Ch.106016 Work Record – New Recruitment Period (5)

The rescued Pure Ones are all registered as apprentice employees of Sin City’s Bitches, Inc., and through this registered identity, they receive temporary employee-citizenship status from Belwether.

Now they become people. When they suffer harm, the Belwether security team will send helicopters, bikes, vans, and armored vehicles, and depending on the district, Fitts & Morrison and the Nationalists will do the same.

It was a system that instilled fear of losing citizenship if one became unable to work, but Belwether mitigated this by demonstrating how they personally handled workplace injuries.

Well… in my case, things were just a bit unusual. Normally, even in such situations, people would return to work, have their efficiency evaluated, and then meetings would follow to decide whether to provide a real Type IV procedure.

I can recall it without attachment now. Just before the vehicle carrying the Pure Ones departed, one Pure One escort got out and handed something to Ms. Carmilla.

Round, made of plastic, with stripes. A casino chip. Manager Carmilla frowned as she read what was written on it. The message was simple:

‘The House never forgets.’

I had mentioned that following Talos’s orders, we killed all the pimps and proprietors in Vegas and fled. It seemed our accounts weren’t fully settled either. Manager Carmilla forced a snort.

“That’s just like those bastards—can’t walk properly but follow you around leaving notes wherever they think you’ll go. Fucking assholes… Don’t worry about it, Santa. Just go back.”

They seemed to have left a note knowing they couldn’t dispatch a legal assassination team. Attacking a mercenary company conducting Belwether-authorized operations would be insane.

Moreover, Belwether was currently like a wolf with foam at its mouth. City security had been restored, and they were putting all their effort into reassuring people that it was safe to live as they did before.

If the Vegas guys attacked and assaulted the Pure Ones who had just been registered as citizens, they would witness the Shepherd and Talos conducting a joint operation.

It might be a sight some would enjoy watching from behind, but not one they’d want to face. The same goes for them. Everyone has something they’re swallowing, everyone has their own story.

While destroying Sin City’s Bitches, Inc. would be enjoyable for them… they had too many concerns to choose that pleasure. They had too much to lose to go all-in.

Even people from the city of pleasure couldn’t fully enjoy it. Why? Because Belwether was a company that respected all well-intentioned actions that weren’t irresponsible. Because they had created a paradigm.

Enjoying the right thing is easy; enjoying the wrong thing is difficult. I don’t know if this was the original rule Belwether created, but that’s how I could define it.

On the way back, I sat in the passenger seat, vigilant with my carbine. Assassins from the Vegas Strip would likely be wearing wasteland-colored reinforced suits. I scanned the wasteland.

Nothing caught my eye. A world full of good people is peaceful. A world with people who aren’t good but aren’t stupid either can at least attempt to create peace.

Belwether’s attempt was relatively successful. That’s why instead of a terrible attack occurring here and now, they chose to let it go this time. Still, it was an anxious and fragile peace. Very fragile.

Talos’s voice came through the tactical communication channel. There were many people trying to sustain that fragile thing. That’s how the world keeps turning.

“Sin City’s Bitches, this is Talos. Those Strip Mafia bastards are trying to sniff around Los Angeles. Keep driving. Change vehicles when you get in. I’m on my way too.”

After driving for a few more minutes, vehicles from the Los Angeles metropolitan area stopped opposite us. They bore the logo of Fitts & Morrison, not Sin City’s Bitches, Inc.

The ballistic and blast protection would be similar. The only difference was the logo on the exterior. But that one logo change would render all operations planned in Las Vegas futile.

Attacking a partner company performing duties in their own company vehicle versus attacking a partner company moving in a vehicle with the primary contractor’s logo were vastly different matters.

The former would result in the primary contractor demanding compensation, but in the latter case, they would come to take it themselves. Generally, the only fitting compensation for blood was blood.

A transport tiltrotor was hovering in the air. When it confirmed the arrival of the cars, the lower hatch opened.

Something began free-falling from that hatch. Not exactly free-falling. A human-shaped figure jumped out, preparing to land with legs pointed downward. The target point was the gray ground of the wasteland.

The shock absorption must have been good because the landing sound itself wasn’t very heavy, but it still made the armored vehicle shake. From the dust cloud, a humanoid yet inhuman figure rose.

That person must be Talos. I could tell for certain. With a height rather than a stature that suited him better, towering two or three spans taller than Vola, yet his footsteps were as quiet as a Type IV’s.

Unlike Vola, who had retained organs for digesting food, he didn’t even have what could be called a mouth, and without even a simulated nose, he looked like a giant skull. Only his eyes suggested he wasn’t a skull.

Even calling them eyes is ambiguous. They were merely cameras placed in that position because he needed to appear somewhat human. The sight of three lenses rotating independently in each eye was quite chilling.

I now understand why he said he doesn’t fit in a Lobster. He was literally oversized. He looked less like a security chief and more like the leader of a metal beast pack.

He lowered the muzzle of his rifle—sized appropriately for his body but by normal human standards would be better described as a machine gun or helicopter-mounted cannon—toward the ground and spoke.

It was even ambiguous to say he spoke. The voice came from his body. The speaker components seemed to be distributed in various places, making it impossible to pinpoint the exact source of the sound.

“We can’t stand by while those gang bastards lay hands on our partners. We’re changing vehicles. Currently, the Fitts & Morrison security team is controlling the surrounding area. You can rest easy. Ah, freelancer.”

He gave me a brief nod. His face, with just traces of human simulation to minimize discomfort, hit the uncanny valley, but it wasn’t severe due to the human-like aspects that could be felt.

“The nickname Talos suits you well.”

“Talos, my ass. Some higher-up gave me that nickname on a whim. Call me James.”

“Mr. James McCernihy. I’ve heard it before. Anyway, if the Shepherd is the commander, then Mr. James is…”

Talos deliberately stomped the ground hard to make the surroundings vibrate, then output a laughing sound. A full-body prosthetic without facial muscles cannot laugh.

“Ha! I’m the battle elephant! That suits me better at Fitts & Morrison. But honestly, it’s fifty-fifty.”

“You’re talking about the mock battle training, right?”

He nodded briefly. Combat training with rival corporate security teams was quite routine. Although there were adjustments, it was a program that tried to reflect reality as much as possible.

I hadn’t participated much when the security department was mobilized, as that would mean corporate warfare, but Fitts & Morrison’s security team was quite an irritating opponent. Their emergence points were completely unpredictable.

When you thought you’d broken through one point, other loosely scattered security team members would move independently or organically to turn the breached position into a trap. I remembered that.

“In Belwether terms, this is green information, so don’t worry about it.”

“I am worried. From the security team magazines I subscribed to during my six months there, despite being rival companies, joint training wasn’t that frequent. Hostile symbiosis, I guess. Oh, that was orange information, right?”

“That’s orange. Anyway, if they only had security and assault departments, they’d be challenging but not too bad. But the special operations department lubricates between those rigid parts, making them extremely difficult.”

That was the original security team method. The fact that a rival company’s security chief remembered the original efficient form I knew left a rather bitter taste.

Talos hesitated momentarily, kicking at the crystallized dirt of the wasteland with his metal toe. After outputting a sigh, he asked:

“How was Sin City’s Bitches? Were they good mercenaries?”

“They were excellent. You know what it feels like to trust someone to watch your back.”

He skillfully output a sound of proud snorting. A full-body prosthetic’s emotional expression depends entirely on skill.

“That’s a sense more important to us than to those Belwether guys. Good. I was a bit worried they might still be using the techniques the Sin City gangsters used when they pimped those kids out.”

“You know what they shout every time they go into battle. Can’t that be removed?”

“Huh. In the same way those bastards broke us? That’s what worries me. From the perspective of someone hoping they forget Vegas. Well, if that’s the new life they’ve chosen, I won’t object.”

This time, a deeper sigh sound was output. Carmilla seemed to be middle-aged, but to Talos, they were “kids.” How old is Talos anyway?

He lightly tapped the back of his neck, the doubly protected brain storage area covered by armor plating, then continued speaking. He was speaking, not just outputting language.

“You’d think it ends at the back of the neck, but it goes up the spinal cord and replaces part of the brain. Half of the rescued kids chose to have it removed and die. Those Vegas… joint forces bastards…”

The remaining Sin City’s Bitches seemed to be those who chose to live instead of dying as free people. And Fitts & Morrison honored that request. In a way, it was euthanasia.

By the way, what I felt from his conversation was… Talos was quite a humane person. Unlike his exterior, which barely maintained a human shape, his words conveyed warmth.

Perhaps that’s why he could become a branch security chief for a major corporation. He understood the weight of the words about removing even human form and filling oneself with performance and strength.

In one sense, it was self-sacrifice, and in another, it was like a burnt offering of oneself to this high-speed era. Either way, he was a humane person.

He extended his hand first. I took his hand, or rather awkwardly held it like a child holding an adult’s hand, and shook it.

“This is a personal thank you, so don’t think much of it. Can I see the boss?”

Mr. James shook hands with me but exchanged salutes with President Yoon. He spoke in a much more formal tone than when talking to me.

“Mercenary Company Nightwatch, thank you for your work today. Next time, I hope Fitts & Morrison can directly hire through freelancers. We’ll escort you to your office.”

I could feel Vola’s eyes light up at the sight of Mr. James. Her quarter-exposed eyes were sparkling with admiration. For someone seeking peak performance like her, he must be an idol.

Usually, you can’t read emotions from full-body prosthetics, but Vola had at least some of her face left. Mr. James noticed her expression, scanned her up and down with his six camera lenses, and said:

“Looks custom-assembled, with a solid foundation and reasonable weight allowance. Having some face left would be useful in many ways… Quite a personal philosophy embodied in this piece?”

“When I was younger, I worked as a mercenary in a Meditech city where replacing more than 97% of the body with prosthetics was prohibited. When I tried to replace everything except the brain, it was 98%. The remaining 1%…”

Meditech strongly disapproved of full-body prosthetics. Of course, they didn’t want to lose the artificial body market, but nearly 80% of full-body prosthetic users suffered terribly from phantom pain.

It was almost a stereotype to see people attaching multiple sensory replicators to their newly replaced full-body prosthetics to recreate feelings like scratching an arm, the sensation of breathing through the nose, or the feeling of the mouth moving when speaking.

“You need to keep some human parts to experience less phantom pain. If you replace everything except the brain, it’s usually 98%. That’s what Meditech aimed for.”

Mr. James spoke as if he had experienced it himself. I didn’t know which was more impressive—being among the chosen 20% who don’t experience phantom pain, or being among the ordinary 80% who endure and overcome it.

His initial appearance was that of an overwhelming corporate warfare weapon of Fitts & Morrison, but after speaking face to face, he showed himself to be as ordinary a person as the Shepherd.

The job was finally truly over. A member of Fitts & Morrison’s mobile department drove us to Nightwatch’s office. Despite the job being completely finished, it was barely 6 PM.

Normally, this would have been the time to start work, and it was almost amusing to see everyone checking their clocks with slightly dazed expressions. President Yoon spoke first:

“It’s the first time we’ve finished work while shops are still open. Let’s all have dinner before going home. Isn’t one of the side effects of Type IV skipping meals, Mr. Arthur?”

Tina subtly averted her gaze. Speaking in her usual leisurely manner when not driving, she seemed to have blurted it out. She tried to smooth it over with a good-natured smile.

“That’s true. Though it doesn’t seem to apply to me. There’s a kebab place in the apartment complex that I frequent… or used to, anyway.”

“Strangely, that sounds like past tense.”

His tone was somewhat relaxed. It felt more like teasing than interrogation, but I couldn’t respond with a joke. The identity of that kebab shop owner was red information.

“It closed down. Maybe because I was the only customer they’d see for days… Anyway, let’s go get dinner.”

Ms. Eve, who had gone to that shop with me, chimed in to confirm my innocence. President Yoon continued his train of thought… and simply nodded.

If a shop closed and disappeared during the Belwether coup, it’s obvious who the owner might have been. He would think it was a front for company personnel.

Imagination often falls short of reality. That day’s work ended like that, and the dinner we had near Changcheon Robotics’ building wasn’t bad. Much better than convenience store beer and decent delivery food.