Part 20: Hashida Itaru peruses restricted information

The smug bastard turns around at my voice, with a shining, refreshed face, as if he had gone into le petite mort.

"Mission Complete."

"Really?!"

"That's amazing! Don't know what it is, though."

After 20 hours of agony, it's finally over. To show Daru my appreciation, I hurl an unopened oden can at him.

"An oden can after a job well done is the best."

"Good job. You really are the world's best supah haka--"

"Hacker."

"--Hacker. I'm glad you're not my enemy. So, did you find evidence on the world destruction project?"

"No, nothing yet. I only connected. It's all downhill from here, though."

"In that case, I'm sorry if you're tired, but please check up on it at once. It's got to be in there. Shadows of conspiracy."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. But before that, let me eat the oden can."



"The problem is who this password belongs to, and their position in SERN."

"What do you mean?"

"I went into SERN's database and got a data table. From there, I focused on people with simple passwords like '11111111' and 'ABCDEFGH' to obtain an ID."
"It's best if the owner of that ID were a server manager, but I don't think we'd be that lucky."

"In Japanese, please."

"In short, if the password belonged to a SERN server manager, then we could lick the entirety of SERN's body and see whatever we wanted, but if it's just an ordinary researcher's password, then we could only see its boobs, or something like that."

"Don't use erotic examples. Basically, you mean the information we can see will be limited, right?"

"Exactly. Getting a server manager's password would only be a matter of time. Let's save that for later, I'm really sleepy now."

It would be cruel to push Daru any further. Let's let him rest so he can be refreshed.



"It's not a server manager, then?"

"It would take a miracle to get one with our first try. How many staff members do you think SERN has?"

"How many?"

"Over 6000."

There's that many?

"Well, for now, this accelerator division official, uh, his name is... Mr. Jack. Let's peep into his mail log."

As expected, the mails come up in English.

"Uwawah, Mayushii's head is starting to hurt..."

Hmph. It's miserable to be flinching at the sight of English.

"Daru, what's written there?"

"Need to translate it..."

"Angle up the Babel Fish!"

"I'm not gonna do something tedious like that."

Daru boots up translation software and auto-translates the open page. Poor, unnatural Japanese shows up. The first line says "A HAPPY NEW YEAR."



That mail's contents are normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"If we keep scouring the log like this, we can also identify the server manager."

"Looking through someone else's mail makes me feel really sorry..."

Mayuri gets depressed and moves away from the computer out of guilt. She silently sits on the sofa and sighs as she hugs a giant Upa cushion.

What we're doing certainly is socially unacceptable. I recognize that. But...

"Having stepped foot on the path of evil long ago, I no longer know what guilt feels like! Fuahahahaha! I shall take all responsibility. I have no intention to get either of you charged with guilt."

"Okarin, you're bad. Mayushii's a sad panda."

That's of no concern to me. Don't be a hypocrite.



Looks like he sends this mail almost daily.

"LHC experiment reports, huh. There could be a time machine hint in there. We should try opening it."

"It seems dangerous to look at it, though..."

Daru says so while clicking on the mail. What comes out is a cryptic series of symbols.

"This is encrypted."

"Tch, so it really wasn't that simple..."

"Well, it'll be a piece of cake to solve this level of encryption."

Nice, supah hakah. He's no doubt a genius. In about 10 minutes, Daru's undone the security. What takes more time is deciphering the confusingly-translated Japanese.



"Hi, Pole!"

"That acting's unnecessary."

"Ya think so...?"
"Uploaded today's experimental data to the server. The LHC's condition is excellent. Though, it is the LHC to the end.
It's almost fickle like a cat, but it was surprisingly obedient this month. It would be great if it stayed in this condition forever.
But don't you think this work isn't rewarding? This kitten -- or should I say large cat HAHAHAHA -- has been in operation for 9 years.
This research that repaints human history should only be seen by a small group of people. In all actuality, if it was officially announced, it would become a scandal, don't you think?
Those guys around the world would probably say this: 'Call Robert Zemeckiff to SERN right away. Then you could get him to make it in less than a year.'"

"...9 years?"

Calm down. Sort it out. Does Daru notice something unnatural too? He's not joking like usual.

"Do you think there were any translation mistakes in that mail?"

"If you believe in the translation software, there shouldn't be any mistakes, right? The Japanese certainly is strange here and there, though.

"But something's weird, then. The LHC should've only been put into operation around spring last year. If you read between the lines in this email, it's been in operation for 9 years."

"That's strange."



Yesterday on @channel, John Titor posted this:

"If you want to supplement that explanation, then you have no choice but to believe what they say. They have already succeeded at the creation of black holes."

I gulp. If you read between the lines in this mail... there's the nuance that they're doing some sort of secret experiments...

And Robert Zemeckiff is a super-famous Hollywood movie director. He directed a trilogy of smash-hit time travel movies about 20 years ago. Don't tell me... my expectations were correct? SERN's hiding a major secret from the world? And it's even research on time machines, or something related...?

"Daru. Examine it some more. Search for traces of time machine research."

"Seriously?"

I don't know if Daru was directing that to my order, or to SERN's secret.



"Hmm, there aren't any mails with the phrase 'time machine' in them... but the phrase 'Z Program' is used hundreds of times in the past few months. Don't you think it could be the experiments they're doing with the LHC right now?"

"What is it specifically? Black hole formation experiments?"

"Hmmm, let's look for a document... ah, found one."

Daru opens up a PDF file sent as an attachment.

"Hohoh, looks like this is top secret stuff from France, England and Holland."

"...top secret national affairs?"

"SERN's not even a national organization, so why? Anyway, top secret national affairs? This is bad, isn't it?"

"Don't care. Examine the details."

"No, no. If we get caught, we won't just be sorry."

"Are you so incompetent at hacking that you'd get tracked?"

"...I did it in a way that can't be tracked."

"Then I fail to see a problem."

Daru makes a slightly awkward face as he feeds a file detailing the Z Program into the translation software.



"Because the mission of mini-black hole formation has already been established, the report is omitted. First--"

"Stop! Stop!"

All of a sudden, Titor's prediction became a reality!

"So SERN did use the LHC to successfully generate mini-black holes!"

"Officially, they announced that they still haven't succeeded with the experiments, so why..."

When Titor posted 'believe what they say', that's what he was referring to.

"In the first place, the experiment's goal was to create new particle creations, not generate mini-black holes..."

Daru doesn't take his wide eyes off the monitor.

"But in reality, theyre already generating mini-black holes."

"Seems like it."

"What's written after that?"

"Umm... 'Experimental results: Error. Human is dead, mismatch. For details, consult the enclosed Jellyman's Report, No. 14. Unless lifter adjustment, as well as each local field conformity position can be fixed, it is proposed that the experiments must be terminated.'"

"Wh-What does that mean?"

"'Human is dead' means that somebody died, right?"

"Wha..."

Somebody died? Seriously?

(Anime episode 3.)