00101: At the Arcade

It was the sensory overload as every time. Countless of arcade machines stood all over the place and tried to attract customers with their fancy animations, flashing lights, music and sound effects. My mouth began watering and I didn’t know where to look first. This was definitely more of my world. It was already noon, and the game center was moderately crowded with people.

“In heaven once again”, Tokiko exclaimed. “Onii-chan, you have to win some plush toy for me!”

“Can’t you do this yourself?”

“Of course, I could but it will be a much better memory, if you do it for me.” Girls’ logic.

“Alright, but let’s find what Fujinami-kun told us about first. When I have this behind my back, I’ll get you whatever you want.”

Her eyes sparkled again. “We will have found this in no time!”

To my surprise she was totally right. I suspected it to be a much longer search, but in the uppermost floor in the very back, in a dim, slightly enclosed corner, we found it. A single arcade machine stood there with the exact same logo as on my card. Only the name underneath was different. “Cyber War?” I read.

“Well, it definitely sounds like something that would suit for a school for hacking, doesn’t it?”

I watched the demo animation play. It was a 3D quick time rail shooter that looked like it was from the last century. The only ‘controller’ was a keyboard. You had to type the computer commands that appeared on screen with a time limit to progress further. I sat down and inserted a coin. “Well, let’s try what it does.”

The game started with a small intro sequence explaining the general plot. It revolved around a secret tropical island as it could be found in many spy movies. The main character was an experienced secret agent with a detailed backstory that obviously no one actually cared about. He had to infiltrate the island through hacking into its security systems.

The premise looked intriguing, even though I already knew that it would be one of this classic arcade games that tried to pull you the money out of your pockets. I noticed how Tokiko tensed up behind me, as the first commands slowly appeared. “You’ll make this! There is no one who can type as fast as you.”

Well, maybe this was it … my ticket to Ineigaikan. At least it was the most promising hint I had gotten so far. It was still a blur to me, how this arcade machine connected to the school, but I would hopefully find out soon. Besides that, I was still curious, if Fujinami-kun and the two girls really were students at this school and above all, why it was so secret in the first place.

The game started out relatively easy. Through all the programming I already had a lot of experience with fast typing. At the first stage, the agent dove to an enclosed beach and had to take out a few hidden surveillance cameras that were observing the area. Lying half in the sand to not attract any attention, only relatively easy commands had to be entered at a slow pace.

whoami

ls

kill 1265

rm recordings

shutdown /t 0

It took me not even a minute to complete all of them. Then the agent walked further to the next location, through a little jungle forest. Between these transitions no commands appeared, and I could just watch the animations and 3D graphics that were really well made for the age the game looked. The agent ended in front of a metal door hidden behind an alcove in a rocky wall. I hacked into the access terminal that hung at the side.

who

The commands appeared faster.

last -l root

grep password notes

sudo passwd root

mypwd

abc

abc

It got harder to keep up with the pace. I misstyped a letter and had to repeat it, but the other commands did not slow down. I clenched my teeth. It already got hard to focus. Do not make any more mistakes, you idiot!

sudo bash unlock.sh

abc

I made it right at the edge of the last word. The metal door slid open. Behind it appeared a stairwell that led deep into the rock. The player ran down and came into a huge cave-like underground room. Trucks were parked at the side and bright lights illuminated a submarine that was fixed with strong chains in a water ditch in the center. There was no gate or anything, so there had to be an underwater tunnel that led outside. As I entered the room, shots hit into the walls next to me.

They already noticed me! The agent ran and slid on the ground to hide behind a wooden crate. With a quick pan the camera adjusted its position to show three guys with rifles that were slowly approaching the hiding spot. New words appeared on screen. It were just three lines, but they came in fast. I was not prepared and too slow for the last one. Shots. The crate bursted and my character held his arm, rolled to the side into the cover of the other crate. Urgh, they just decimated half of my life points!

I typed the failed command again and it was just in time. An electric sound came from the speakers and the player looked up at the three guys. They had been electrocuted through a water puddle in which all of them stood. Only now I noticed the loose cable that had been hanging into it. Seems like I activated that.

But there was no time for thinking. The agent ran to the next location, into the direction of the submarine. He hid behind one of the trucks as other henchmen, who had heard the shots, approached the area. New commands came onto the screen. This times it were a few more lines. They activated a crane and let one of the containers crash down onto them.

Next stage! Now a moveable bridge that reached over the water ditch knocked my enemies into the water. At the fifth stage I failed when four guys came at me all at once and I was unable to kill the last one before he got me in a bullet time sequence.

“Damn,” I said. “The difficulty ramped up quite fast. I should have taken the right guy first.”

“But you already came so far,” Tokiko reassured me. “Just a few more tries, and you’ll make it!”

I wasn’t really sure if I’d ever be able to play this game through. Arcade games were designed to be hard to beat, and it took months or even years to perfect the timing to play some through – if it was even possible in the first place. But I had to try at least a few more times, so I threw in the next coin.

With that try I already knew how the first stages went. In that regard it was easier to complete them. I didn’t miss the fast commands at the entrance of the cave and even managed to knock out the four guys that came at me. However, it was only with my third try, that I really got into it. The plot was totally over the top and a bit cliché, but the finish animations were really well made.

With saying that, it got harder and harder to keep up with the text speed. I made more mistakes and had to type and read at the exact same time, both costing me valuable life points. My focus completely merged with the game, the world around me blurred. I concentrated solely on the commands on screen. They almost got me at the seventh stage. Just in the very last fraction of a second, I completed the last command.

I breathed through as the transition animation played and shot a short look at Tokiko. She seemed to be at the verge of exploding. Her hands clenched hard into my shoulders and she almost hid behind me, looking scared at the screen.

I came to the next steel door that had another card terminal installed. A message popped up in front of it: Access card required; and a single, selectable option: Go back to the submarine.

The game halted at this point. Nothing happened as I stared at the screen. I seemingly had no other alternative than to accept this option. That was odd. It completely disturbed the pace.

“What are you waiting for?” Tokiko pulled herself to my side.

“I just got an idea.” I took the business card from Ando-sensei out of my pockets and slowly hovered over the keyboard with it. As I looked more closely, the arcade machine seemed really new to me. It could also be that the graphics were just made to look old, but there actually was new hardware inside. New hardware like the reader for a wireless RFID chip. A beeping came from the speakers and a new message appeared on screen: Access granted! The metal door opened.

“Wha-? Well, that is really clever,” Tokiko said wiggling at my shoulders. “They hid a chip inside the card!”

The room inside was really dark. Only light from behind the player casted a long shadow onto the ground. With just another moment the door shut again, making the screen go completely black.

Red letters appeared.

READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!

If you intend to apply for a spot at the senior high school ‘Ineigaikan International Academy for IT and Data Security’, you have to accept the following conditions:

1st: You are aware that the information disclosed to you afterwards is classified SECRET.

2nd: You are aware that exposing any of the following information to a party outside of Ineigaikan and/or any of the Japanese intelligence agencies is prohibited by law unless it is explicitly marked otherwise.

3rd: Continuing now and opposing to these conditions will be accounted as high treason and result in an imprisonment of at least ten years.

4th: The used Ineigaikan invitation card is invalidated. It is not possible to use it a second time. Declining this proposal will void your chance for an application.

Press the Y key to accept this offer under the named conditions or the N key to decline it.

I gulped and looked at Tokiko, who answered with a slightly intimidated expression herself. “I somehow feel this overwhelming urge to leave you alone for a moment.” She grinned and made a step backwards before turning around. “You’ll find me at the toy cranes at the floor below.”

I nodded and turned back to the text. I was really curious what was up with this school. Why was everything about it so secretive? What did they have to do with intelligence agencies or the government? Why was its name completely wiped from the internet? All these things floated through my head. Did I really have another choice?

I pressed Y.

The next text scrolled onto the screen. It explained a few general information about the school. I slowly understood. Ineigaikan was an elite senior high school for IT and data security – so far so good. It also was a boarding school and therefore mandatory to live at the provided dorms on the school grounds. Besides the compulsory education, a particular emphasis was placed to teach the subjects Mathematics, Informatics and English in a way that prepares students for a study in the field of IT and especially IT security. The teachers are a mix of former professionals with practical experience and top alumni with a strong background in IT. They practice a principle of absolute anonymity to protect their student’s identities and prevent unknown external forces to derive a benefit from their abilities. Even the school’s student ranking is only published with pseudonyms.

Most applications to the school are coming from Japan, the US and Europe but also from several other countries around the world. To apply for the entrance exams, it was mandatory to obtain an invitation from someone at the school and to play through the very game I was just sitting in front of. Despite that already being a big hurdle, they still had an insane rate of around 30 applicants per available spot.

Inside the explanations, special information was marked to be publicly available. The school’s name for example could be used, even though it was advised to use it only with trusted people to minimize the chance for someone intersecting the conversation and making extortions possible.

I felt a bit like I had fallen into a spy movie, but I understood their caution. Data was the most valuable resource of the 21st century. It is the raw representation of information and good information is the foundation of sophisticated decisions. Whoever controls the data, controls the world. But to control it you need to have the people that are the best in their field. In other words: There probably are a lot of governments and maybe even companies that have an eye on this school and it lies in its hands to prevent this people to utilize the students for their own intents.