Prologue: Chapter 2

   Behind the shopping district, a banner reading "Lots for Sale" hung from a newly-built apartment building. Nakamjima walked ahead, looking downwards while continuously moving his lips. To any passerby, he might have appeared like an ordinary high school student, deep in concentration trying to memorize something for a test. But those few people that caught a fragment of the words he was speaking turned around and gave him suspicious looks. That was because they sounded like the low and hostile muttering of a dark spell, and not at all something that you would expect to hear from a high school student. A cherry blossom fell from the nearby concrete wall and hit Nakajima's cheek, but he ignored it and kept walking, his eyes cast down to the ground. When he finally looked up, he was standing in front of a conspicuously tall apartment building. Placing his electronic key into the keyhole, the solid plate-glass automatic doors slid open with a heavy sound. The entrance to the building was made from extravagant imported Canadian marble, but still seemed somewhat artificial. Stepping inside, Nakajima took a deep breath and straightened up.
   Nakajima entered the elevator and pressed the button to the thirteenth floor. With the change in air pressure, his body started to hurt, reminding him of the unpleasant events of the afternoon. A copper plaque with the word "NAKAJIMA" engraved on it was affixed to the door to apartment 1302. Nakajima pressed the doorbell, but there was no response. Sighing, he unlocked the door.
   Opening the door and going inside, Nakajima took off his shoes, threw them aside randomly, and headed to the bathroom. The injured lip of the face looking back at him in the mirror had swollen up like a balloon, and was quite unpleasant to look at. His left cheek had a yellowish bruise on it as well. After looking at himself in the mirror for a bit, Nakajima abruptly turned on the faucet and splashed his face with the water that came pouring out. Returning to the living room and collapsing on the sofa, he noticed a memo on the side table.
   "I'm going to be late at a meeting. Heat up your dinner in the microwave...."
   Nakajima crumpled up the note without reading it to the end.
   "If you're just going to write the same old excuse, you might as well just photocopy the thing..."
   After Nakajima's father was transferred to the branch office in Los Angeles, his mother had become more and more involved in her job as a designer. Sometimes she wouldn't get home until the middle of the night. Picturing his mother's face, Nakajima's smoldering anger suddenly flared up. Right at that moment, the telephone rang. Of course, it was probably for his mother. Glaring at the ringing phone, Nakajima opened the door to his room.
   Nakajima's room was quite dreary, without a single poster or decoration. With the exception of the one with the window, the walls were filled with large steel bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling. The bookshelves had anime magazines and comic books, much like one would expect to find in a high school student's room, but one corner seemed starkly out of place. That shelf was filled with books on magic and sorcery with titles like "The Book of the Dead" and "Pnakotic Manuscripts." On top of his steel desk sat a fully decked-out computer, and sitting next to it was a general-purpose book on magic called "The New Golden Dawn Theory." From the look of the wear on the leather cover, it was clear that the book had seen a lot use.
   Nakajima pulled his chair out from the desk and sat down in front of the display. Turning on the switch on the side of his speakers, the vocals of David Coverdale filled the room. Nakajima's fingers started flying over the keyboard.
> LIST
   Entering the command, a very long program scrolled down the screen. Following the program list with sharp eyes, Nakajima started tapping the keys with a flowing rythm.
   Nakajima first became interested in magic when he had the opportunity to read "The New Golden Dawn Theory." While the book was poorly written, and the interpretation therein was clumsy and unskillful, Nakajima read through the whole thing regardless; while the world of magic held an appeal that hid a dark and sinister side, it also showed a rational and scientific realism to it as well. While re-reading passages that seemed to unusual to him two or three times over, Nakajima had made a sudden realization that was almost like an epiphany.
   Magical theory and computer theory were surprisingly similar.
   At first glance, the two worlds did not seem to have any connection to each other. However, the similiarities between them had been discovered by both magic and information technology researchers long before Nakajima. Charles Feed, a professor at MIT, a school famous for its study of artificial intelligence, was one of those researchers. Nakajima had immediately become a member of his group, ISG. (International Satanist Garden) And for the past few months, Nakajima had been immersed in writing a program to summon demons, the idea for which he had thought up himslf.
   It was almost complete.
   Nakajima had already finished the core part of the program. All he had to do now was add a few subroutines and it would be finished. But until yesterday, Nakajima had had reservations about finishing the project to completion. If his theory was correct, the program would definitely call a demon into the world. But up until this point, Nakajima couldn't think of any particular reason to summon a demon; he wouldn't even know what to make it do. But the events of the day had given him a clear, simple, goal.
   "I feel a little sorry for you, but you're going to be the subject of a little experiment." Nakajima started creating his final subroutines.
   "Use data addresses 3780-3990 for 'Toad's Legs.' Put this in the buffer, and before displaying the result, chant the spell. Yod, Dur, Dawr, Set. Wonder what this spell means?"
   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.