”
Miaki grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, then laid back on the bed, hands intertwined behind his head. “We’re all just friends, Tosh.”
“Of course you are,” Toshi agreed.
Chapter 3
