베스트
549
8th
ALLEYOOP
547
9th
Rabenklaue
542
10th
DragonFlame
540
CHAPTER TWENTY
MIKA
MIKA STARED HARD at Sabine and her friends huddled together near the wall, looking at their phones and whispering. Had one of them hacked into her account? It was hard to imagine—after all, they’d just witnessed Andy finding the medal. Now they were standing right over there, looking more glum than guilty. Maybe they were really good actors.
Or maybe they weren’t trying to cheat at all.
“No!”
Sabine cried out in alarm, and everyone on the deck turned to stare. A second later, her team members began to argue loudly, pointing at their phones and gesturing accusingly at one another. Mika checked her phone, positive another team had guessed the Masked Medalist’s identity and won the grand prize, but there was no update.
“What’s going on?”
“Let’s find out.” Emma walked past her, heading toward the distraught teens. Andy and Mika exchanged a glance before following her. Sabine looked up in surprise at Emma, who crossed her arms. “What happened?” Emma demanded.
Sabine looked from her to Andy and Mika, and she attempted to smile as she stepped away from her teammates. “Congratulations, guys!” she said. “Did you go for two hints, or more points?”
Mika stared at her. Something about Sabine’s expression was off. She’d always been cheerful and friendly before, but now she seemed . . . guarded. What was she hiding?
“Hints,” Andy replied. “Is something wrong? You all look really upset.”
Sabine heaved a sigh. “Well, actually . . . OlympiFan says we took our guess and got it wrong.”
“Whaat?” Mika hadn’t been expecting that.
“But we didn’t guess!” insisted a boy in a lime-green hat. He looked around at his teammates, his eyes wide. “Right? No one entered a guess!”
The other four nodded, then fell into a loud discussion. Sabine took another step away from her friends. “I guess I’m glad we went with one hint and more points when we won the Silver,” she said. “The behind-the-scenes videos in the Gallery are really cool.”
“Someone on your team tried to make a guess with just one hint? That’s pretty risky.” Emma lowered her voice. “Unless one of them is the cheater and had five hints because they’d been in our accounts.”
Sabine looked taken aback. “What? No!”
“Are you sure?” Andy asked. “Because someone hacked into our account a few minutes ago and saw our hints, just like they did to Team Cryptic when they won the Bronze.” He gestured to Emma, who nodded. “Your team is the only one the cheater left alone.”
Mika could tell that Sabine was starting to get upset. “My friends are not cheaters, and neither am I. In fact . . .” Sabine swiped her phone, then held it out. Mika saw a sound clip icon on the screen. “This is the hint to the Masked Medalist’s identity that came with the Silver medal,” Sabine said. “Play it.”
Mika looked from Andy to Emma. No one moved.
“Go on, seriously,” said Sabine earnestly. “Team Cryptic played fair. So does Team SuperFan. Whoever’s cheating won’t have an advantage if everyone has all the hints, so play it!”
After a second, Andy reached out and tapped play.
BEEZZT!
The clip was only a second long, but it was definitely familiar. It sounded like a cross between a beep and a buzz. Mika had heard it before—but where?
Sabine lowered her phone. “I’ll post this for all the players to have, just like you did,” she told Emma. Then she turned back to Mika and Andy. “Okay?”
Mika nodded. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Andy echoed. “And we’ll post ours, too.” He looked at Mika. “Right? It’s only fair.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Mika said emphatically, and Andy started typing on his phone. A moment later, he held it up.
“There. I posted ours in the OlympiFan forums.”
“That is fair,” Sabine said, smiling at them before returning to her friends. Mika watched as Team SuperFan headed to the ramp. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn’t figure it out.
“Mika.”
She turned to see Andy staring at his phone as if it might explode any second.
“What if the cheater did get into Team SuperFan’s account?” he said. “If they’re all telling the truth about not entering a guess about the Masked Medalist, someone else did it. What if the cheater got them disqualified by making a wrong guess?”
Mika gasped. “Oh—they could do that to us, too!”
“Change your password,” Emma said immediately. “Hurry!”
“I’m going to tell Devon and Riley to do it, too,” Mika added, navigating to the chat room as she spoke. “Just in case.”
“I’ll change mine, too,” Andy said.
Mika finished her post to Devon and Riley, then opened her OlympiFan account information. She entered her old password, then typed in a new one and tapped change.
The password you entered is incorrect.
“What?” Mika frowned at her phone and tried again, only to see the same message. “Um . . . the app says my old password is wrong.”
Andy looked at her screen. “That’s weird. Are you sure you entered the right one?”
“Yes . . . well, pretty sure.” Mika had set up her OlympiFan account weeks ago and never logged out. “What do I do now?”
“Log out and then tap forgot my password,” Emma suggested. “Then it’ll send a link to your email and you can reset it even if you don’t remember your old one.”
Mika hesitated, then tapped log out. She was pretty positive she did remember her old password, but it wouldn’t do any good to argue.
“I still don’t understand how the cheater got into your accounts in the first place,” Andy said. “Were your passwords that easy to guess?”
“Mine definitely wasn’t,” Emma said. “It was a cryptogram. A really, really long one. No one could just guess it.”
“Someone did, though.” Andy pocketed his phone. “How else would they get in?”
Emma sighed. “I have no idea.”
Mika could tell from Andy’s expression that he was just as disappointed as she was. Whoever the cheater was, it looked like they were probably going to get away with it and maybe even win the grand prize. After all, they had five hints to the Masked Medalist’s identity.
But then again, so did Mika and Andy. They just had to solve the puzzle first.
* * *
By the time the Kudos arrived at Chef Abe’s restaurant that evening, Mika was relieved to have a distraction from OlympiFan. She’d felt anxious all day, going over and over the hints and waiting for whoever had cheated to reveal the Masked Medalist’s identity and win the game. More than a dozen teams had entered their guesses—but they had all been wrong.
“Mika! Andy!”
Mika turned as Emma hopped out of a taxi that had pulled up right behind theirs. “Hi, Emma! Hi, Mrs. Botha!”
“So nice to see you again,” Mrs. Botha said, then held out her hand to Dad. “Mr. and Mrs. Kudo. I understand we have you to thank for this invitation?”
“Oh, I don’t think I had much to do with it,” Dad told her with a grin. “Chef Abe’s publicist was thrilled to have another Olympic athlete on the guest list.”
As Dad spoke, a young man climbed out of the taxi. He straightened up, and Emma grabbed him by the arm and pulled
him over to the others.
“Everyone, this is my brother, Antony,” she announced. “This is Mika and Andy and their parents. They were sitting with us when you won the bronze!”
Antony smiled at them. “Nice to meet you all,” he said softly. He seemed to be much shyer than his sister, who clung to his arm and beamed like she might burst with pride. “I hope you’ve been enjoying the Games!” He glanced at Mika’s purse; she’d fastened all of the pins she’d collected onto the strap. “You’re a collector?” Antony asked with a smile.
Mika tried to respond, yet all that came out was a squeak. Andy seemed just as starstruck, but Mom stepped in quickly.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, shaking Antony’s hand. “And I have to say, your race was one of the most exciting events we had the pleasure of watching this week!”
Mom and Dad kept up a steady stream of chatter with Mrs. Botha and Antony as they crossed the lobby. Inside the elevator, Emma squeezed in next to Mika and whispered, “I think I know how the cheater got into my account.”
On Mika’s other side, Andy leaned closer. “How?”
Emma glanced at her mother and brother, who were still talking to Mika’s parents. “Remember when we met at the shrine, I told you my mom and I had been across the street buying souvenirs? We were, but as soon as Tyler realized the clues were a photo of the Meiji Shrine, he got in the VR line then messaged me. We both knew I probably wouldn’t get there in time, but he wanted me to leave the notes so other AR players would find them. I ran over to the gate and saw you guys and Team SuperFan.”
“And Tyler found the medal before us in VR mode,” Mika said, nodding.
“Right. And then after I left the notes and talked to you, I went back to the souvenir shop.” Emma bit her lip. “Well, it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but I lost my phone. Just for a minute—my mom found it on a shelf with some figurines I’d been looking at for my grandma.”
“So you set it down and forgot about it?” Andy asked.
Emma frowned. “That’s what my mom said. But the thing is, I know I didn’t. Tyler and I had just won the Bronze. We were excited and kept texting about the hints and what they could mean. I stuck the phone in my back pocket while I was looking at the figurines. I’m positive. And it was really crowded in that shop; people kept bumping into me.”
“So you think . . .” Mika paused, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You think someone took it out of your pocket?”
“Whoever got into our account saw me leaving the notes at the shrine,” Emma replied quietly. “They could have followed me to the shop and taken my phone. I was logged in to my account so they didn’t need my password! All they had to do was look at the hints and then leave that message in our chat room—it would only take a few seconds. Then they left my phone on the shelf.”
“I don’t get it,” Andy said. “Tyler was positive that Mika and I were the ones who cheated, but you would have noticed if we’d followed you to the shop.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t even realize what had happened until later that night!” Emma exclaimed. “I didn’t open the app again all day because my mom and I went to watch the equestrian event. And Tyler kept playing, but he didn’t check our chat room because he knew I was busy. By the time we saw the message, I’d forgotten about misplacing my phone.”
Ding! The doors slid open.
Mrs. Botha gasped as the group stepped off the elevator. “Oh my! This is lovely!”
Mika blinked as she took in the restaurant. Next to her, Emma whistled softly. “Wow.”
“Seriously.” Mika had forgotten how incredible Kenji was, with its 360-degree view of the city, the giant kitchen with cool mirrors and neon lights, and the boxy chandeliers that glowed in soft blues and pinks overhead. And now, with music pulsing from the speakers and a crowd of people in suits and fancy dresses, it seemed even more glamorous.
“Tom! Karen!” Emi hurried over, wearing a beautiful blue silk dress with a pattern of red roses. “Welcome—and you must be the Bothas!”
Mika hung back as the introductions were made. She glanced over her shoulder at the corridor, picturing the private room where they’d had dinner for the soft opening. The déjà vu was back, and it wasn’t just because she’d been here before. Something else was nagging at the back of her mind, trying to grab her attention, but she couldn’t quite figure it out.
“Kenji is more than just a restaurant,” she heard Emi saying as she led them inside. “It’s a place to be seen, to interact. We encourage our guests to mingle between courses. Every evening, Chef Abe will serve a nine-course meal—but the courses will always be different, depending on what’s in season, what looks particularly fresh or special at the market.”
Standing on tiptoe, Mika spotted the young chef moving swiftly around the kitchen in the middle of the room. Unlike the two chefs assisting him, both wearing traditional white coats and hats, Chef Abe was dressed all in black—and he wore a huge grin. From what Mika could see, he was already putting on a show for the older journalist who had sat next to Mika at the soft opening. As Mika and Andy watched, Chef Abe tossed ingredients into a skillet with a flourish as flames shot up from the gas burners. Grabbing a spatula, he flipped a fried shrimp out of the skillet—and right into the surprised journalist’s open mouth!
“Goal!” Chef Abe cried, raising his arms over his head.
Mika giggled as everyone watching burst into applause. “I guess Emi was right,” she said to Andy. “Chef Abe isn’t so shy when he’s cooking!”
She spotted Wesley Brooks standing near the kitchen, chatting animatedly with Valentina and James. Next to Wesley, Hana Takahashi was taking video of Chef Abe’s performance on her phone.
“Mika, look!” Andy pointed at a nearby table, where Gavin Driscoll was talking to an older couple. Before she could reply, he was already making his way to Gavin’s table. Emma and Mika exchanged a confused look, and then followed him.
“Well, hey there, Kudo kids!” Gavin said cheerfully as the couple wandered over to another table. “I hear congratulations are in order?”
“What? Oh.” Andy smiled half-heartedly. “You mean the Gold medal?”
“That’s right!” Gavin looked with curiosity at Emma. “You’re an OlympiFan player, too, right? I remember seeing you at the shrine!”
“This is Emma—she’s on Team Cryptic,” Mika told Gavin with a grin. “She and her friend Tyler won the Bronze.”
Emma smiled as Gavin let out a whistle. “Lucky me, getting to meet all of the medalists! Say, are you three up for an interview for my documentary? Not now, but—maybe tomorrow morning? With your parents’ permission, of course.”
“Yeah, definitely!” Andy said. “Speaking of—you interviewed Team SuperFan, right?”
Gavin grinned. “Those goofy kids with the hats and wigs? Yup, I have lots of footage of them. Very chatty.”
“This might sound weird, but . . .” Andy hesitated, glancing at Mika before continuing. “Did any of them say anything suspicious?”
“Suspicious? Like what?”
Mika knew what her brother was getting at. “There’s a player out there who’s cheating,” she told Gavin bluntly. “They got into our account and Emma’s account and saw the hints that came with our medals.”
“And you think it was one of them?” Gavin asked. “Well, that’s a shame. But I’m sorry, I don’t think I can be of much help—I only really talked to them at the shrine, and that was right after this young lady’s team won the Bronze.” He nodded at Emma, who smiled. “Those poor kids were upset about the loss, for sure. And that one over there, he was mad. He thought someone was trying to cheat. He came over to me right when I got here tonight, actually—kept trying to tell me the whole game was rigged, but then Emi made him get to work.”
Mika, Andy, and Emma looked in the direction Gavin was pointing, then at one a
nother, confused. “Wait, one of the SuperFans is here?” Andy asked.
“Yeah, Emi’s nephew, Kaito. That’s him at that table over there . . .” Gavin gestured again, and Mika saw a table with three older women sipping bright-blue drinks and laughing together. She was about to ask Gavin who he was talking about when he added: “The busboy.”
Mika’s eyes went to a sullen-faced boy with a fringe of black hair, setting a plate of appetizers on the table. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Emi’s nephew is on Team SuperFan?” Andy asked in disbelief. “I remember her saying that he played OlympiFan, but I don’t remember seeing him at Tokyo Tower this morning. Do you guys?”
“No, definitely not,” Emma said. “Mika?”
Startled, Mika finally tore her eyes off the busboy. “No, he wasn’t there,” she said. “But thanks anyway, Gavin!”
She waved at Gavin, then hurried off to a nearby window. When she reached an empty table, Mika set her purse down and pulled out her phone. By the time Andy and Emma caught up, she had already started searching through her photos.
“What’s going on?” Andy said, looking concerned. “You’re acting weird.”
“Look.” Mika placed her phone flat on the table. “Here’s Team SuperFan at the Giant Ghibli Clock, right when they found the Silver. How many of them are there?”
Andy and Emma leaned in closer. “Six,” Emma said. “Just like this morning.”
“Right.” Mika began swiping until she reached the photos she’d taken at the Meiji Shrine. “But what about here?”
There was a pause. “Seven,” Andy said finally. “There were seven of them.”
Mika swiped again, stopping on the photo of Gavin interviewing the boy with the oversize sunglasses—and a familiar, sullen expression. Emma’s mouth fell open.
“That’s him—that’s the busboy!”
“Are you sure?” Andy asked, leaning closer to the screen. “I mean, it does look like him, but—”
“It’s him,” Mika said urgently. “He was at the soft opening, too, Andy. I thought he looked familiar then, but I didn’t recognize him because of those giant sunglasses.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “He’s the cheater.”
Kudo Kids--The Mystery of the Masked Medalist Page 16