Ch.116Work Record 018 – Headhunting (5)

I approach the mercenary pushed into the corner of the parking lot. She was a small-built woman. About the size of the Bella model I saw when working for Half & Half? That seems about right.

I support her head with my hand to keep it from wobbling and snap my fingers in front of her face a few times. Before she even opens her eyes, she tries to straighten her posture, starting from her waist. Her movement was somewhat inhuman.

It’s not Helen. If it had been Helen, I would have recognized her. If she had thrown herself into mercenary work, that would be its own tragedy. Only after getting up does she regain her senses and draw the gun from her waist.

I grab the barrel and turn it aside. As she looks at me with startled eyes, I push my freelancer license into her field of vision and say:

“Don’t worry. I’m not the one who shot you in the head, but a freelancer mercenary trying to catch that guy. What, did you think you could just scold him with words?”

After confirming the license in her view, she finally lowers her gun and bows her head awkwardly. She’s realized she was pointing a gun at the person who saved her.

“Ah, um. That was stupid of me! I’m sorry. I just remembered getting shot in the head, and when I came to my senses with someone standing in front of me, I thought it was him! My call sign is FireThief… no, Torchbearer!”

“That seems unnecessarily long for a call sign. Just tell me your name.”

“Oh, but my name is longer… no, wait, my name is shorter! Of course! Here!”

After a moment’s hesitation, she pushes her mercenary license toward me. Her name is Mila Joyce. A woman who received her mercenary license just days ago.

As I check her license, she places her hands on her waist and begins to speak. Her somewhat childish demeanor makes me chuckle involuntarily.

“And you guessed correctly! I was going to scold him.”

Realizing I haven’t shown my face yet, I deactivate the semi-transparent display. She meets my gaze and continues confidently:

“Who is he to judge whether someone else’s life has value? Every life is great. If even one drug addict with burnt-out dopamine circuits can be rehabilitated, that’s twice as great!”

Belwether’s position was somewhere between hers and the Headhunter’s. They don’t care if addicts die, but if someone wants to escape that state, they provide treatment programs. That’s about it.

She gives a rather natural smile and giggles. After putting her helmet back on, she looks around cautiously and says:

“It’s bullshit philosophy, right? But sometimes, it can be used as medicine! That’s for sure. And for me, that’s enough.”

“Seeing you can say that yourself, you seem much better than someone who goes around putting holes in people’s heads.”

She didn’t seem like a bad person to be around, but I had recently seen a counselor who said similar things. Even the part about sometimes using it as medicine matched what that counselor had said.

Recalling Foresight, the corporate war veteran counseling specialist, I mentally asked Chance while keeping my computational assist device on, paying attention to both what I was seeing and my thoughts.

‘Could this woman be related to Foresight? Like an AI from the war era inhabiting a human body?’

My basis for judgment was the way she got up. Raising the central axis of the body first and then moving the appendages is somewhat mechanical. Chance was silent for a moment while processing information, then answered:

“Assessment: Negative. The artificial intelligence from that war era was not developed to express such lively and natural emotions.”

‘What do you mean by not developed?’

“While technically capable, their purpose was military use, so emotion modules were not activated. Assessment: What Agent Arthur Murphy sees is probably a rookie mercenary full of humanity.”

Am I being overly sensitive? I shake my head to clear away the fatigue. Perhaps I’m becoming a conspiracy theorist. That would be the worst.

I give Mila, who’s just staring at me with confusion, a reassuring smile and wait for the mobile unit I called to arrive at this street.

The mobile unit arrives shortly after. One officer dismounts from a bike much heavier-looking than mine, gives a light salute with three fingers in the company style, and receives information from me.

As expected, the Headhunter was a wanted criminal. Originally from Farmers Company’s security team, he suddenly one day shot through the back of the neck of an employee he was supposed to protect, killing them, and then joined the Undertakers.

What does it take for a normal person to go mad overnight? Either countless days of trying not to go mad, or just one really bad day. Either way, an ideological criminal is just that.

To put out a fire, you need to have some interest in what fire is and why it started, but only to extinguish it. Excessive interest becomes poison.

Nightwatch gets operational priority. Being ranked in the early 20s among just under 110 official partner companies meant the mobile unit would gladly transfer the case of the wanted criminal.

Big organizations handle big tasks. Small organizations handle individual wanted criminals. While the security team is clearing out the Undertakers, even the Headhunter will reveal his position. Nightwatch just needs to target the Headhunter then.

If Nightwatch were as big as Lone Star Rangers, we might have received the request to clear out the Undertakers, which would be fortunate in a way. The mobile unit called the cleaning department after seeing the bodies of drug addicts scattered around, then left.

There wasn’t much sentiment about it. If left alone, the corpses would start to smell, but there were too many to throw in the organic waste bin. That’s how much they were worth.

After the mobile unit left, I connect a call to Director Yoon. He would have already received the message about the priority assignment. The call connects immediately.

“I told you to rest on holidays. I received the information share. Another entanglement with the Undertakers… and it seems there was a mercenary fighting alongside you at the scene, is that correct?”

“Ah, yes. There was an independent mercenary. What should we do?”

“The company will contract her for work assistance. We have operational priority, but if we delay even a little, other mercenary companies will try to get involved. It’s better if we keep her with us.”

It was an opportunity as fortunate as my joining Nightwatch. I lightly push the collaboration form sent by Director Yoon into Mila’s field of vision. Her reaction is delayed by half a second.

After belatedly checking the document, she signs it and pushes it back to me. The temporary contract is completed when I send it to Director Yoon. A sigh mixes into the communication.

“For now, those who escaped the mobile unit won’t show their faces again today. I’ll have the office staff collect information, so you can go home. Though tomorrow’s start will be early.”

“If the end of the day is early too, that’s not bad. I’ll be on standby until dawn, so call me if there’s an emergency.”

The mobile unit won’t start the cleanup right away either. It takes at least a day to check information on the cell-structured Undertakers. By stopping them here, we’ve created a very brief lull.

Having finished my report, I look back at Mila, who had been watching the mobile unit and me with shining eyes. She clenches her hands and says:

“It must be fun to work with people trying to protect the city they live in, but I’m not sure if I can help with this body… Oh, but I’m a good shot! Quite good!”

She was somehow an outsider. Despite being in Los Angeles, she referred to “people trying to protect the city they live in,” and she seemed unfamiliar with her body.

There were silhouettes everywhere, but since I couldn’t know what was coming, seeing the silhouettes told me nothing. Not completely dismissing my suspicion, I asked:

“It seems like you used a different body before. And you don’t seem like you lived in Los Angeles either.”

“Of course! I lived in the wasteland. My original body is too damaged from being in the wasteland for too long, so I’m seeing if it can be repaired. But what’s important is…”

She pokes at her head and grins. When seeing people smile so brightly, older people often say, “I thought people like that weren’t born after that war.”

“This. I have things I believe in, things I’ve learned, things I need to pass on… and above all, what’s in here is me.”

I feel guilty for being suspicious. After looking at her for a moment, I finally nod. She’s a good person. This city is overflowing with people just as strange as her.

“So… do you live around here? I don’t want to tell someone who got shot in the head to just go home by themselves.”

“Oh, no. I don’t have a home yet. I’m just living in a net cafe, but it’s nearby, so don’t worry!”

It’s a space used by pure humans without computational assist devices to access the net. I’ve seen the signs many times but never properly visited one.

The net was accessible from anywhere. Saying you’re going to a net cafe to access the net sounded like saying you’re going to an air cafe to breathe.

Still, it must be cheaper than a hotel at least. After getting her contact information, I watched her enter a commercial building near the drug addicts’ street before heading home. I wait for the next morning with sleepless eyes.

The Undertaker who drove the van to rescue the criminal who had been on Farmers Company’s security team called him by a curse word. He’s not a person of character. Why? Because of his obsession with death.

There was virtually no possibility he was a commander type. The Undertakers stick around him only because he’s strong and from corporate security, and the Headhunter stays near the Undertakers because they’re useful.

Is that true? I connect to Chance and browse the net. Having a freelancer license allows me to access information that ordinary employee-citizens can’t see.

“Chance, can you find some past records on the Headhunter? Preferably focusing on after he left the security team and became a criminal.”

“Confirmed. Organizing search results. The Headhunter has joined Undertakers in various cities but never stayed long in any one place.”

“Why?”

There was almost no information on the Headhunter before he became the Headhunter. It would be in Farmers Company’s employee registry. There was no way to hack into that. Chance continued:

“Assessment: Because he himself was a security vulnerability. He neither stopped killing nor attempted to hide himself. His actions exposed the cell-structured Undertakers to surveillance.”

“This time too, he got caught going around killing drug addicts for no reason. Tomorrow won’t be any different, right?”

Both reason and nature can be capricious at times, but madness alone has consistency. It’s that terrible consistency that makes obsession be called madness. In this case, it was in a bad way.

“Affirmative. Typical behavior of a conviction criminal. As Agent Arthur Murphy said, it’s human versus human.”

“It doesn’t seem like your performance degraded after moving from a neural implant to a server computer, Chance. Yes, it’s human versus human. Both doing what they enjoy. But he won’t be able to do it for long.”

“Assessment: Nevertheless, he will believe he was right until his death. He’s trapped in the logic that a life of effort deserves life, and a life of merely existing deserves death. Like a short-circuited board.”

“It’s not like Walter repented at the end, right? Dead people don’t talk anyway. If that belief makes today his last day, that’s enough. He’s better off not existing than existing.”

The operating sound of Chance briefly echoed from the server computer in the room. He uses more memory when he has a lot to think about.

“Then what about the drug addicts residing in the drug addicts’ street? Aren’t they also better off not existing than existing?”

My external conscience was pricking my callousness. It was asking why I threw myself to save one rookie mercenary but allowed the Headhunter to go around killing drug addicts.

“As long as they weren’t forcibly drugged and thrown there, it’s their own doing. Belwether doesn’t take responsibility for self-inflicted problems. But they don’t prevent people from leaving of their own will either. Some do leave.”

I opened a window over the virtual view I was sharing with Chance and checked the number of graduates from Belwether’s rehabilitation program. Just over a hundred people a year manage to rehabilitate.

Belwether doesn’t collect people from that street and throw them into rehabilitation programs. They only provide programs to those who come seeking help. Those numbers represent people who escaped on their own.

Of course, compared to the total, it’s extremely small. But it’s not zero. With a sigh, I responded to my external conscience:

“It seems being there is sometimes better than not being there, Chance.”

“Affirmative. What I want to say is that you shouldn’t become numb. Don’t settle for inductive judgment. That would make you no different from the drug addicts.”

“Even if I wanted to, you’d talk me out of it. Yes, maybe I should have gone out more quickly and engaged more actively if someone was shooting people who had a chance at rehabilitation.”

“It’s complex. If that had been purely the right judgment, I would have advised you at the scene, not during reflection.”

Throwing oneself without protection in front of a wanted criminal with an unknown high-penetration weapon would also be a foolish judgment. It’s something to reconsider, but it wasn’t a wrong decision.

Mila was an uncalculated variable. I didn’t calculate that she would speak to the Headhunter instead of shooting him, nor that the Headhunter would shoot her in the head, incapacitating her incompletely.

Perhaps I should be more like Fitts & Morrison. After pondering for a while, I finally nodded. Either way, there’s only one thing to do.

“You agree that we need to shoot and kill the Headhunter, right?”

“Affirmative. Depending on the operation zone, I can even unlock the grenade rifle for you. Definitive handling takes priority for a wanted criminal who has escaped multiple times.”

That was enough. With mental fatigue, I lay deep in my bed, brought up Chance’s image in my view, and said:

“You’re the most nagging AI assistant I’ve ever used, Chance.”

“If it’s a negative user experience, I’ll improve, Agent Arthur Murphy.”

“Not at all. You’re an AI that went through that war. When you look at humans, do we look like children left by the water? Little kids who will throw themselves into that water the moment you look away.”

Chance answered without even a moment’s operating sound this time. It seemed like an answer that didn’t need to go through a judgment process or result derivation. I couldn’t understand what he meant.

“Negative. To me, you all look like priests of Vesta.”

“Sorry. I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ll add the library to your bike’s destinations.”

That made me laugh lightly. Chance was definitely an old-timer.

“Oh, Chance. Surely you’re not looking for a place full of paper books?”

“I’ll quote the agent’s expression again. Now you look like a child left by the water.”