Battle Royale

Sakamochi grinned and nodded. He continued, "Yes. Well, anyway, if we were to assume the collar was disabled, then obviously it would transmit a signal informing us of the wearer's death, right? In other words, if there was a student who could remove that collar, then he could survive without a hitch. He'd just have to wait out the game, and once the military leaves the premises he could take his time escaping. That's right, just like you said to Shuya Nanahara. Say the game were to end in the afternoon, then the subcontracted clean-up crew comes the following day. So there's plenty of time in between. Also, this time of year the water isn't too cold to swim in."

Sakamochi gave Shogo an imploring look, but Shogo only responded with a "Huh." Sakamochi leaned back on the sofa. "This is absurd. The collar circuits are supposed to be top secret, right? How could a junior high school kid possibly know about it?"

Sakamochi replied, "He could, though." Shogo looked back at Sakamochi. "See, all of this information, including your records, and the Guadalcanal device, under normal circumstances I wouldn't have looked up any of this stuff. I would have just sat back, impressed by your intelligence. This time though, I was contacted by Dictator Headquarters and the Special Defense Forces before the game began. I mean, on the twentieth."

Shogo stared at Sakamochi.

Sakamochi continued, "They said someone hacked into the government's central operations system in March." He paused. Then he added, "Of course, the hacker thought he managed to leave without a trace. He was incredibly skilled, and although he encountered the administrator while he was hacking, he managed to erase his log-in access before escaping. But..."

Sakamochi paused again. Shogo kept quiet.

"...the government system has tight security. It has another secret log-in system that records every operation. Of course, they usually don't monitor this system, and the administrator didn't think there was anything abnormal at the time. That's why they took so long to discover it. But they found it. Yes, they did."

Shogo sealed his lips and stared at Sakamochi. But his Adam's apple moved ever so slightly. The movement was hardly discernible.

"Look," Shogo said. "A subcontractor really did tell me about rounding up the corpses. I was having a few drinks at this bar with him. The topic just came up. And the instructor from our last game told us the Program hardly ever ends from just time running out. You can even ask him."

Sakamochi rubbed his right hand under his nose and stared at Shogo. "Why are you telling me this? I didn't even ask you about that."

Shogo's Adam's apple moved again. This time it definitely moved.

Sakamochi then snickered and continued, "So apparently some of the hacked data included information on the Program. In other words, technical specifications on the Guadalcanal collar. Why would someone take such useless information? I mean, what's the point? Even if the hacker were to publicize it, the government would only design a new collar, and that would be the end of that. There's no sign of that for now. But maybe we can assume this much: the intruder was driven to access this information at all cost. Don't you think?"

Shogo didn't respond. Sakamochi sighed and picked up the envelope he'd tossed out. He flipped it over with one hand and pulled out the contents. He placed them side by side in front of Shogo.

There were two photos. They were both black and white and printed on B5 paper. One of them had no contrast at all, so it was hard to tell what it was, but the other one clearly showed a truck and three black dots scattered around it. Given how it was the top of a truck, the three dots were obviously heads.

"You see, right?" Sakamochi said. "That's the three of you just a while ago. Right after you killed Kazuo. Those were taken by satellite. We don't usually do this kind of thing. But I want you to take a closer at this other photo. See? You can't really make out anything, right? But that's actually a photo of the mountain. It was taken when you shot those two. There wasn't enough light, and it's obscure because you're all hidden by the woods. That's right, you can't see it."

He fell silent. The ship swayed a little, but Shogo and Sakamochi stared at each other, completely still.

Then Sakamochi took a deep breath and once again combed back his hair behind his ear. He broke into a smile and spoke in a strangely intimate voice, "Say, Shogo. I've been keeping track of this game from the very beginning. Right? After you shot Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa, Nanahara took fifty-four seconds to die, while Nakagawa ended up taking one minute and thirty seconds to die. They should have died instantly if you shot them point blank. So what's this time lag about?"

Shogo was silent, but—whether he was aware of it or not—his cheeks stiffened. He managed to speak out, "It can happen. I'd have thought they died immediately but—"