NOVEL WEB Book 6: Chapter 3
It was night.
That was the time for a Vampire like Erika. Ayumi was with us too, but she seemed more of a daytime person even as a Zombie Archenemy.
At any rate, we met up in front of the train station, which was even busier than usual thanks to the festival mood. With Erika, Ayumi, and Anastasia, I was the only human in the group.
“Oh? Onii-chan, you didn’t invite the Class Rep?”
“Sister. Do you really think I’m going to bring that precious girl to the Techno Parade which is neither sexy nor cute and full of hackers who have no experience being around girls? I’m not going to spend the night listening to her exhausted sighs.”
“Fuguu!!”
Ayumi was already puffing out her cheeks again, but I honestly found it a mystery why my sisters wanted to visit such a niche festival. Then again, they were family, so I could relax more when walking around with them.
“It’s 7:30, so how about we go the standard route of checking out what food is available?”
“Erika, it’s impressive how you just come out and say what Ayumi was fidgeting restlessly about because she was really looking forward to it but couldn’t bring herself to say it.”
“Fuguu!? Onii-chan, don’t treat me like an incarnation of gluttony…!”
“Ayumi-chan. Satori-kun was only trying to get that cute reaction out of you.”
There were no age or gender restrictions on being a hacker, but it did look like there were more guys here. It may have been an extension of how engineering departments were full of guys even in the idealized campus life seen in dramas.
“By the way, Onii-chan, what’s that hanging from your hip? A giant water gun???”
“It’s my secret weapon. It was a real lucky find.”
But just as I answered her…
“Wah, what is that!? There’s a mech carrying shaved ice on a tray, Onii-chan!”
“That’s based on a bomb squad robot. I doubt those are sold commercially, so did they steal the designs from somewhere and build one?”
“I wish they would stop abusing 3D printers,” said Anastasia. “The tech itself is good.”
“Oh? Satori-kun, the menu says I’ll choose the melon flavor. Does it use leading questions to draw out that answer?”
“Yeah. It might use predictive algorithms to predict what you’ll choose and then provides comments to restrict any other opinion.”
…But while we engineering types tended to take an arrogant and cynical attitude about everything, my sisters’ more naïve reaction seemed to have gathered more performers around us.
And when it came to making money at night, there would always be lots of food available. There were the standards like yakisoba, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, candied apples, shaved ice, and chocolate bananas, but also some Western options like crepes, donuts, and frankfurters. That unique midpoint between a snack and a meal tugged at a half-forgotten childlike part inside you.
Anastasia’s eyes widened because she was unfamiliar with this country’s festivals.
“Why do Japanese foods look so nice? Even the candies are so elegant.”
“This is some of the greasiest food available in Japan, so what kind of diet do you have to have for this to look refreshing!?”
“Eh? During the Los Angeles convention, it was all pizza, fried chicken, thick-cut ham steak, and poutine. Do you know what that is? It’s a giant pile of fries covered in cheese, lard, and gravy.”
“…Is your country trying to wage war with food?”
That was what you got with a culture that went beyond “meat, vegetables, meat, meat, rice, bread, and vegetables” to have “beef, beef, chicken, beef, chicken, and a supplement”. They weren’t interested in vegetables or even fish, yet they claimed to be a healthy nation.
Anyway.
“I heard they’re doing fireworks afterwards.”
“There will probably be drones flying around to record it, so we should watch from a distance. One of them might even get hit by a firework and crash.”
Since Erika and Ayumi were with us, we stuck to the normal festival area and avoided the denser areas with a junk trade show or where four people sat around a table arguing while the mahjong match was played out by preset programs. But there were hints of insanity even in the relatively normal areas, like small robot fish swimming around in the goldfish scooping game or simulators being used to predict the results of the bingo game.
“Is it even possible to catch these goldfish robots? They swim away whenever the scoop gets close.”
“Think of it like a puzzle, Ayumi. They always swim away in the same direction, so stick a scoop in at these two points and you can drive it into a corner.”
It was a little different, but it still felt like a festival that would make for some nice memories.
Then my smartphone vibrated.
Maxwell’s speech bubble was displayed on the screen.
“Cyber attack detected. It is clearly specifically targeting your device. I am stopping it, but would you like to handle this manually?”
“…”
I immediately looked around, but that wasn’t going to tell me who was doing this. It was even possible the culprit was using fiber optic cables and wireless LAN to attack from the other side of the planet.
…This was not some hacker attacking on a whim and if Anastasia was to be believed, then this would be Hack or Slave that worked for Wild@Hunt.
“Hm? What is it, Onii-chan?”
“Nothing. More importantly, you catch this one, Ayumi. You can take the prize for yourself.”
There was no reason to worry my sisters. I communicated with Maxwell by typing in text instead of the usual voice recognition.
“Maxwell, pretend you’re being overwhelmed so Hack or Slave will continue their attack. Use that time to investigate the exact method they’re using. Knowing that will tell us what kind of person we’re dealing with.”
“The task is already underway. I believe this is an antlion trap where a fake public wireless router is used to lure in the target and steal the mobile device’s data.”
…They had not given up.
They had screwed up at the harbor container yard, but they were still searching for official evidence that I was the one that had defied Wild@Hunt by revealing the fabricated abuse incident. They had even launched a cyber attack.
If they could prove it had been me, my life would be left in tatters. In fact, my family would be in trouble too.
And if they drove out their enemy, it would only encourage them. They might repeat that fabricated abuse incident.
I want to be alone.
If I am, I won’t cause any trouble for anyone.
Then mom and dad and everyone can smile again.
Laugh at me if you want.
We were talking about a complete stranger. I would gain nothing in return for saving them. Not a reward and not any kind of money. And yet I was taking on an international corporation over it.
But I couldn’t help but remember that Elf girl crouched down and muttering those words with empty eyes. I couldn’t help but remember seeing the same expression I had once had…no, her case was even worse because it included unwarranted violence.
I had just so happened to visit that old secret base.
And I had found someone already there.
That was all it was.
But…
…I could not allow this to continue.
They were finally regaining what they once had. Parent and child were regaining a relationship in which they could share a nikuman. Wild@Hunt? Hack or Slave? Who cares what they want! Those parents managed to avoid divorcing. They were approaching recovery, something my family could never do. It might seem perfectly normal, but that’s exactly what makes it so had and so important! I would never allow anyone to carelessly tear off the scab of that half-healed wound!!
“…”
We finished the robot goldfish scooping and attempted a ring toss that altered the path of the airborne ring with tons of fans. All the while, I operated my smartphone with just my thumb.
“That’s all? If it primarily uses a wireless router, they would have to set it up and then wait like a spider in its web. That seems too random to be targeting an individual.”
“Public wireless routers do more than communicate between the base station and the mobile devices. They also communicate between the base stations owned by different companies.”
“Well, yeah. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a shared worldwide internet. Besides, they should be monitoring each other so they don’t cause interference by sending similar frequencies in the same area.”
“So it seems the target of the antlion trap is not the mobile devices. It is all of the base stations in the area. When the identification signal of a base station is detected, it seems to send back malware disguised as a response code.”
“Wow! Why did yours fly straight, Onii-chan?”
“The point of this game is to input the angle and rotation speed of the fans into a simulator to calculate out the complex movements of wind and gain a predictive path for the ring toss.”
Of course, no matter how strict the defenses of an individual computer, if the router used to connect to the world at large was infected, its defenses were suspect.
And my smartphone connected to the container yard using a normal line. They must have been targeting that.
“Can we switch to a different base station?”
“At any time. But their attack seems to be indiscriminately infecting anything they come across, from public wireless LANs to home wireless devices that are leaking all their information. It is only a matter of time before there are no safe lines left.”
“Ayumi can have the teddy bear, Anastasia can have the plastic bath bunny, and Erika can have the glass high heels.”
“I sense a difference in our gifts.”
“I sense a difference in our gifts.”
I ignored the glare from the two small ones.
“Then what vulnerability is the malware using? Can we knock out their way in or write an anti-virus program to regain safe wireless routers to use?”
“I have already checked and have detected 24 different kinds of malicious software. Instead of persistently showing off their own malware, I believe Hack or Slave is sending out many varieties with similar results and seeing if any of them are successful.”
“What a pain… Locating the router at the source of the infection and cutting off the data isn’t going to stop the attack, is it?”
“About that. There is one point I find curious.”
“Tell me anything you have.”
“Sure. The antlion trap wireless router sending out the infected signal seems to be moving.”
“Hm?”
I thought we were done with the ring toss, but Ayumi complained and insisted on continuing to play. Beating it without the help of a simulator was like crossing a minefield without a metal detector, but she must have really hated losing.
“Its average speed is 3km/h. That is about the same as walking speed and it is moving irregularly around the festival much like you. However, it does not seem to be pursuing anyone. Instead, it seems to be searching out wireless routers in the area to infect them. Based on the data from a map app, it is not following the roads or sidewalks, but it is not passing through buildings. So unless they are using a flying drone…”
“Hack or Slave is here on the ground at the Techno Parade? Wearing a backpack containing a computer, just like the surveyors for a map app? Maxwell!!”
“Sure. The ‘!!’ was unnecessary. You have given me permission to attack Hack or Slave, so I will not hold back.”
I heard a bursting sound like something had exploded nearby. No it was the inflation of a large and solid balloon like a car’s airbag. And while a stir ran through the crowd, I saw a small man wearing a bulging backpack floating up from the ground like he was on a moonwalk.
That was the source of the trouble: Hack or Slave.
He was the one who had rewritten online data to make it look like a girl was secretly causing her parents trouble and betraying them. He was the one applying all that external pressure so they would resort to violence…!!
The earth’s gravity seemed to not apply to him as he planted his feet on a large tour bus and then jumped to the top of a 5-story multi-tenant building in the very next step.
I threw out all my assumptions and gave a shout.
“A hovering suit? Is he going to get away!?”
That was a flight device that used a large balloon to secure buoyancy that matched your own body weight and allowed you to steer using small gas jets. It was more like jumping than flying, but it allowed you to make pole vault jumps with each and every step. I had heard the military was putting serious research into the technology as mountain gear.
“Hack or Slave can continue to infect nearby wireless routers while on the run, so they can continue to attack us. So do not forget that they will maintain the upper hand.”
“I know that. Let’s go, Maxwell!!”
“Eh? Ah? Onii-chan!?”
“Erika, take care of Ayumi and Anastasia. Keep an eye on your surroundings!!”
“Yes, yes.”
I left Anastasia with my sisters and took off running through the gaps in the crowd. A hovering suit was mostly meant to let you float, so it could not quickly pick up speed like an airplane or helicopter. But being able to ignore the roads and crowds and take the shortest route gave him an overwhelming advantage. And when looking up from the ground, the large building rooftops formed blind spots. Once I lost sight of him, he could hide somewhere and continue targeting my data!
“User, you are on the ground and Hack or Slave is in the air. Even if you successfully pursue him, how will you settle this? Even if you reach him on a roof, he can jump to the next building and you will have no way of pursuing.”
“Maxwell, sync my secret weapon with my smartphone.”
I pulled out the device hanging at my hip that looked like a two-handed water gun.
“Once that’s complete, I’ll shoot that guy down. I’ll shoot down Hack or Slave.”
“Sure, understood. Begin when you are ready.”
This was not the gun nation of America, so he probably thought I couldn’t reach him if he was off the ground.
But that was too naïve.
I ran along while aiming the thick gun barrel into the sky. It didn’t use gunpowder, so I didn’t need to think about recoil. I targeted the distant flying man with what looked a lot like a shotgun microphone and I pulled the plastic trigger.
Anti-Materiel Redtooth.
The name was ridiculous, but the EM signal emitted by that ultimate weapon did devastating damage to the flight device keeping the Hack or Slave man afloat.
The same short-range Redtooth signal used for wireless headphones and keyboards was given powerful directionality to send illegitimate data to every device within 1000 meters. Since I had not known when or how I would be attacked, I had bought it from the various junk that Anastasia and I had looked through that evening.
“That stopped the input of malware, but the output was so powerful that Hack or Slave’s system connections seem to have failed.”
“Well, I didn’t see many cables for how big a system that is, so I figured it was probably managed wirelessly!”
I had essentially sent out a jamming signal. Even without infecting it with a virus and making some subtle changes to the registry, I could cause a malfunction.
The balloon man lost his balance and seemed intent on making an emergency landing somewhere. Even if the problem was temporary, he was entrusting his life to that flight device. Until he detected a virus or another obvious cause, he would not immediately attempt another flight. Anyone would hesitate if they were handed a cracked spacesuit and placed in front of a spaceship’s airlock. Your life was important.
In Anastasia’s world of hackers, a malfunction that might have been an attack but might not have been was far more frightening than an obvious attack.
I used some wire to tie the Redtooth cannon to the metal pole of nearby road sign and adjusted the angle so it was aimed near the rooftop.
“Maxwell, use the building plans to check the location of the emergency stairs. I’m going to run up to the rooftop and end this while Hack or Slave is afraid of crashing!”
“Sure. The emergency stairs are on the outside. They are near the back, so you should be able to reach them from the alley.”
Knowing that, I just had to hurry.
With the Redtooth cannon’s EM attack continuing from the surface, the Hack or Slave man would think I was still down there aiming at him, but that wouldn’t last forever. If I didn’t end this before that small man regained his cool, I would lose my chance.
I ran into the alley and found the stairs in question. The entrance to the rusty metal stairs was blocked with a locked door, but it was little different from a cheap metal fence. I ignored the lock and climbed right over it. Then I ran up the stairs.
I clicked my tongue when I reached the roof.
“What is this mess? It’s like a jungle gym covered in sponge guard and morning glory vines!”
“User, you are already in the danger zone. Please watch your voice and any other noises.”
When looking up from the ground, I had thought it was an open space the size of four home ec classrooms. But instead of a flat square rooftop, I found not just the standard water tank and elevator motor room, but industrial air conditioners larger than fridges, a home garden, and storage containers stacked several high. Even the owner must have found it to be a pain to deal with because they had set up construction scaffolding and diagonally-leaning ladders to create shortcuts through it all.
It was like a 3D maze or a basic training obstacle course in a movie. The Hack or Slave man could come from any direction: front, back, left, right, above, or below.
“Maxwell, the Redtooth cannon is still active on the ground, right?”
“Sure. The link with your smartphone is still active. I am using the errors in satellite TV reception in the surrounding homes as a substitute for radar to monitor for airborne objects, but there is no sign of the hovering suit jumping from that roof.”
That meant the small man was somewhere on this rooftop.
I gulped and crouched low. I slowly moved further in alongside a fence covered in the vines growing out from the home garden.
…Damn. I was supposed to be the one who had him cornered, but his landing spot had worked in his favor and I felt cornered.
“Hack or Slave is continuing the antlion trap attack, right? Can’t you detect the location of the source signal?”
“That is unreliable at this distance. I can only tell it is coming from that rooftop.”
That was when I heard a quiet metallic sound from the side.
…Wait, the side?
Is there something on the other side of the vine-covered fence?
“Warning!!”
Rather than actually detecting something, I simply ducked my head down in response to Maxwell’s message.
And then…an artillery shell or something broke through the fence and flew my way!
Technically, it was impossible for me to know what had happened. I just knew the fence had been torn to pieces and blown my way and that had hit me and sent me rolling along the concrete.
The sudden explosion echoed across the rooftop and through the noise of the festival on the surface. I just hoped that wouldn’t cause a panic that got people hurt.
“Gah…bah…!!”
“Warning: this is not over yet. Please hide behind nearby cover!!”
I could no longer visually process the text from Maxwell. Because of the truly bizarre thing I had seen.
What is that?
What is that, what is that, what is that, what the hell is that!?
…If my eyes could be trusted, it was a round octopus with its five sucker-covered tentacles spread out in a star shape like a handmade cookie. I had seen a documentary about this before. If artificial muscles reached a practical level, it would be easier to design mollusk robots that did not have to stand, like slugs or octopuses, rather than dogs, cats, crabs, scorpions, or humans.
Of course, this was no mere toy.
Even now, it was giving off the ominous sound of high-voltage electricity.
Was its round body a circular loop gun barrel? For something like a railgun!?
The round body alone was 3 meters. If the 5 tentacles were stretched out, it would probably be around double that, but if the round body contained a circular loop railgun, then there would be no space inside for a person. It was an attack drone. Since it did not immediately move in close, the movement must have been an afterthought and was really only used to attach it to a firing point on the floor, wall, or ceiling.
But that thing was larger than a surfboard, so the Hack or Slave man could not have been walking around with it. And landing here should have been an accident for him. So where had hat ultimate weapon come from!?
The large hole in the center of the round body was aimed at me. That was likely the muzzle.
The flashes of electricity were converted into a violent musical scale.
“!!”
As soon as I got down and rolled to the side, a fearsome gust of wind passed by. The shortcut scaffolding collapsed and the jagged shards of air conditioning units flew every which way.
Think.
I had to think.
…He would not have lucked into something like this. And it was odd for the first shot to not hit when I had been defenseless. I had not dodged it, so its aim had to have been off. Something had interfered with the targeting algorithm that it had prioritized over pursuing its target.
Which meant…
“Maxwell, check to see what was in the path of that shot. Hack or Slave must be afraid of being shot by his own weapon!!”
“There is a backup power gas pipe running along the straight line path that links you and the unknown.”
“Predict a ballistic path!”
I grabbed a shovel from the home garden and swung it horizontally to throw it at the small pipe running up the side of a metal pillar 10 meters away.
The hit made a loud noise.
I didn’t know if that had actually damaged the gas pipe, but I heard a rustling sound from the jungle-gym-like area overhead.
Flames, smoke, and heat all rose, so he must not have wanted an explosion.
“There he is. Calculate every pillar or flammable object that would affect Hack or Slave’s safety if they were broken or detonated. I can move around while staying near those off-limits targets.”
“Sure. I will display a cursor on your smartphone’s image. Please move from circle to circle.”
A course was drawn out on the smartphone like stepping stones, but the situation was fluid. If the small man changed location, this would all fall apart.
Waiting around would not improve anything.
I could not afford to lose here.
I would protect my and my family’s futures. And I wouldn’t let them restart that fabricated abuse!!
The octopus kept its 5 tentacles spread out in a star shape and constantly glared at me with its anti-personnel radar and IR guidance while I passed right in front of it on my way to the top of the half-collapsed jungle gym.
…But where had the small man gotten that 3m octopus attack drone from? It may have been larger than my bed. I had been right when I assumed he wouldn’t have been able to carry it around.
“Come to think of it, that’s true of the hovering suit as well.”
It would be portable since it was worn, but it would still stand out. It would be like walking around town while dressed for sky diving. The Techno Parade hacker festival was underway, but he was not a performer or cosplayer. Would someone trying to blend into the crowds for their antlion trap really want to stand out like that?
“In that case, did the hovering suit appear out of thin air just like the octopus? Like some kind of magic?”
He was doing what should have been impossible. He was showing techniques that could not be explained with the laws of physics.
Which meant…
“Is this the work of a supernatural hacker using an Archenemy’s power?”
“Don’t predict my lines, Maxwell.”
Had this been the trick to locating the harbor container yard and procuring a system for hacking into that retro machine?
I used a diagonally-leaning ladder in place of stairs to reach the upper level. This felt much the same. It was like lining up empty rectangular pipes to create a jungle gym.
“It’s about time I had a weapon of my own.”
I borrowed a wrench that was hanging from a pillar (probably for tightening the scaffolding’s bolts) and I dismantled a bug zapper to remove the chip inside.
“These industrial ones are scary. Check out this capacitor. It’s bigger around than my thumb.”
“Get carried away if you like, but do not blame me when you shock yourself.”
The power source looked like a solar-powered rechargeable battery. The battery was the size of two light s, so I borrowed that.
I took the wire around a plastic umbrella I found lying around, wrapped it around like a candy cane, and attached it to either end to create a stun rod.
“Maxwell, use my smartphone screen and color code what is and isn’t an electrical conductor. I might be able to use this at a distance by sending the charge through the wall or floor. …As long as I make sure I don’t hit my own feet in the process.”
Not even this would be enough if the Hack or Slave man was an Archenemy on the same level as a Vampire or Zombie. But at the same time, they were not all powerful. No matter how mysterious the phenomenon, if I kept that in mind, I wouldn’t be led astray.
…If he could just summon any device he imagined, he wouldn’t have to stop at this. If he could send a boomerang-shaped bomber into the sky, he could crush all resistance. And if he could create a computer large enough to fill the desert, he could brute force his way past Maxwell’s defenses.
But he hadn’t done either of those.
So why couldn’t he?
Mass? Complexity? The barrier between manned and unmanned? A distance from himself?
It was the same as why that artificial muscle octopus could not attack me. No matter how big the enemy was, if I understood the rules, I could use them to my advantage. And I was up against an immortal who was far more powerful than a human. If I gave up on thinking, I had no future.
Or so I thought.
Until I heard that “roar” anyway.
The entire rooftop was ruled by the crude roaring of an engine.
Cold sweat poured from my body.
It couldn’t be a car in this complex jungle gym. And what was the stereotypical weapon loaded with an engine?
“A chainsaw!?”
As soon as I shouted that, he appeared from behind a storage container. The man looked middle-aged, but he was even shorter than me. This was the hacker from Hack or Slave. And the item he held at his hip was a power tool caked with dirt!!
Had he summoned this instead of the octopus!?
“Dammit!!”
I frantically moved back and away from him.
Just then, an unknown sensation crawled along my spine. I had no proof, but I imagined it was the fingertip of a beautiful grim reaper.
Yes.
That was right.
The chainsaw was caked with dirt? Even though he had summoned it like magic, just like the hovering suit and slow octopus???
“…Oh, no.”
Oh, no. Oh, no! Oh, no!!
That means…!?
The wall right next to me was suddenly blown through from a completely different direction than the chainsaw man.
…The Hack or Slave man had been trying to draw my attention to the chainsaw and move me away from the dangerous pillar. That way he had a line of fire for that long-range attack.
In other words, the chainsaw itself had been picked up from the home garden and he had used his device summoning for something else.
I was completely caught off guard.
So why was I still conscious?
“Gahahh!?”
I had pressed the stun rod against my own stomach, using the high-voltage current to knock myself in an irregular direction. That had sent me just barely outside of the enemy’s predicted aim.
I had escaped the first shot.
But now I could not move properly. I could not stand up and I could only just barely manage to crawl. Through the hole in the wall, I saw a thick metal pipe reminiscent of a bazooka that was supported by three legs driven into the ground like stakes. There had been no sound or smell of gunpowder, so I guessed it fired metal shells with a spring thicker than a human arm, just like a bizarre British weapon I had heard about.
If that octopus railgun with tentacles spread out in a star shape had fired at the floor from below, I would have been done for, but that had not happened.
One thing was obvious since he had gone out of his way to pick up a power tool as a decoy.
“Pant, pant…”
He could only summon one device at a time. Instead of making and summoning them anew, it was more like he could transform a set amount of mass like he was molding clay. If it had become that spring cannon now, then the octopus was not down there anymore.
And he had not brought out anything on as ridiculous a scale as a bomber or nuclear bomb. He may have been restricted by some kind of range.
On top of all that, the Hack or Slave man was not instantly producing or swapping out devices in front of me. That small man always hid and made a surprise attack from a position of safety.
“Gh…”
…The preparations took time.
That meant he could not leave himself exposed to even an amateur human like me.
I had to use that.
I had to trust in the data I had gained through my survival.
I would mostly be relying on speculation from here on out, though.
I doubted it was any manual work on his part. He wasn’t creating a miniature that was turned to life size or drawing on the back of a flyer and having the picture come out of the paper. I mean, I was close enough that I could hear it when he jumped in surprise. If he was doing that kind of work, I would hear him carving down the material or smell the paint. And there were no stains on his sleeves or fingertips. So the trigger was likely a mobile device. Maybe he created 3D blueprints with a CAD program, made a full color illustration, or viewed the blueprint or a 3D diagram to perfectly memorize its structure.
And I didn’t have to work out the exact conditions he needed. If all I wanted to do was defeat him, then knowing the source of his attacks was enough.
Besides, what was it that had caused him to panic before?
Because I had driven him onto the rooftop?
No.
Because I hit him with a powerful directional EM waves using the Redtooth cannon. More than a cyber attack or his hovering suit crashing, he had been afraid of the jamming cutting off his mobile signal!
The small man approached with roaring chainsaw in hand. And from the other direction, the spring cannon…did not fire a second shot? The powerful spring used to propel the shell must have needed to be compressed again.
I could not speak out loud. While crawling as close as I could, I operated the smartphone with my thumb.
I had not given up yet.
I was not going to die here. I would not allow Erika, Ayumi, or the others to be placed on the chopping block. I would not allow those newfound smiles to be smashed anew by that fabricated abuse!
I didn’t care if it was ugly.
I didn’t care if rescuing Sakai Iori was really just a vicarious way of overcoming my own past!!
“Maxwell. This Hack or Slave man is a malicious hacker who sends viruses to all the nearby wireless routers to steal the communication data of the mobile devices using them.”
“Sure.”
“But that also means he’s setting up a bunch of hotlines for the infected routers to send data back to him. …Search for a nearby router that’s still uninfected and send it a virus of our own. As soon as he opens his hotline, we’ll use that to infect his own mobile device.”
“That will mean infecting the many users of that router.”
“Hack or Slave is randomly using a few dozen different data leakage viruses. Attack only mobile devices that have cleanly patched up every last one of those vulnerabilities.”
“Understood.”
No one was stupid enough to get infected by their own virus, but commercial security software could not protect against some viruses. If someone had taken aim at exactly these viruses, they had to be the culprit.
“Backdoor setup complete. I can take control of the Archenemy Dwarf’s mobile device at any time.”
Dwarf?
Oh, right! A Dwarf!
That tiny species from Norse Mythology was known for being skillful with their hands and was most well-known for creating the weapons of the gods out of pure gold. It made perfect sense once I had the answer and pure gold was used in the wiring of precision circuits.
…If he had started his search from the TV station, had he investigated that trunk room and arrived at the tower computer I used as a honeypot? I had completely destroyed that and disposed of the multiple pieces separately, but had he built some kind of hardware that could restore some of the data from just a portion of the destroyed device? Using pure gold, of course. Then he had reached the harbor and spotted the retro machine that managed the cargo list. Even if he had not found my name, the data concerning an industrial power source and cooling system would have told him which container was Maxwell’s.
For a modern Dwarf, did a cyber attack correspond to the wrath of the gods? As someone using simulators bearing the names of demons, I had to keep that in mind.
“Shall I destroy the target’s system files to stop the device?”
“That would leave me to fight over a chainsaw with a perfectly normal and inhumanly-strong Archenemy even if he doesn’t have the use of his special skill at the moment! I’d fare worse than in a sumo match against a mountain gorilla!!”
If Erika and Ayumi heard that, they would probably get mad with a “my, my” and a “fuguu” respectively, but it was a fact that a mere human could not hope to overpower an Archenemy. You couldn’t judge them based on their apparent body type.
“I’ll inform you what your main task is. Your sub task is to buy time. Once you’re inside the Hack or Slave mobile device, let’s attack his email.”
“As it is encrypted, that will require taking control of the email server rather than the mobile device itself. That will take some time.”
“Don’t target the email folder. Access the kanji prediction file for his virtual keyboard. It should store the terms he uses in order of frequency. Search for proper nouns!”
In a way, this was like a malicious key logger installed by the manufacturer. Even if his email was properly encrypted, this file was often left untouched.
“Big data, Wild@Hunt, search, Archenemy, reaction, Hack or Slave, experiment, deposit, home, directly, outsourced, invoice…”
“Use an advertisement emotional prediction algorithm and place those in the order most likely to inspire anxiety.”
The chainsaw Dwarf was right in front of me now. If I was killed, everyone would be placed on the chopping block. Before I was filleted, I checked the list of speech bubbles on the screen, chose the ones I needed, and released my physical voice into the world.
“You failed. The secret data got out.”
“…?”
Still crawling on the ground, I shook my smartphone so he couldn’t see the screen.
“I had thought it was odd for Hack or Slave, a major corporation’s hacker unit, to be sent out for a case of domestic abuse, but this was an experiment by Wild@Hunt, wasn’t it? To see if you could use big data to find the Archenemies blending into normal lives. The unjustified persecution and abuse was no more than something like sonar or radar. You sent out the waves and watched for a reaction. That was all it was. You were looking for wounds that healed differently from a normal human or the use of a power that can’t be explained using existing biology or physics.”
I felt goose bumps at my own words.
I still wasn’t sure if this was true. I was only piecing together the phrases in the order that would inspire the most anxiety.
But I had a feeling this was pretty accurate.
It went back to the Elf Archenemy named Sakai Iori.
Why had Wild@Hunt chosen her as a target? There had been some reason why it had to be her. And yet there were other people who stood out far more, either in a good way or a bad way.
There were Archenemies in this world. Humans were not the full population of the earth. There was a system for them to register with the government, but there were some who thought they were human like Itou Helen had until recently and others simply did not get around to submitting the paperwork. And the most important fact here was that the conditions were different for humans and Archenemies. For example, a company might use big data to create advertisements for cosmetic and health products, but immortal Archenemies could not be half-threatened into buying a product using the fear of aging or disease. Wild@Hunt ruled the world using data, so they were trying to completely control even that which existed outside the human side. That was the goal here.
They had caused that fabricated abuse.
They had done it for no other reason than she was tougher than a normal human. If that system became established, that kind of tragedy would repeat again and again as nothing more than a periodic scan!
Meanwhile, the Dwarf looked as pale as I did. However, that Hack or Slave man was probably more concerned about having his client’s secret data posted on a message board than he was about the severe moral hazard being carried out by that global corporation.
“What you wanted most of all were repeated experiments. You needed to test it as many times as you could. Sakai Iori the Elf was already registered with the government. You could have found her the normal way, but you went out of your way to search for her this way! …That fabricated abuse wasn’t isolated to that one case. You began with the simple ones and planned to gradually crank up the difficulty. So you could ultimately make a simple search that not even the Archenemy involved knew was happening! How many of those experiments are underway right now in the world!?”
“You’re lying! A crawler would never find anything talking about that. Where in the world did you find that data!?”
“The problem isn’t where it was posted. The problem is that I know it and your client will know who let me know.” I grinned. “If Wild@Hunt learns the leak came from your mobile device, what will their American HQ think? You’re just an outsourced hacker group: Hack or Slave. If they start to suspect you were only feigning obedience to steal all their internal data, you will have an awfully hard time ridding them of those doubts. I mean, these are the people who were willing to expose a child to abuse so they could earn even more obscene profits. I doubt your bosses will take kindly to professional traitors.”
“…Give me that smartphone.”
“I chose this old-fashioned model because I’m quite fond of it. I’d really rather not have some old guy’s oily fingers all over it.”
“I’ll know the truth if I check that phone! So just hand it here!!”
The Hack or Slave man roared at me and he must have felt the chainsaw alone was not enough. I saw something golden sparkling out of the corner of my eye.
Had he just barely made it in time!?
“Analysis complete. The Dwarf’s mobile device has been frequently accessing an industrial printer brought into Kukyou City. It is container sized and designed for printing cardboard models for city planning dioramas.”
Oh, so he didn’t mess with blueprints or 3D diagrams on the screen. The trigger was the creation of a life-size model in a distant location. That would explain why he couldn’t create something as large as a bomber or with complex chemical phenomena like a nuclear bomb.
At any rate, now I could save them.
I could save my precious family and the small Elf girl who was finally restarting her life after suffering from unwarranted violence.
“Make the attack, Maxwell!!”
“Sure.”
It only took an instant to end it.
A gale of destruction blew through just 5cm to the side of where the Dwarf stood.
Instead of the spring cannon, it was a spike gun that used the explosive force of a camping propane tank. A metal spike thicker than my thumb was launched 50m and that projectile’s weight and speed would leave as brutal a mark as an anti-materiel rifle. …The plans for one had been easy to find on blogs. If you could translate the English or Russian, you could see some truly insane home research projects.
But.
The supernatural hacker of Hack or Slave must have had no idea what happened. The weapon that appeared was entirely different from the one he had asked for, he had lost control of it, and it was attacking him instead.
But what he did was send an order from his mobile device to the distant printer and then use his Dwarf power to create an actual weapon based on the cardboard model.
By hacking his mobile device and sending different plans to the printer, I could have him create something else entirely. By doing that just as he was planning to use his power, I could hack his supernatural power!
“Wha-…ah!?”
“This is pretty hard to control. Also, you should probably shut off the chainsaw engine.”
I let him see my smartphone’s screen which displayed targeting crosshairs on the footage from the propane spike gun’s camera.
“If it’s still moving, the broken chain will flail around.”
The second shot hit the side of the chainsaw. The blade portion bent to the side and the chain snapped and did indeed flail around like a snake writhing in pain. The Dwarf’s face was not sliced open because the great force ripped the grip from his hands and sent it flying away from him. The broken power tool flew to the side, began leaking a fluid, and finally burst into flames as the gasoline ignited.
“Gh, hhh…!!”
His fingers must not have escaped unscathed. The Hack or Slave man had dropped his mobile device and he looked down at his hands. They were discolored a bluish-purple.
“Work with me,” I spat out while making sure to keep the distant propane spike gun aimed at him. “The way things are, you will soon be eliminated to silence you. Just like you’ve seen happen to so many people in the past.”
“…”
“I’m not talking about where to direct your resentment. I’m simply saying there’s only one way to survive this. Either you crush Wild@Hunt to release the pus, or you die.”
I too had a reason to bring down Wild@Hunt.
If that fabricated abuse really was being repeated in randomly-selected experiments all around the world, I couldn’t just ignore it. I couldn’t accept saving one small Elf as a happy ending!
The Dwarf clenched his teeth and kicked his mobile device toward me. He seemed to have accepted my terms.
“First, I need an environment where I’m free to act.” I picked up the device. “Maxwell, I’ll connect this with a cable, so start it up in debug mode. If we activate the tethering option and have it access the internet through my smartphone, we can do the same thing as the infected routers. We should be able to access all of the data he receives.”
“No. Hack or Slave are outsourced staff, so I doubt they will have full access to Wild@Hunt’s internal storage.”
“Your prediction still needs work. Hear me out.” I smiled. “Wild@Hunt’s weapon is the global big data taken from their business operations. But you can’t gather big data by holing up in a shell. They create that giant monster by snatching up data from all sorts of places: police stations, courthouses, city halls, TV stations, newspapers, hospitals, schools, supermarkets, and convenience stores.”
For example, if someone was pulling a certificate of residence out of a convenience store copier to submit it to the city hall, they should keep in mind that the data would remain inside the industrial copier’s memory. Convenient services always exposed your data to danger. So should you really resent the effort it took to do it right?
“Oh?” said Maxwell. “In that case…”
“Even if we can’t go after Wild@Hunt HQ, the small stores that supply that data use normal Winners with normal Bordon or Astersky. Well, some of them might use fancy Dac desktops with that pear logo on them. The city halls and police will at most have their own servers and a contract with a security company. By swapping out that data and having Wild@Hunt HQ gather nonsense, they’ll lay a rotten golden egg of mistaken big data.”
Even if you had 10,000 people take a survey, you couldn’t analyze the views of the urban youth if every participant lived in the mountains. You would end up thinking kids in the city wanted boar meat.
So as long as we had a list of what stores Wild@Hunt gathered its data from, we could attack them. And since they were supposedly an outsourced security group, Hack or Slave would have been instructed to take data even from the uncooperative companies. They couldn’t do their job without a list of which was which.
“I have found 89 companies and 156 organizations. But even that is likely only his section’s share and thus just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Now I’m not going to feel comfortable even buying a drink from a vending machine with a camera on it. Okay, Maxwell, let’s swap out each company’s data to lead Wild@Hunt’s supercomputer to a false conclusion.”
“What exactly should that be?”
“Let’s invent a fictional hacker group that only exists as data. And make sure to leave traces of past activities that show a coherent history if you follow it. Make it so they did Kukyou 1st Broadcasting. No, make it so they’re the top suspect for revealing that the fabricated abuse was a Wild@Hunt experiment. And have it look more likely that the data was gathered from everyone instead of just that Dwarf’s report. That way I’ll be free.”
I was already taking on Hack or Slave like this, but this was the Techno Parade hacker festival. It would make perfect sense to assume I had struck back after someone attacked my smartphone based on false suspicion. This was pretty common for the hackers and engineers who came here from all around the globe. …In fact, they were constantly making benign cyber attacks to communicate with each other or test their strength.
“Task setup complete. Executing…”
“Now Wild@Hunt’s elites will be forced to eternally pursue a phantom that never really existed.”
Big data was undoubtedly convenient, but blindly trusting it would trip you up. Even if an individual thought something seemed off, it was hard to overturn an answer reached by a giant computer.
“What should I name the fictional hacker group?” asked Maxwell.
“Choose two English words that are far removed from my tastes.”
“Sure. Then I will go with Possession Spirit.”
This was the first step.
Now that I’ve freed myself from suspicion, it’s time for an all-out attack, Wild@Hunt.
[Support by] Records of Possession Spirit’s Activities [DELTA brain]
Possession Spirit is a hacker group. Opinions are split over whether they are an individual or a group, but the leading theory is that they are a group.
Records of their activities were cleverly hidden, but their first known case was the malfunctioning of an American lobster breeding plant in Fiji. After that, they were involved in crashing the guest records of luxury tourist hotels in South Pacific countries such as Vanuatu or Samoa and in leaking bank data from tax havens.
There are records of them using videos to criticize celebrities in the past (although those videos have all been deleted by the site administrators). Based on the remaining transcripts, they especially hate Western IT companies and tend to advocate an intellectual liberation of the southern hemisphere.
They have never directly targeted Japan, but there is always a risk of being indirectly targeted due to Japan taking stances very similar to America’s on many issues.
…I will make a clean copy using this format. Is that okay? (y/n)
Back to Chapter 2