Cool Shock Old B.T. - Chapter 2
Two 90-year-old men, B.T. and Koichi Mugikari, travel to space on B.T.'s private COOL SHOCK spaceship. However, a mysterious bomber places two bombs on their ship, forcing them to figure out how they can survive.
Summary
The 90-year-old B.T. is introduced, sitting in a wheelchair looking out of his privately-owned spaceship, COOL SHOCK, and smoking a pipe. Koichi Mugikari reveals that the year is 2060. He points out that in the novel 2061: Odyssey Three, mankind had already been able to land on Halley's Comet, yet B.T. and Koichi have only just managed to escape Earth's gravitational field. As Koichi presents the current incident, their robot, Echoes ACT4, hands him a risotto abalone porridge it cooked.
While he's eating, the ship receives a transmission on a nearby monitor. Koichi knocks on the screen since the feed is initially fuzzy. A mysterious silhouette appears, greeting Koichi with his name and informing him that although he holds no grudges against Koichi, he planted two bombs on their ship. One of the bombs is by their escape pod, whereas a much bigger one, called "Old Virginia", is right next to their engine. The bomber tells Koichi to greet Old Virginia before he hangs up.
B.T. and Koichi head to the escape pod cockpit and see the first bomb. B.T. warns Koichi not to touch it, since it's likely a vacuum bomb. Koichi worries about B.T. smoking next to it, but B.T. doesn't care. He finds a note attached to the bomb, displaying a mini-shogi puzzle with the opponent's gold general piece on 3a, the opponent's king piece on 1a, the player's rook piece on 3c, and the player's pawn piece on 2c. Koichi realizes that the note mentions that there is a passcode, so they will most likely be able to disarm the bomb if they solve the puzzle. B.T. claims to only know how to play chess, so he lets Koichi solve the puzzle instead. Koichi has to get a checkmate within three moves. He quickly deduces that it's possible by moving the rook to 3a and promoting it, moving the king to 1b, and moving the promoted rook to 2b. B.T. then deciphers the passcode by imagining that the squares on the shogi board are like the keys on a numeric keypad, so the current placements of the shogi pieces would equal to "765" based on the order of the moves Koichi made.
B.T. inputs the passcode on the control panel attached to the bomb, successfully disarming it. The bomb gets crushed into the ground when it deactivates. Koichi is happy that they can now evacuate, but B.T. doesn't want to since they're having fun and there's still one more bomb left. Assuming the bomber was challenging him to a battle of wits, B.T. is determined to stop the second bomb and punish the bomber.
The duo head to the engine room where they encounter "Old Virginia", a large bomb that looks like an orange. B.T. assumes that the bomber went with such a huge bomb because of the engine room being the most durable part of the ship. Old Virginia displays a countdown timer with about eight minutes left. However, B.T. realizes that there is no way to disarm it, as the bomber did not leave any puzzle, buttons, codes, or control panel. Koichi suggests that they should head back to the escape pod or try lowering the oxygen levels in the room so that the vacuum bomb won't be able to explode, but B.T. declares that both solutions are impossible as they would take too long.
The elderly duo accept their impending deaths. B.T. apologizes to Koichi for showing a lackluster side of himself in the end. Koichi is shocked, as that is the first time B.T. has apologized to him in almost 80 years. Both of them laugh and share stories of all the good and sad memories they had together throughout their lives. Their memories include the following: B.T. helping Koichi put on a tie as children, young B.T. and Koichi taking photos, young B.T. and Koichi looking at Switzerland watch models, teenage B.T. and Koichi playing rugby, an adult B.T. giving a speech at Koichi's wedding, Koichi letting B.T. carry his son, B.T., and Koichi together at the release of Koichi's Cool Shock B.T. novel, Koichi surprised to see B.T.'s excavation of a Spinosaurus skeleton displayed at a museum, Koichi supporting B.T. at a magic show, B.T. comforting Koichi at a funeral, an elderly B.T. and Koichi posing in front of a Sherlock Holmes statue, Koichi and B.T. vacationing at Hawaii, and B.T. slicing an apple for Koichi while he's at the hospital.
Koichi mimics B.T.'s palm trick that he did during a magic show in Vegas. Afterward, he wonders what happened to the smaller bomb that B.T. disarmed. B.T. reveals that he brought the bomb with him, carrying it in his suit's pocket. The bomb is active again, due to a plan B.T. was saving as a last resort in case something happened. He declares that he isn't running away. Echoes ACT4 carries the smaller bomb to Old Virginia. As the robot squeezes the smaller bomb, it explodes and sets off the second bomb. At that moment, the surrounding oxygen in the air is consumed by the first bomb, creating a vacuum, which minimizes the second bomb's explosion. Koichi thanks Echoes ACT4 for its sacrifice. Despite both explosions, the first bomb is actually still unscathed, though it's no longer dangerous to them.
The bomber greets Koichi and B.T. on their monitor. He is disappointed that he couldn't hear them scream, but reveals that he's parked right next to their ship and will warp himself into theirs, determined to make them his slaves. B.T. realizes that the bomber is Manabu and predicts that Manabu will be the one screaming instead. Surprised, Manabu suddenly notices that his ship is about to collide with a meteorite. As he crashes into it, B.T. announces that he hacked Manabu's ship and redirected it to head to the oncoming meteorite.
Finally, B.T. declares that they need to follow that meteorite, divulging the real reason he invited Koichi onto the ship. He heard a rumor from his grandmother that somewhere in space, there's an ultimate lifeform floating around who could grant them eternal life if they recover it. Shocked, Koichi agrees to follow B.T. until the end of the universe, since they'll be best friends forever.
Appearances
Gallery
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Trivia
- The title is a reference to Say Hi to Virginia (バージニアによろしく, Bājinia ni Yoroshiku). The plot and a lot of the dialogue parodies the original story as well.
References
- ↑ Vish (October 18, 2023), "JOJO magazine 2023 WINTER Releases in December With New Novels and Manga", JoJo's Bizarre Encyclopedia.
