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Volume 2, Chapter 9: The Relations of the Real World are Unneeded in the Electric World. The Second Friday of June.

(The Gatekeeper is there. That is why I am fighting here.)

Kuyama Kihan was a hacker.

He was the kind of hacker that didn’t really care about the distinctions between hackers and crackers that fictional stories often brought up. Perhaps he could more simply be described as an internet criminal. Kuyama had first touched a computer in the lower grades of elementary school. He had randomly hit a few keys and accidently unlocked the password for the faculty. Ever since, he had held an interest in the holes in systems. He had looked into a lot of things and by the time he was in high school he had an odd kind of criminal record.

(Is it around here?)

Kuyama was sitting in a normal open café with a wireless LAN spot. He didn’t intend on making any errors that would let him be tracked by his “opponent” and, even if he did, he could fake the origin of the signal, so it likely wouldn’t be a problem, but he still preferred not to “fight” from home.

He gave an arbitrary order to the smiling waitress who approached him and pulled out his notebook computer. This was Kuyama’s “weapon”. On the outside it looked like a cheap name-brand machine, but everything inside had been switched out from the ground up. This was because Academy City computers had terminal-use security ranks from D to S and a manufacturer number carved into them and, even if the origin of the signal was faked, there was a danger of being found if nothing was done about that number directly embedded in the LSIs.

(I don’t usually get this nervous.)

Kuyama stuck a communications card different than the one built into the machine in a slot.

(I guess it isn’t that surprising. I’m about to break into the Gatekeeper’s system.)

The Gatekeeper was more of an urban legend than a real piece of information.

There was a skilled hacker among Academy City’s keepers of the peace. The security of the system he (or she) had created with the full use of his knowledge and excellent skills was in the top 10 strongest systems in Academy City. However, the Board of Directors did not believe in this person’s ability and he wasn’t put in charge of a public system. This had created an odd situation where the small office that hacker was a part of had stronger defenses than the databanks that held all of Academy City’s data.

It sounded like some kind of joke.

The world of hackers was made up of people that no one knew the identities or faces of. It wasn’t unusual for someone to spread unfounded rumors to cause trouble or to make themselves look more important.

However, vague rumors held definite information.

Over the past week, several other hackers he knew had been arrested. Every single one of them had attempted to hack into a certain system.

He had never actually met any of them, but he knew how skillful they were. They had chatted via an illegal modification of the status of an online game. He didn’t think someone of their skills would screw up while hacking into a normal Anti-Skill or Judgement office.

There was something there.

Most likely, that “something” was the Gatekeeper.

(There isn’t really any data there I want to steal and I don’t really have anything against this Gatekeeper.)

Under Academy City’s laws, illegal actions related to electronic information were punished with jail time up to 20 years or a fine of up to 50 million yen. Breaking in for no reason was no small risk.

(But my master key has to be perfect. If there’s even one door it can’t open, a master key is nothing but trash.)

It wasn’t that he hated losing; he was trying to rip off the label that had been unreasonably stuck on him.

He wanted freedom and he wouldn’t allow even the slightest hindrance to that end.

That was why Kuyama Kihan, a hacker who did not seek profit, acted.

The first thing Kuyama did wasn’t to fake his ID in some mysterious way or to unlock a password by typing on the keyboard at blinding speed.

He assigned shortcut keys.

(I think I’ll go with Condition 3 for today. Actually, maybe either 4 or 1 would be better.)

He browsed through a list of the hacking programs he had and chose the programs he would use. Then he arranged the many keys on the keyboard to set up his programs of choice so that he could run them with single keystrokes.

What Kuyama was doing was the same as prerecording common phrases for an online game such as “heal me” and “let’s retreat” so that a conversation could be made with only a few keystrokes. Patiently typing every little thing out by hand was a waste of effort and, most importantly, it prevented him from responding quickly.

The only real flaw was that he had to switch into manual mode when he came across something that his preset commands didn’t cover. He didn’t want to have to do that very much. As such, he had to take the level of his opponent and what he had to do into account and come up with the most effective arrangement of keys.

(The worst part is that I don’t know what kind of skills the Gatekeeper has. That means it’ll be safer to create a kind of smokescreen. Being too careful makes it look like I’m afraid, but I need to assume this is an enemy that deserves my respect.)

Kuyama loved this moment where he thought of his enemy and put together his limited hand. He loved it even more than the moment after he penetrated the system. It made him feel like he was connected across the internet with someone he couldn’t see.

As he felt this special kind of joy, he heard a clunk from a nearby table. Kuyama looked over and saw a large-breasted woman wearing a green jersey sitting down at the table.

“Hoo. Writing reports is such a pain. Hey, waitress. Does this place have a wireless LAN? I don’t want to go all the way back to the school to submit this.”

(...What the hell?)

It said on the café’s door whether it had a wireless LAN or not. In fact, a hacker like Kuyama couldn’t believe that someone would submit an official report over an unknown wireless LAN that using a signal that could be picked up by anyone. She certainly didn’t look like she was using any of the measures to prevent one’s signal from being picked up that Kuyama was using.

(Fucking amateur.)

After silently expressing his contempt for all the casual users who loved computers but didn’t know anything about them, Kuyama immersed himself in his work.

After assigning almost all of the shortcut keys, he finally started his illegal activities.

However, a hacker wasn’t superhuman. He was using a specialized program for developers. He used a normal search engine to find a certain website.

In the center of his notebook’s monitor was a normal browser screen and around that was a complicated window full of scrolling numbers and symbols. Basically, he had only brought the usually unseen information up to the surface. This was nothing that a computer didn’t normally deal with.

Kuyama felt that the only difference between a hacker and anyone else was a gap in knowledge.

It was about how much hidden information someone was aware of. A hacker was like someone who was good at goldfish scooping. They just knew the trick to it.

To repeat: a hacker wasn’t superhuman.

He was only bringing the processes that were usually dealt with in the background up to the surface.

(Now then, let’s get started.)

He had found the system that the Gatekeeper managed.

Of course, it wasn’t made so that normal people could access it, but a point of contact was prepared for exchange of Anti-Skill and Judgement information. Kuyama used that to slip into the system.

As soon as he accessed it, a change occurred in the window full of scrolling numbers and symbols. A few strings of characters were colored red and a number of warning symbols were displayed.

(Oh, link forwarding!!)

That was a system that made everyone who accessed a website move to a different website. Most of the time, the site linked to would infect everyone who accessed it with a virus.

Most likely, this was linking him to a site that would access his personal information. Anti-Skill and Judgement didn’t allow systems that accessed one’s personal information, so it was necessary to send an intruder outside of the organization’s system before dealing with them.

This time, the intruder had noticed it before he was trapped.

As he circumvented the Gatekeeper’s landmine, Kuyama smiled.

This wasn’t done in an attempt to guard something. A “weapon” like link forwarding was clearly only something used to attack hackers.

You could read someone’s personality from their system.

Kuyama Kihan was in high spirits as if he were enjoying a piece of art.

That was when something snapped him out of it again.

“I found it, I found it! Here it is!!”

It was a girl’s voice that felt like it was splitting his ears. He looked over in annoyance and saw a middle school-aged girl sitting at the table across from the woman in the green jersey who was looking a little down as she wrote her report. He caught a glance of a large number of decorative flowers on her head. It seemed she was enjoying playing a handheld game against someone.

“Hahhh. I finally managed to stabilize the speed. ...Oh, no! Now things are getting bad!!”

The girl was pressing the buttons so hard it looked like she was trying to crush them. Kuyama noted that one of his flaws was that he was a bit distractible while on the attack and then moved his focus back to his computer’s monitor.

He found several more traps after that.

One made it look like he had penetrated the system, one looped the same command endlessly, and one caused an error by forcing him to open a file in a format that was impossible to read. As Kuyama had previously determined they were all methods of attacking hackers and a many of them even astonished him because he had never thought of using something like that before.

However, nothing had caught him yet. Before each one hit, the dangerous strings of characters were marked in red and he worked his way around them heading deeper into the system.

But then, just when he thought he might have won, a small window suddenly appeared at the edge of the screen. It was a short message saying the connection had been severed. Kuyama was doubtful, but there was no problem with the signal from the wireless LAN. The Gatekeeper’s system must have lost power for some reason.

(Was I noticed!?)

Kuyama looked down at the open windows, but, fortunately, there was no sign that someone had gotten his information. Most likely, his opponent knew that someone had hacked in, but he didn’t know specifically who it was. As such, he had determined that it was dangerous to let the intruder continue and thus cut the power.

Just to be careful, Kuyama had used a variety of “detours” so as to not leave behind any trace, so there was no sign of worry on his face.

(That was nice timing. I suppose I’ll call this a tie.)

He had used only electronic methods from start to finish while the Gatekeeper had been forced to physically cut the power. In other words, he had won as far as hacking skills went. He had more or less proved the effectiveness of his master key.

However, that was when he noticed something.

It was about the simple message saying the connection had been severed that had appeared a moment ago. At the same time as it had appeared on his computer, it must have also been displayed on the Gatekeeper’s system. When you cut the string linking a tin-can telephone, both sides lost the ability to hear.

That meant that the exact same thing had happened at both places during the same year, the same month, the same day, the same hour, the same minute, and the same second.

(Doesn’t that mean that if the Gatekeeper checks the date and time that the message was left on the system, he’ll be able to find me right away?)

“...!?”

A cold sweat covered Kuyama’s face.

(N-no, I had my embedded program that faked the origin of the signal. He shouldn’t be able to find me immedia—!!)

As he was thinking, he felt like the café’s security cameras and the lenses of the security robots rolling along the road were aiming at him like sniper rifles. Someone’s hand grabbed his shoulder. He couldn’t even turn around. The hand belonged to a member of Anti-Skill, the city’s keepers of the peace.

“You are in violation of the regulation against unlawful operation of electronic information. And, as I’m sure you know, this isn’t a voluntary questioning.”

However, Kuyama wasn’t listening to the deep voice.

It was hardly the time.

(Wait. It hasn’t even been 3 minutes since the connection was cut off. Even if he had immediately been able to determine where the signal came from, Anti-Skill couldn’t have gotten here this fast. Which means...)

His location had been discovered sooner than that.

But when? Where? How?

Kuyama heard a clattering noise and looked over to see the girl who had been playing on her handheld game system standing up. The girl with the decorative flowers in her hair spoke after heading towards the cash register with her bill.

“Yes, I’d like a receipt. Yes, make it to Uiharu Kazari of Judgement.”

All she did was play a game and ask for a receipt and yet Kuyama’s expression distorted to one of pain. This was because he had realized what was in her hand.

(It...couldn’t be...)

Her handheld game system was made so it could use the wireless LAN. That meant programs could be operated over the internet using it.

But...

It was impossible. No one could battle Kuyama’s hacking system using something like that.

(Come to think of it, when she came here, she was saying something about having stabilized the speed and yelling that things were getting bad...)

“Hey...Hey, you!!”

Kuyama tried to approach the girl as she left, but the Anti-Skill member must have thought he was trying to escape, because he was thrown to the ground. Flattened on the ground, Kuyama still stared at the girl’s back. She did not turn around. Not even once.

He had no proof that that girl with the decorative flowers in her hair was the Gatekeeper.

For all he knew, the real Gatekeeper was sitting at the other end of the connection snickering. It was possible the Gatekeeper was the girl’s friend and was helping her out from the shadows.

But...

The real problem wasn’t the girl herself.

It was the Gatekeeper’s shadow that he had glimpsed right in front of him but been unable to grasp.

That back was a gray incredibly close to black and it was dancing in front of him keeping him from grasping its tail.

“That’s a hacker...”

As his hands were forced into handcuffs behind him, Kuyama Kihan mumbled what was more of a groan than words.

“That’s a true hacker.”