Picking up the modem receiver, Nakajima called Arkham in Massachusetts, to connect with ISG's host computer. As the connection picked up, his computer's display filled with the image of the demon Lucifer. Calling up the AI, Craft, and explaining the situation, he asked about the spell. Nakajima's English was not particularly good, so several times the only thing that appeared on-screen were question marks.
> OK, I UNDERSTAND.
Finally, Craft appeared to have gotten it; Nakajima asked the AI what the spell meant.
> PERHAPS IT'S ONLY A COUNTER?
Craft's response probably indicated that the spell was only a time counter.
> THANK YOU, CRAFT.
Cutting the connection to ISG, Nakajima set himself to the task of writing the subroutine once again. Two hours later, there was a knock on his door.
"Come on in." With a hint of irritation in his voice, Nakajima responded to the knock without taking his eyes off the program list on-screen.
"Did you eat dinner?"
"...."
Nakajima didn't respond, and just kept typing on the keyboard.
"Oh, what happened to your lip?" Nakajima's mother bent down from behind him to take a good look at his face.
"I ran into the goalpost playing soccer." Nakajima stopped typing and looked back at his mother. Nakajima had a strong resemblence to his mother, who was a beautiful woman with a slender face. When they were together, they would frequently be mistaken for siblings. When it came to her son's education, she was very conservative; she wanted him to get into Keio University's medical school. Of course, there were too many blemishes on his academic record for that to ever happen.
"Shouldn't you put some medicine on it?"
"It's OK, mom. It's not serious."
Irritated at his programming being interrupted, Nakajima absentmindedly tapped keys at random on the keyboard.
BEEP.
The computer made a harsh tone, and an error message appeared on-screen. As if realizing that her son wasn't going to pay her any heed, Nakajima's mother left the room as if giving up.
That night, at 3AM.
"All right, it's done!"
Nakajima slapped his thighs with his hands and stood up from his chair.
> RUN
The disk drive started whining, and bizarre letters blinked on and off the screen. But in less than five minutes, the screen displayed an error message and stopped.
> OUT OF MEMORY
If there wasn't enough memory for the program, it was probably either because the program itself was too long, or because it dealt with more variables than the machine could handle.
"No big deal. One little computer isn't enough to run a program like this anyway. If I use the school's host computer, it should have more than enough memory."
Nakajima's eyes glittered with anticipation.
CHAPTER 3
Later that week, at 7PM on Saturday, Professor Iida, who was on night watch, noticed that there was someone in the CAI room and opened the door.
"Who's here at a time like this?"
At the sound of his voice, a student looked up from one of the CAI terminals, his face glowing strangely in the reflected light of the display.
Iida's expression softened. "Oh, it's just you, Nakajima. What are you doing in here with all the lights off?"
Nakajima's academic record was far from perfect, but his genius had endeared him somewhat to the math and science teachers and earned their trust.
"My program's just not working out the way I wanted to. But I'm almost done fixing it." Nakajima's voice seemed slightly metallic, as if in tune with the sound of the disk drive spinning.
"I'm always happy to see your enthusiasm, but you know that you need to ask permission in advance if you want to work in this classroom late at night. You're lucky that it was me that found you instead of someone else." Scolding Nakajima, Iida flicked on the light switch.
"What is this!?" Iida's shocked voice echoed through the now-lit CAI room. A large geometric figure was drawn on the floor in white and red chalk, with Nakajima's seat situatuated at the center.
"It's a Solomon Hexagram."
"Solomon? That has an occultish sound to it." Nakajima paid Iida's sarcasm no heed, and his fingers slid over the keys of the terminal. Presently the host computer located in the adjacent machine room sealed off by thick glass walls started to run.
"Great, the bugs are finally gone. It's done!" After sending a print job to to print out the contents of the program list, Nakajima stood and turned toward Iida. His girlish, almond eyes glittered in a demonic grin. The wound in his lip that he had gotten when Kondo beat him up had since sealed, but the excitement had reopened the cut, and a trickle of fresh blood stained his jaw.
Iida's gaze became stern. "All right, Nakajima, do you want to explain just what kind of program you're running on the host computer--and without permission, I might add?"
Nakajima brushed aside some hair from his forehead and responded nonchalantly. "I've written a program that will summon demons. This hexagram is here to protect me from them. In just a moment a demon will appear. Professor, you should probably enter inside it too. You might get shredded to pieces otherwise."
For an instant, Iida's mouth gaped open, and he took a long hard look at Nakajima.
"Have you lost it?"
"Is it me who's lost it, or the school? Professor, take a good look at me. This wound on my lip, the bruise on my face. I got the crap beaten out of me by Kondo from the karate club. Takamizawa Kyoko is just as guilty. The school just lets wild animals like that run free, and doesn't do anything to deal with them at all. No matter what happens to me in the classroom, the teachers and students just pretend it didn't happen. The violence that happens in this school is as plain as day, and yet nobody gets punished. I suppose the teachers are just waiting for students like that to graduate. As long as they keep their eyes shut, the calamity will just clear itself up on its own; they just have to endure it for two or three years. But this is the only time I get to be a high school student. I'm not going to let them just do whatever the hell they want any more. I'm going to summon a demon and execute those annoying insects." Nakajima's speech seemed excited and his shoulders rose and fell in time with his wild breathing.
Nakajima turned away from the stunned Iida and to the keyboard.
> RUN
With the final command displayed on the monitor, the magnetic tape of the host computer started to gradually spin. Iida tried to yell at Nakajima and stop the computer. But the moment he opened his lips, a frigid breeze from nowhere struck him and covered his arms in goosebumps.
"Summoning demons with a computer...what a concept!" Iida twisted his lips into a smile to hide his fear.
"Computer theory and magical thought have many overlapping similarities. I bet the first person who thought up the principles of computing was an alchemist or Kabbalist. It's not that well-known, but things like spells, sacrifices, and thaumaturgic circles are very easy to put into binary format. Summoning a demon is just a transfer of the matter comprising the demon in the Atziluth World to the real Assiah World, and a computer is the perfect device to facilitate it."
While Nakajima was explaining his theory, the cold air wrapped around Iida almost like a living creature, and a bizarre smell entered his nostrils. The lights of the classroom flickered out, and the CAI room plunged into darkness, the only sound that of the spinning disk drive. Presently the computer let out a low whine.
"Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh." To Iida's ears, the whine sounded like actual, real words.
"Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh." While whispering in synch with the computer, Nakajima continued to enter commands on the keyboard with unbelievable speed. Soon the entire room started to shake like an earthquake, and cracks formed in the windows. At the same time, Nakajima entered his final command.
> KILL! KONDO HIROYUKI, TAKAMIZAWA KYOKO
&n
bsp; Iida did not like students like Kondo Hiroyuki and Takamizawa Kyoko. In fact, he hated them. But he felt even more repulsed by the manner in which Nakajima intended to deal with them.
"Stop this foolishness. If you'd like, I can make sure the incident is investigated fully and have Kondo expelled. Just stop doing this."
While stumbling in the shaking room, Iida desperately reached for the computer's power switch. To prevent him from interfering, Nakajima grabbed his arm with a strength one wouldn't even imagine him displaying normally. However, while the two struggled, the rumbling started to subside. The fluorescent lights lit up with a creaking sound and filled the room with light, and the freezing air about Iida's body dissipated.
"Where did you go!? Why won't you show yourself? Demon, are you going to abandon me?"
Crying out, Nakajima headed toward the keyboard.
> KILL! KILL!
But the host computer's magnetic tape slowly and mercilessly started spinning to a halt. Anxiously opening the program list, Nakajima scanned the details of the program with bloodshot eyes and aimlessly stood as if sapped of all his vitality.
"My program was perfect. There wasn't a single bug in it. So why did the demon vanish before showing itself? It should have appeared right over there!" Leaving the program list open, Nakajima stumbled out of the CAI room as if in a trance. Staring dumbfoundedly at Nakajima's back as he left, Iida finally came to his senses and turned off the power to the computer.
"I guess it's true how they say that there's a fine line between genius and insanity. That was one hell of an earthquake though." Iida whispered as if trying to purge his memory of the repulsive experience.
CHAPTER 4
The next week, Iida was teaching Nakajima Akemi and Takamizawa Kyoko's class math in the CAI Room. Perhaps it was because he was there to witness the failure of the demon summoning, but Nakajima was looking at Iida with a defiant stare. Until now, he would never have acted like this. Trying hard to ignore him, Iida continued his lesson.
"Now I'm going to have you take an interactive test using the host computer. However, this test won't affect your grades in any way. Through your interaction with the computer, I'd like you to get a little bit more familiar with any weak points you may have. Begin entering your commands as soon as I give the signal."
The students all affixed their eyes to their screens and silently started answering the questions given them, as the host computer started diligently recording their individual responses.
Once use of CAI spreads, things will get a lot easier for us teachers. Though if it becomes too widespread, the time may come that we teachers aren't needed any more... Iida carefully watched over his class while relaxing a bit.
All of a sudden, as if coming from the depths of the earth itself, a low, rumbling voice sounded and shook the CAI room.
"Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh."
The magnetic tape of the host computer started spinning wildly and the screens of the computers in the room started changing rapidly. Eerie colors and strange images flashed onscreen, and strange letter-like symbols appeared and disappeared. The students said nothing, but remained transfixed to their screens as if entrhalled.
"Nakajima, this is your doing, isn't it? Come on now, there's nothing wrong with a little mischief once in a while, but there are limits!" Twisting his face into an dark scowl, Iida started to walk over to Nakajima's seat, but the moment he started walking a student in the first row stuck his leg out into the aisle, tripping the teacher and causing him to clumsily fall forward. As Iida tried to get up, two more students slammed into his back, pinning him to the ground and twisting his arms behind him.
"Wh-what are you doing!? Stop this at once!" Taken aback at the sudden hostility of his students, Iida struggled to lift his head up while crying out. The other students, staring ahead with glazed looks as if in a trance, stood up from their seats. Three male students left the classroom, and the others gradually started to surround Takamizawa Kyoko.
Her face drained of color, Kyoko stared dumbfoundedly at her classmates surrounding her. Her catlike eyes were full of fear, her lips trembling up and down but held shut as if sewn together. A male student with thick glasses touched her chest, and as if freed from a curse, Kyoko lept up onto the desk.
"Stay away from me, asshole!" Kyoko yelled out desperately, whipping out a razor blade held between her thumb and middle finger.
"Stop, Takamizwa. Run!" Iida's shaking voice echoed throughout the classrom. But Kyoko merely took a sidelong glance at her restrained teacher, spat, and swung her razor at the student that had touched her. The student's glasses flew off, and his split cheek started oozing fresh blood. But the student did not falter a bit or even try to wipe off the blood, but obstinantly grabbed onto Kyoko's left ankle.
"Let go of me, asshole!" The razor slashed open the student's temple, and then lodged into his blood-soaked arm, breaking in two. Taking advantage of Kyoko's surprise, another student grabbed her left angle, and the two students now gripping both her legs raised their arms, hoisting her up in the air and dangling her upside-down. Her skirt fell down around her waist, revealing her white legs. Kano Miyuki, one of the most beautiful girls in the school along with Kyoko, walked up, put her face in between Kyoko's legs, and bit into her inner thigh. Bending backward in pain, Kyoko attempted to fight back, flailing her arms around like an animal caught in a trap, her drooping hair swishing wildly around, but several students knelt down by her head and started to twist her neck around.
"Stop! Stop this!"
As Iida cried out with tears in his eyes, a cold voice spoke.
"Professor, it's too late." Nakajima, who had been at his computer entering commands the whole time, looked at Iida with a sarcastic smile on his face.
"Ooh..."
With a meager cry, Kyoko's legs spasmed two or three times. Without even attempting to wipe the blood from her face, Miyuki looked up and the two students holding Kyoko in the air let go of her legs. As Kyoko's twisted, lifeless body dropped to the floor, the circle of students started to break up, leaving her behind.
Right about that time, the door opened, and the three students that had left earlier entered the room, Kondo following behind them. After hearing that Kyoko was being ganged up on and verbally harrassed by her classmates, Kondo came with a mind to teach the "know-it-alls" of the gifted class a lesson. However, the classroom was completely silent, and not at all what he was expecting. The three students led the perplexed Kondo to the center of the room, then quickly moved away.
"Oh my god..."
Seeing Kyoko's corpse, Kondo was dumbfounded and words escaped him for a moment. The students in the classroom surrounded him, as if to cut off his path of retreat. At that point, Kondo probably could have gotten away had he set his mind to it. But with his mind clouded with shock and anger, Kondo didn't realize just how dangerous a position he had walked into.
"You bastards, what have you done...who killed Kyoko!?"
His body shuddering in rage, Kondo's furious, bloodshot eyes turned to the students. But the normally meek students, who would usually run away if Kondo merely looked at them, showed no signs of fear, and returned his harsh gaze.
There was something seriously strange going on here.
At that moment, a groan sounded. Looking in the direction of the voice, Kondo saw Nakajima standing over Iida with his foot pinning the teacher's head to the ground.
"Nakajima...?"
Not evening imagining for a moment that such a genius pretty-boy could be capable of something like this, Kondo was completely taken aback.
Iida called out to him from the back of his throat. "Kondo, run! Everyone's gone mad!"
Called back to his senses by the teacher's voice, Kondo howled like a wild animal and charged Nakajima. But right before he reached Nakajima, a dozen students jumped on him and pulled him to the ground. Struggling with all his might, Kondo knocked off the students clingi
ng to them, punching and kicking any that got close. But even with their foreheads split and their ribs shattered, the students picked themselves off the floor as if they felt no pain at all, and fiercely grabbed onto Kondo. One of them picked up a computer monitor and hit him hard in the back of the head with it. Kondo's vision blurred with the shock of the blow and started to stumble, and in that instant, the students pulled him to the floor again and restrained his limbs.
"Shit, let me go! I'll kill you!!"
Looking at at Kondo vainly struggling against the students, trying to get free, Nakajima's handsome face twisted into a cold smile.
"Actually, you're the only one who's going to be killed here. I was hoping to have Kyoko be your executioner, but as you've seen, she's already died. So I've been nice enough to have Miyuki do the job for her; you should thank me."
Cradling his chin in his hand as if in thought, Miyuku kneeled down near Kondo and brought her face close to his, her chin still covered in Kyoko's blood. Her warm breath caressed his cheek. Kond's body stiffened up and shivered a bit, and in that instant, the knife in Miyuki's hand flashed and was drenched in crimson. A gurgling cry came out of Kondo's severed windpipe, and with his eyes still open, his head folded backward with a sickening crunch.
"Now then, Professor." Nakajima crouched down and looked into Iida's face.
"What do you think, Professor? You see? My demon summoning experiment wasn't a failure. That day, a demon really did appear--inside the CAI host computer. We just didn't realize it. When I was in class here in the CAI room yesterday, the demon sent me a message: "KILL! I UNDERSTOOD" He can't escape from the computer, so he used group hypnosis to control the class. By the way, Professor, I promised to give three souls to the demon. Kyoko's, Kondo's, and one other..."
For an instant, Nakajima's eyes glittered with an emotion like pity. But as if to surpress it, he pressed his lips together and stood up.
"W-wait, please wait..." As Iida desperately wheezed and struggled, ten students dragged their feet along the floor, slowly approaching him.
Digital Devil Story: Reincarnation of the Goddess Page 2
