Ch.10001st Work Record – The Man Who Came From Nowhere (4)

“Meeting the boss at the office means I also met Tina, and since I met Kay too, the only ones I haven’t met yet must be Enzo and Eve.”

It seemed like a good idea to memorize their names. They would be my colleagues from now on.

“Eve is someone whose whereabouts are unknown outside of working hours… so let’s go see Enzo. Anyway, if you want to buy anything, he’s the one who needs to approve it. He’s the financial manager. The most trustworthy guy in this company after the boss.”

After the boss. The boss did seem quite reliable. If he were handling ordinary employees, I’d say he was a good manager, but each of my colleagues seemed to have quite distinctive personalities.

A financial manager meant he was the person who determined how quickly and accurately money would enter my pocket. There was nothing wrong with such a person being trustworthy. Volla nodded slightly.

It seemed to be a gesture to connect a communication line. She began conversing without making a sound. With a full-body prosthetic, she could communicate without having to vocalize.

It didn’t last long. She nodded slightly again, then looked at me and smiled with just her exposed left eye.

“Good. Enzo says he’ll meet us, so let’s go. Oh, and just to let you know in advance…”

She briefly lifted her suit jacket to show me a bullet hole. Playing a chuckling sound, she said,

“Don’t call Eve by that name. She pulled a gun on me when I called her that after hearing it from the boss. She’s from Hollowed Creek, so try to understand. Who would want to use a name given to them in the cradle of filthy religious zealots?”

Hollowed Creek was a megacorporation, a city, and a religion all at once.

Hollowed Creek Pharmaceuticals was one of the top five pharmaceutical companies in America, and Hollowed Creek City, an ark city purchased from the U.S. government by the devout CEO of Hollowed Creek, was itself a church.

Initially evaluated as a cradle for religious people whose influence was waning, but like everything else, even faith corroded with time.

Belief in God and praise for the ark city gradually shifted toward the CEO of Hollowed Creek rather than God, and the CEO, seemingly quite satisfied with the city he created, accepted such faith as it was.

He became a god. It started involuntarily, but he willingly embraced the belief.

That’s why Hollowed Creek Autonomous City became an extreme surveillance city where drones called Watchmen flew in flocks instead of migratory birds.

For administrative convenience, all men were named Adam and all women Eve… it became a monster raised in the name of religion.

So outside of Hollowed Creek, it was better not to mention being a religious person from Hollowed Creek.

Ordinary people would shoot fanatics dead, and if you were a normal religious person, you would do the same with twice the hatred and wrath.

Naturally, there was no freedom of residential movement there. Being outside and not being a believer meant you were an escapee. It was a name she wanted to discard, but it seemed she hadn’t decided on another one yet. It was a personal matter.

She didn’t seem like someone who would care about such things, but she quietly did. It wasn’t the same company loyalty and camaraderie I’d seen at my previous workplace, but something similar existed here. I couldn’t quite name it.

But I must have been staring too obviously. Volla looked at me as if she knew what I wanted to say, then lightly patted my back and gently pushed me toward what appeared to be her pickup truck.

“I do like to automate and mechanize everything. But there’s one thing I don’t automate, rookie. Don’t automate the thoughts in your head. That’s what inferior flesh-bags do.”

Ironically, she said this while tapping the exposed part of her forehead. The interior of the car was quite comfortable, perhaps custom-built for her modified body.

The car drives through downtown LA. LA’s midday weather came in just two varieties: clear days tinted gray by smog, and downpours that washed away the smog and drowned the homeless.

A moderate amount of rain was as hard to find as a moderate amount of money. The rain in this city smelled divine.

As we got closer to the Belwether headquarters, security improved and the city became cleaner. Pasadena, where Belwether and Caltech were located, was a fairly decent neighborhood to live in. Especially now that one copycat was gone.

Now we’re heading back to downtown LA. The difference between streets with good security and alleys with bad security was just two blocks apart. Like a short gradient, the appearance of the streets changed, and so did the aspects the city revealed.

They say each district used to have its own characteristics, but now they were filled with cliché skyscrapers, passing through Little Tokyo whose only distinguishing features were the gates at the entrance and a few fluttering hologram flags.

We pass through Koreatown, now home to branch offices of megacorporations, where no people are visible, only unmanned turrets, drones, and android soldiers monitoring incoming vehicles.

In a country where producing four androids costs less than maintaining one soldier, being a mercenary seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t want to rely on translation devices.

That corner of the automated city seemed to be a landscape Volla liked, but the cold gazes of those unmanned streets scrutinized me a bit longer.

No security robot would be pleased about a military-grade enhanced body without a serial number entering their company’s front yard. Fortunately, it was just a simple passage they didn’t need to be wary of.

And we arrive at what appears to be our destination, a gun shop. It suited Volla. The entrance was noticeably larger than usual, clearly accommodating full-body prosthetic users like her.

Inside, a frail-looking man was sitting in a chair, hugging a briefcase, waiting for us. He wore glasses, and judging by the refraction, they were real prescription glasses.

Seeing that he didn’t even use artificial eyes, he might have been a pure human, but both his hands were prosthetics. Generic prosthetic hands painted the same color as his skin were fidgeting with each other before he saw us and stood up.

With black hair damp with cold sweat as if he had anxiety, a disheveled suit, he looked to be in his mid-forties, but the atmosphere was vastly different from Boss Yoon, who was about the same age.

He spoke with a slightly stammering voice. Even as he adjusted his glasses, his shoulders were quite hunched, making him look afraid of open spaces.

“Ah, ah. Miss Volla, and… th-that, n-new employee… Arthur, right? I’m Enzo K-Casetti. I’m in charge of Night Watch’s finances… actually, I’m j-just an accountant.”

His gaze trembled as if he was quite anxious, and he even mumbled as if he didn’t know what to say. Yet they had said he was the most trustworthy person after the boss.

“If you need anything in the field, feel free to ask me anytime, so please look around comfortably. B-Boss Yoon also said not to spare any cr-credits when arming the new recruit…”

Would there be any reason to look for an accountant in the field? It might be somewhat comforting to entrust him with tax calculations if I suddenly remembered I hadn’t done them in the middle of a gunfight. Beyond that, nothing came to mind.

He looked like a fragile man who might faint just hearing gunfire. He sat back down in the chair, hugging his briefcase, and Volla just nodded to him before leading me to the gun shop owner.

Unlike Volla, the gun shop owner was a man who had replaced everything above his lower jaw with machinery. The red lenses in place of his eyes looked at me, then clicked his tongue at Volla a few times.

“If you’re here to buy weapons for a flesh-bag, you shouldn’t come here, Volla. If you’re trying to show toys to a kid, I won’t say anything.”

“Kid? From what I see, you couldn’t lay a hand on this machine. Try it. Go ahead. I know you’re the guy who sells things once you acknowledge them, so really, go ahead and try. I’m also borrowing your hand a bit, so hit properly. You know?”

The gun shop owner, who had placed his unpainted metallic prosthetic hand on a reinforced plastic case containing firearms, raised his fist.

With artificial muscles like fiber optic cables clustered on his arm, he unleashed the stored power and threw a punch at me. It wasn’t that fast. Or maybe my eyes’ frame rate and processing speed were too high.

I grab the wrist of the incoming punch with my left hand. I extend my right hand and lightly scrape the emergency detachment switch barely visible on the detachable prosthetic forearm with the nail of my pinky finger, the thinnest one.

The switch designed to quickly drop the disconnected prosthetic worked certainly and rapidly. After a few mechanical sounds from inside, as if some mechanisms were being released, I was holding his hand in mine.

Volla burst into laughter again. It wasn’t output. She gently pushed my shoulder as I stood in an awkward posture holding his hand, and said,

“What if he really borrows it, rookie? Give it back. So, what do you think? It’s a fresh Post-Human Type IV. Aren’t you interested?”

I handed him back the limp hand I was holding by the wrist. After reattaching the prosthetic and checking its movement, he finally laughed back.

“I added more buffers to my head and waited, but I didn’t expect you to pull off my hand. Damn. This one’s the real deal. I’d like to request a tissue sample, but that’s not possible, right? When your lover works in Belwether’s Mobile Division, messing with the Post-Human series is the fastest way to contact your lover. So, what would you recommend for this machine made of flesh? What’s his position?”

“The boss seems to want to dress him all in black, give him a carbine, and have him wreck the rear. Recommend a carbine or submachine gun. Oh, rookie, if you have a preferred gun, speak up.”

Unfortunately, having only worked at Belwether, I didn’t know many guns well. When I just mentioned Belwether’s shortened rifle, he brought out a Belwether standard-issue rifle in perfect condition from the back of the shop.

It was fortunate that I had gone from a position where I should investigate where this leaked from to a position where I could just use it. It wasn’t even a civilian model but exactly the same as what the security team used.

The weight felt familiar, and the silencer was the standard issue as well. I unscrewed and removed the silencer from the end of the carbine. Fitts & Morrison specialized in gun attachments more than Belwether.

Whew, even thinking about it brings a sense of blasphemy. As a company employee, I couldn’t use or praise a competitor’s products, but now no one was stopping me from having such thoughts.

“I’d like a Fitts & Morrison silencer. Even though Belwether makes good guns…”

“If you want to send that daughter to the party, it’s better to decorate her with accessories made by Fitts & Morrison. You know your stuff, kiddo. Did you work at Belwether?”

“Of course not.”

I answered with one corner of my mouth raised. From the perspective of someone who was once affiliated with Belwether, the scene being manipulated before my eyes looked quite hybrid. A combination of two companies.

They labeled each other as competitors and prohibited their employees from cross-using products, but of course, they were compatible if you just changed the barrel cover for civilian use. Capitalism often breaks down even hostility.

“Still, those Belwether guys make one hell of a gun. Their rifles have been flooding the market for a few months now, and when Belwether products come up for auction, the auctioneers practically become rappers.”

He playfully rattled off a few abbreviations quickly, then tilted his head with genuine curiosity.

“Were there any rumors about someone selling stuff from Belwether’s supply department? The amount being released is incomparable to the usual trickle.”

Belwether products are flooding the black market. What kind of sign is this? The company wouldn’t tolerate such inefficiency. I hadn’t known this fact since the security team never lacked supplies.

Guns flooding the black market, doctors making counterfeit products… Was Belwether a less healthy company than I thought? From the inside, it seemed filled with practical robustness, but from the outside, there were many leaks.

“I’ve never worked at Belwether, but… I don’t think there were such rumors. They’re quite strict with supply management, aren’t they?”

It was like covering my eyes and saying “peek-a-boo” since they seemed to have almost figured it out anyway. I test-fire the prepared gun in a virtual reality customized to match real conditions in the back room of the gun shop.

It was much safer and cheaper to install a few virtual reality connection devices than to build a shooting range. Outdoor shooting ranges had long been the exclusive domain of the wealthy.

The grip feel was perfect, and the noise performance was much more satisfactory than when it was standard issue at Belwether. I briefly finish the test and exit virtual reality. Thinking about virtual reality reminds me of Bertha.

I already seemed to miss Bertha. After all, she was the only one who told me the truth even when all that remained was my brain. It wasn’t uncommon to miss an AI without emotions.

At Volla’s request, the gun was repainted in matte black and placed in a case, and Mr. Enzo handled the payment. His credit calculations were quick and accurate. Despite using his naked eye and glasses that weren’t smart glasses.

On the way back, the three of us rode in Volla’s pickup truck. Mr. Enzo, who sat next to me hugging his bag tightly, began speaking in his stammering voice again.

“Ah, ah. I should have mentioned this… A-Arthur. Preparing supplies in ad-advance is important, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yes. Of course. Because even what you could buy with pocket change before work has to be bought with blood during work. Volla said you’re a trustworthy person, so I wasn’t worried about supplies not being prepared on time.”

Mr. Enzo shook his head at my friendly words. His anxiously swirling eyes looked at me properly for just a moment. He started speaking without stammering, unlike before.

“No, that’s not it. Things you could buy with pocket change before receiving a job require more credits, not blood, to buy during the job.”

I heard something like… an animal howling. An auditory hallucination? Maybe not. I looked at him again.

“I know various suppliers, various emergency delivery companies, and among them are companies brave enough to send drones or bikers into bullet-raining city streets.”

His eyes flashed as deeply as a sniper’s artificial eyes. He began speaking as if demonstrating how a medieval alchemist turns lead into gold. He was filled with certainty and mania.

“Bullets? 9 credits per magazine is enough. Even during combat, if you pay about 20 credits per magazine, I can have them delivered. Transportation? Rentals are cheap. I can get and send them for under a thousand credits.”

The storm-like speech gradually weakened. He started returning to his usual self.

“Aerial assault using drones is a bit expensive, but I can somehow get and send them to you. So, please, please. Instead of pushing yourself, call me…”

Volla, who had been quietly listening, output a laughing voice.

“This is why our fragile flesh-bag is called the Cash Alchemist. He might not be able to turn lead into gold, but he can whip up bullets or whatever you need with credits and deploy them.”

The briefly interrupted speech continued as a smile appeared on the quarter of human face visible on Volla’s face.

“As a bonus, he has the sense to prepare canned beer in the van after the job is done. The only shortcoming is that he prepares one for Valentina, who drives.”

“Now I can drink that one, so no problem, right?”

“You really are a nice guy. But nice guys don’t come to mercenary agencies. Only psychopaths and rookies who can’t work for megacorporations come here. And rookies soon become psychopaths.”

The eyes that were briefly smiling began to pierce sharply again. It was almost chilling.

“What part of you is crazy that makes you look so ordinary otherwise? I mean… like those guys doing volunteer work somewhere.”

I want to shoot dead those Xeno bastards and Belwether’s bioengineered monstrosities. I swallowed these words. Revenge is personal. Everyone hides personal things. I’m no different.

“I guess I’m mild enough to want to appear as a good person normally.”

“People who say that are usually the most severe cases.”

After saying that, we stopped by KSC for lunch instead and had hamburgers made with pseudo-food ingredients. There wasn’t much difference in taste between real ingredients and pseudo-food ingredients anyway.

There was no bad taste difference between patties made from cultured meat and real beef, which was something only the fast food industry knew how to do.

Rather, burgers made from krill paste and chlorella-based cabbage substitutes were better than those made from cultured meat.

The advertisement saying we could eat real Filet-O-Fish burgers when the Pacific became clean again seemed to have been on the wall for decades. It was certainly older than me.

By the time we were driving around Los Angeles to buy body armor, I realized how grateful I was that companies had purchasing departments.

And after everything Volla picked from several places had poor bulletproof performance, we finally went to a tailor shop recommended by Mr. Enzo, and I realized something.

Night Watch’s financial manager also handled purchasing, but he was too fragile to speak up in front of Volla when she said, “Let’s go to places I know.” So I ended up buying my body armor there.

By then, it was almost time to go to work. I headed to Night Watch, relieved that at least someone would drive for me. Again, the automatic door wouldn’t open, so Mr. Enzo had to open it for us.

I unpacked my things in the duty room. The bed was a much harder cot than a hotel bed, but I preferred hard beds to soft ones.

When I had nightmares on soft beds, I would get an unpleasant sensation of sinking and dying.

Just looking at the bed made me feel like my neck was being cut off, and the face of a monster overlapped, so I shook my head. I hadn’t fully recovered yet. Volla was right. Then, I heard someone’s voice.

“I’m here for work.”

It was the last employee I would meet. After hanging my bulletproof vest and rifle case on the duty room wall, I walked out to find a mercenary with short dark blue hair standing there. That must be Eve. I shouldn’t call her Eve.

With a gun case that looked like a violin case slung over her shoulder, wearing an aviation jacket a size or two larger than her size, she looked at the unfamiliar face with displeasure before speaking. She had a generally thin build, and both hands were prosthetics with human skin texture. They looked almost like normal hands, but the connection parts were slightly visible in the paint job.

“I heard a rookie was coming. I just heard. That look just now… sorry. When you work as a mercenary, you start to dislike having strangers in your space. Nice to meet you, Arthur.”

Her tone was cold. Not the same kind of coldness as the boss. The boss seemed to try to add warmth to his ice-cold words.

In contrast… Eve’s tone lacked warmth, leaving only coldness to leak out. Similar but different in important ways.

“Ah, yes. Nice to meet you too. So…”

It seems I made a mistake by reminding myself not to call her Eve. Since I couldn’t think of anything other than the word “Eve,” I used an appropriate title.

“Senior?”

It was a funny title even to me. Using a title I hadn’t used in four years. Eve, who had been wearing a cold expression, raised the corner of her mouth slightly and spoke. Her tone became a little less heavy.

“Someone must have told you. Still, rather than getting used to that title, it might be faster for me to stop disliking the name Eve. But for now… senior it is. Good.”

With this, I had greeted all of Night Watch’s employees. I had also learned what kind of people they were, and that they all had their personal quirks.

Since my mercenary license hadn’t arrived yet, I wouldn’t be participating in today’s work. So this concluded my first work record. Overall, Night Watch seemed like… a company worth working for.

I was still a man who came from nowhere, but I felt like I had found a direction to go. I should thank Francis. This time, I sincerely hope his guilt is somewhat relieved.