“I still don’t know why you guys are helping me,” I said, “but thank you.”

Masaru and I sat in the small, smoke-stained office down the hall from the back room while Akira chatted with Shirou. The evening had given way to night and my weary thermoregulation was struggling to keep up with the cooling air. Attached to the wall, up in the corner, was a small box like the ones in Akira’s backpack, eerily similar to the MitM devices Akira had said was used to steal change from people. A wire exiting the top of the small box disappeared into the ceiling.

Bypassing their Faraday cage.

Masaru had a warm, welcoming manner. He came off as being very friendly for someone living a life in the legal gray area that Akira had described, as if he had an endear...

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