付与されたアクセス

The sides of Hayato’s mouth flickered upward with the hint of a smile as the message was displayed on the screen. “Access Granted”, that was the English translation. Hayato was proud of his English. Knowing it and Japanese together gave one the means by which to achieve so much more these days.

The light from his computer screen reflected onto his window, little digital ghosts shimmering on the glass. The window was frosted with hundreds of raindrops slowly sliding down it, each one refracting the neon lights outside like a tiny prism.

His apartment was on the eighth floor of one of the new generation of skyscrapers. It was relatively expensive, but not lavishly so. His job as a systems network administrator paid him well. From his office window he had a view out over Tokyo Bay, dotted with the glass and metal structures of the new artificial islands. But the young Japanese man wasn’t looking out into the city’s nighttime sky. He was in his computer, in the code. He was “in the Mesh” as the other hackers called it. A small ring in the middle of the implant on his right temple was glowing soft blue LED light. He was inside the system. His fingers still flew over the holographic keys, and his eyes still saw what was on the screen, but the rest of his mind was somewhere else, somewhere deeper. He was experiencing cyberspace from the inside, his mind detecting the snippets of code and his nerves feeling the soft vibrations and the low hum of running programs. It was a strange concept to the uninitiated, but he was used to it. He was one with the machine, and that was his advantage.

Gigabytes of data flowed into his system like a river. He could sense it rushing through his connection, a surge of electronic information that was like a rush of adrenaline surging through his virtual nervous system.

All was going as he had planned. He loved the feeling after a successful hack, especially with his cybernetic neural interface actually letting him experience the pulse of the data as it flowed through him like a bloodstream. He slowly closed his eyes and relaxed.

侵入検出された

Hayato’s eyes snapped open as the new message popped up on his screen.

“Intrusion Detected.”

The data stream had suddenly ceased and the last few packets had dropped from the connection. His pulse quickened as he felt a probe slicing its way into his system in response.

His fingers flew into action, the keys of his computer flashing like blue fireflies in the night.

Hayato grimaced and spat a curse. He could feel a loud vibration now. It was like a reciprocating saw spinning through his security codes. Nihon Corporation’s auto-response server was sending a probe to try to trace his system.

The vibrations intensified; the probe was breaking through quickly. It would be inside in seconds.

He pulled out of his data stream connection and activated his second firewall in an attempt to stop its progress. He threw up a screen of code and the whirring sound was muffled like it was coming from behind a thick wall. He then stopped all of his running network programs to keep the server’s ping attempts from tracking him. For a brief second there was silence, and Hayato began to let out the breath he had been holding.

Then the probe broke through. It sounded like a motorcycle’s engine was being revved inside his head. This wasn’t a normal probe.

Hayato released his IP address, reached up to his temple, and pressed the small button to disconnect his neural link.

Once his connection was completely severed he realized he was sweating and shivering. His head was pounding from the pull-out. It wasn’t safe to disconnect like that without separating your mind from the Mesh. Not good for your head.

Hayato got up from his desk and poured himself a glass of water.

“MedBay, I need some painkillers,” he said to the small metal machine on his counter.

It emitted a ping, followed by a quiet whirring as it dispensed two small blue pills. Hayato picked them up and swallowed them with the water. Realizing that he was thirsty, he drained the rest of the glass.

And then he heard it: a buzzing sound from outside his window, like some predatory insect looking for prey. It started off quietly but its volume increased just as fast as the probe. Hayato dropped to the floor as quickly as he could. A second later, a blue plane of light flickered up and then down the walls of his apartment. He was hidden by the counter. The drone stayed in place for a few more seconds before slowly flying away. The vibrations diminished and then vanished entirely.

Hayato swore under his breath. It seemed Nihon Corporation’s response systems were better than he thought. They must have run a shadow tracer on his data stream while he was busy dealing with the probe. That meant that they knew his computer’s location but didn’t have access to his files or hardware.

He leaned around the counter and looked out of the window facing the street. Sure enough, two police cars were rolling towards the building, their blue and red lights flashing and their sirens wailing. Hayato grabbed his backpack from beside his desk and tossed his laptop inside. He picked his wallet up and put it in his pocket, followed by a small EMP emitter from his drawer. He was going to make a run for it.

Swinging his backpack over his shoulders, Hayato left his room and headed towards the stairwell. The police would probably shut off the elevator tubes when they came inside, and he didn’t want to end up trapped in one. He could hear his neighbor Mrs. Ozawa arguing loudly with someone on her holophone as he walked down the hallway. Compared to the state of the art design scheme of the rest of the building, the stairwell looked like something from the 20th century. The steps were bare concrete and the guardrails were painted over with fading green paint. His footsteps echoed loudly as he made his way down as fast as possible.

He was almost panting by the time he reached the lobby level, and Hayato made a mental note to exercise more if he got out of this. He pulled the small metal cylinder out of his pocket and pressed the button on the top right as he opened the door. It vibrated slightly and splashed an invisible electromagnetic pulse throughout the lobby. That would throw the security cameras off for a while, hopefully giving him time to escape.

There were other obstacles though. He could see four police with their signature flared helmets and gray uniforms with segmented Kevlar material clearly visible underneath. One was walking towards the front desk, another was moving to shut off the elevators, and two more were standing guard outside the doors. That was going to be a problem. He was sure the police knew the name of who they were looking for and had a description but he doubted that they had a picture of him yet. The drone hadn’t seen him, and he had hacked and removed most of his information from both the corporate and police databases a while back, so he decided it was worth the risk. There were about ten people in the lobby and most of them were on their way in or out of the doorways. Hayato nonchalantly walked parallel to the exit while looking down at his phone. Glancing up, he saw his chance.

A young attractive girl about his own age had stepped out of the elevator tube right before the policeman had shut them off. She was carrying two large bags and was having some difficulty with them. Luckily, Hayato remembered her name from having met her at a party he had gone to a couple weeks before.

“Oh, hey Mizu!” he smiled and walked over to her while gesturing towards her bags, “Need some help?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” she smiled back at him as he picked up one of the bags containing a bunch of soda.

Hayato silently thanked whatever divine power was watching over him that she had not said his name within earshot of the policemen. As an afterthought, he decided that she probably didn’t even remember it.

“I wonder what’s going on here,” she looked around at the police.

“I don’t know. Probably just a drug bust or something,” he shrugged and responded.

They walked out of the exit towards her car. The police ignored them as Hayato had hoped. They were looking for a single person and expecting him not to have left. With a hiss the trunk of Mizu’s car slid open and he tossed the bags inside.

“Thanks a lot, I appreciate it,” she said as her car door slid open, “Hayato, right?”

Hayato’s heart started pounding. It would seem that she had remembered him after all.

“Uh, no,” he replied nervously, “my name’s Niito.”

She narrowed her eyes and continued, “I was almost sure… I remember you told me your name was Hayato. Yes, you did! Hayato Matsuda, that was it.”

“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” he turned around awkwardly and started walking away.

But it was too late. One of the officers outside had heard her say Hayato’s name. Now he and his partner were walking towards him as he tried to leave.

Hayato turned left off of the sidewalk and into an alley, trying to ignore the two men behind him.

“Hey you! Stop right there!” the patrolman called out.

Hayato broke into a run. A second later two more sets of heavy footfalls joined his own on the wet pavement. He heard two clicks as a pair of stun-blades were produced from their scabbards. His feet pounded and his legs pumped as he ran into the city, but he could hear the two policemen getting closer. The pulsating lights of the storefronts flew by on either side of him as he ran. He took a sharp turn onto a small, empty walkway over the water.

“Stop or I will shoot!” he heard from behind him.

Hayato slowed down and then turned around to face them, his hands held up to show that he was unarmed. Both officers had their masks down now and their faces were obscured. One had drawn his pistol and was aiming it at Hayato who remained as still as he could. The other had a stun-blade in his hand and was advancing forward, obviously intending to use it. Hayato could hear its soft electric hum and he shivered in fear. It seemed his escape was over.

“You are under arrest,” the closest policeman said gruffly.

Hayato was frozen in place as the man walked towards him. The only things he could hear were his own rapid breathing and the gentle crash of waves down below. He closed his eyes and kept his shaking hands up in the air.

Just then there was a sound of rubber screeching on asphalt as a black van spun to a stop on the other side of the walkway. Hayato turned his head to the side to see it. Its logo showed that it belonged to the Special Assault Force, the Japanese SWAT. Hayato thought it strange not only that this much backup was necessary to pursue one unarmed runner, but that the vehicle had pulled up without a siren as well.

The double doors on the back were thrown open and four masked men armed with suppressed assault weapons and wearing black military body armor leapt out. Neither of the policemen had time to say anything before they were struck by a hail of bullets. Hayato ducked down and covered his head in panic. The officer who had been holding a pistol was hit twice in the face. His head snapped back as a dark puff of blood and shards of carbon fiber flew forward. A staccato burst of suppressed gunfire riddled the second man’s body with a stitch-work of bloody holes. He was thrown backwards and skidded on the wet concrete once before he slid to a stop and lay bleeding.

Hayato tried to move and cry out but he was frozen in shock. He saw two of the masked men silently run forward and push the bodies down into the swirling dark waters of Tokyo Bay, droplets of red blood spinning down into the air among the rain. Then he was grabbed from behind and roughly pulled into the van. The other two soldiers ran back across the walkway and jumped into the open doors of the vehicle just as it started to move. The doors were pulled shut and the siren came on. They sped out onto the street and Hayato looked around at the armed men from his position on the floor of the vehicle. They wore no insignia and had nothing that identified them in any way. A soft, red light washed the interior of the vehicle and the men inside with an eerie glow, and no outside illumination came through the blacked out windows.

“We have retrieved the HVT and are heading back for exfil, over,” one of them said into his headset in English. He spoke with an accent that could have been Russian, but Hayato wasn’t sure. He did not understand what was meant by the strange terminology, but he assumed they were talking about him.

He tried to say something to them, to ask them who they were and what they were doing, but his mouth could not form the words.

The same man glanced down at him struggling to speak, and then turned to one of the others.

“Sedate him,” he ordered.

The soldier to Hayato’s left pulled out a small syringe and planted it against Hayato’s arm. He felt a small sting and then a feeling of relief and exhaustion flowed over him. He suddenly realized how tired he was and forgot about the armed men who had killed the policemen, the failed hack, and all of the day’s insanity.

The red glow became softer and softer until it was barely visible in the darkness. Hayato felt his eyes close of their own accord and lost consciousness.

––
BY DAVIS TYLER-DUDLEY