Ch.143The Second Twilight of Idols – Atlas of Detroit (1)

For Arthur, going to bed early meant waking up painfully early. His enhanced body could fully replenish its energy with just four hours of sleep.

His field of vision was flooded with messages requesting materials that nationalist media companies had labeled as defamatory. Chance had handled them. The Federal Rehabilitation Welfare Bureau wouldn’t be able to move.

But there was one more message. It came from Serena Vanderbilt. A message asking if he could come to her room was sent 2 minutes ago, and canceled 1 minute ago.

Arthur knew Serena’s temperament well. She had canceled it because she thought it would make her appear weak to ask for help. However, he was someone who enjoyed helping others.

Was there a reason? He didn’t know himself. He just had extra strength left over after getting through his day, enough to help others. Not using it felt like a waste. That’s all.

This time was no different. Today had been a tiring day for him, but after 4 hours of sleep, even that was no longer the case. Arthur crossed the penthouse toward Serena Vanderbilt. He knocked on the door.

Serena didn’t bother asking Arthur why he came despite her canceling the message. She simply opened the door with a nod. She was sitting against the wall without any assistive devices.

Her face wasn’t gloomy, despite being drenched in sweat. Seeing Arthur enter, Serena pressed her hands against the wall behind her and began pulling herself up.

Her legs were still powerless and painful. Her body was refusing to use the new legs, as if demanding she acknowledge that her lower body had been severed. Serena rejected that instinct. She gritted her teeth.

She couldn’t stand by while her instincts and the phantom pain in her brain refused to acknowledge the legs attached to her. She pushed outward from her thighs, forcing strength into legs that wouldn’t respond.

Her muscles trembled and quivered, barely managing to push against the ground. She slowly pushed herself up along the wall with her hands, fighting against her sweat-slicked palms threatening to slip, until she finally stood upright.

Now she was standing on two legs, albeit shaky ones, leaning against the wall. Only then did she unclench her teeth, exhale deeply, and nod. She said what she should have said earlier.

“Whew, damn. Welcome. I did cancel the message, but I never thought you wouldn’t come because of that! That’s just the kind of person you are.”

Serena stretched her hand out as if trying to minimize the distance between herself and the wall, and took a step toward the rehabilitation handrail. Her steps were unsteady. She could barely manage a couple of steps.

She eventually slipped, but as she fell, her hand reached the handrail. She forced herself up again with effort. The second time was easier than the first, and succeeding the second time felt more refreshing than the first.

Seeing the door close, Arthur removed his helmet and gloves. There was no place for the Gardner persona here. Originally, there shouldn’t have been one outside the room either, but because of Polaris, they still needed Gardner on the outside.

Serena wiped her sweat with the towel around her neck, then tossed the sweat-soaked towel away and put on a fresh one. She had been doing rehabilitation for two hours already. Her body was exhausted, but she felt refreshed.

“Tomorrow, the paparazzi will come too. He’s someone who tries to reveal the truth. So…”

“He’ll try to find out whether Serena is real or fake, whether Gardner is real or fake. For him, determining what’s reality versus fiction is his life’s value. What about for you, Serena?”

Serena felt the thrill she had been expecting. Somehow, she was more convinced of her intuition that this man would know everything and come to her with answers. She laughed dryly and replied.

“I think I’ll need one more Arthur who can stay in Detroit next week too. You’re right. That’s what matters to him. To me… not so much. I’d be fine even if this entire city were fiction.”

Serena had admired the police. Why? Had she been saved by the police when she was young? No. No one around her had such experiences either. Despite having no personal catalyst, she had admired them.

They were people who were always there. People who somehow maintained order in the terrible state of Detroit. When everything else was falling apart, they seemed like the only safety mechanism standing firm.

Following that admiration, she became a police officer. She survived regardless of her will. She protected the city she loved even if it meant agreeing to sell the city to mega-corporations. Where does the fiction begin?

Serena couldn’t answer. She didn’t feel the need to. To her, everything was reality from start to finish. Even playing the role of an ideal Serena Vanderbilt was herself. Taking responsibility was also…

Taking responsibility was also. The words that followed used to come out reflexively. With no Lieutenant Leland to share the burden, she had to shoulder it all. Chris was someone to protect, not someone to lean on.

This city too was someone to protect, not to lean on, and perhaps everyone in her world was the same. The only variable was this freelance mercenary standing before her.

He was a strange person. Despite being forced to play the role of Gardner, after a few days he began researching the character himself and participating in story meetings. She herself was enduring it.

Despite being an efficiency-minded person from Belvedere, instead of feeling repulsed by the inefficiency of wielding two high-frequency blades, he willingly spent eight hours a day becoming accustomed to swordsmanship before coming to this city.

Above all, he seemed… happy. Supporting Gardner’s responsibilities, sharing Lieutenant Winters’ burden, taking on the weighty duty of protecting Polaris—all of it seemed to bring him joy.

The only thing that seemed to cause him pain was having to wear Gardner’s mask when facing Polaris. He only seemed pained by the restriction that prevented him from becoming friends with Polaris himself.

Slaves obey, machines produce… only humans enjoy all of it. Just as he had said. So Serena decided to borrow one brick of his words to fill a hole in her wall.

“Whether this city is all fiction or all reality… I’m happy right now. That people can have heroism and hope instead of despair and pessimism…”

Heroism and hope. Serena recited inwardly. Not heroes, but heroism. Creating heroes and making the city a place that accepts those heroes.

Serena thought of the parts from Smogpiercer. Those parts that Gardner had received, almost a fistful. The people who willingly shared their memories of Lieutenant Winters with him.

Perhaps this city was undergoing a constitutional improvement. The boundary between fiction and reality was collapsing. Maybe there was never a boundary to begin with. The most fitting answer to whether it was fiction or reality was… ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Because she wouldn’t dance to the paparazzi’s rhythm. What mattered to her was that her beloved city was regaining its vitality, not some cringeworthy story about gnosis and demiurges.

“…that’s all that matters to me. I won’t let the paparazzi touch that. I won’t let that pathetic thought criminal taint the city I love with his ideas!”

Arthur heard the roar of a beast instead of Serena’s voice. Serena was looking at a young, vigorous beast. She felt the same thing looking at him that Arthur felt when looking at Gunter.

After quietly watching Serena close her mouth and contemplate, Arthur finally smiled. Just as Gunter had taught him how to throw a harpoon, he offered just one piece of help.

“Good. I like that. I enjoy hearing you say such things. Still, you initially asked me for help because it was difficult, right? Because all the responsibilities you were carrying were too heavy. Isn’t that so?”

This time, Serena didn’t deny it. Everything was overwhelming for her. It seemed to demand more than she could give, and yet she felt compelled to do it all.

Even with her broken body, her insistence on returning to duty in just two weeks was the result of that compulsion. But not all compulsions had to be terrible. After all, it had brought Arthur to Detroit.

“I’ve never disliked admitting something this much before. Yes, that’s right. But you seem to enjoy carrying responsibilities, Arthur. Are you really… enjoying it?”

“Of course. How could I not enjoy adding acting and scriptwriting to the things I can do? Getting to handle a high-frequency blade longsword among my arsenal of weapons is laughable.”

Serena let out another dry laugh. She hadn’t expected to meet someone who would say such things with a smile, as if making a frivolous joke. Arthur continued.

“The only thing I can claim any expertise in, however modest, is mercenary work, but still… I think it’s because of the traitors. I’ll resolve that before I leave.”

Arthur pushed forward a photo of Leland Winters that had been given to him by the first girl who had handed him a part from Smogpiercer. It showed him walking through downtown with a child riding on Smogpiercer.

“Leland had an opportunity. A chance to know that what he was carrying wasn’t just responsibility, but someone’s life. A chance to be proud of his own strong back that could bear that weight.”

His cheerful voice slowly became tinged with hatred. It seeped in like bread soaking in milk. Not many people could tell exactly when bread becomes soggy with milk.

“The traitors took that away. So that whoever comes after Leland would die crushed under a sense of responsibility without even knowing what it was for. They turned this penthouse into a solitary confinement cell without even touching it.”

“Then, that’s precisely what I should do. Rather than the paparazzi, killing those traitors so that I too can enjoy this sense of responsibility…”

And then, Arthur’s hatred subsided easily again. His hatred was reserved for traitors, free riders, and all the unqualified ones—not for Serena Vanderbilt, who was willing to shoulder the burden.

“Third-rate villains don’t deserve even a second-rate hero, my noble first-rate hero. Isn’t Gardner just one variation of the ‘retired special agent living a peaceful life’ trope that appears every season?”

“You made him different! Someone who respects Leland Winters, who guides Serena Vanderbilt…”

“Thanks to that, he could rise from a generic third-rate character to maybe second-rate. We made a promise too, didn’t we? You’re not one to break your own promises, are you?”

It was a promise of division of labor. While Serena, overwhelmed by the pressure of dealing with the traitors, would provide information, Arthur wearing Gardner’s mask would exterminate the traitors.

Arthur, who had poked his head in but couldn’t speak further because Serena was recalling that promise, gently patted her shoulders with both hands. He spoke with a smile still on his face.

“So, if you’re going to prepare… just get your favorite snacks and drinks in party size, put the Call Sign Gardner series on the big screen, and watch the live broadcast with Chris.”

“Why don’t you ask me to leave a five-star rating while you’re at it?”

“Then I couldn’t ask for more. Sounds good.”

Looking at Arthur’s grinning face, Serena rubbed her own face, but she didn’t feel too bad. It felt like seeing Lieutenant Winters after a very long time. Serena shook her head to dispel the ghost.

The dead don’t speak. The soul is just a collection of electrical signals, and death that pierces through life support systems is an eternal world. Speaking in a grumbling tone, she grabbed the rehabilitation handrail and walked toward the bathroom.

“Don’t complain if I dump the paparazzi problem on you tomorrow too. It’s your fault for showing me someone I can depend on. I need to shower and sleep now. Goodbye.”

Arthur waved his hand lightly in farewell, then put his helmet and gloves back on and returned to his room. Detroit’s winter weather was cold, but this place was buzzing again.

With expectations for Polaris’s performance, concerns about Serena Vanderbilt and Gardner’s relationship or Leland’s successor and Smogpiercer’s whereabouts. Or buzzing with stories about himself.

Morning approaches. Arthur emerged from the virtual reality training device at the sound of knocking and checked the camera outside the room. It was Polaris again. Thinking it would be another pointless conversation, he put on his helmet and gloves before opening the door.

Polaris was wearing a night-sky colored dress she would wear during her performance. It was the color of the night sky that this city had forgotten as it was covered by climate control drones—black and navy mixed with a little purple and brown, and even a hint of green.

“I have to leave for rehearsal in two hours. I said I’d tell you personally. I also had something to ask you.”

Gardner, not Arthur, answered. In Polaris’s Detroit, a person named Arthur Murphy should not exist.

“What is it?”

“That’s not your real way of speaking, is it?”

“No. It’s a gimmick.”

“Last night… or rather, at dawn, someone seems to have given Serena tremendous motivation. She’s changed. Like when I persuaded her. She gained something. Joy, specifically.”

“She must have made some resolution with Lobringer.”

Polaris looked at Gardner, or more precisely, at the person she shouldn’t know inside Gardner’s helmet, and chuckled. She naturally leaned toward Gardner, or someone, and said.

“Ah. I told Theo not to be curious about the person inside, but now I’m getting curious. What’s inside the gimmick?”

“Just an uninteresting person.”

“An uninteresting person who made the impossible happen?”

Arthur felt withdrawal symptoms for cigarettes he had never smoked. For someone who enjoyed taking responsibility willingly, growing, meeting people, and exchanging one brick’s worth of words with them, this was torture.

Gardner was still just staring stoically at Polaris. Gardner answered cynically.

“Then the definition of what an uninteresting person can do must be wrong.”

After staring at someone she shouldn’t know for a moment with puffed cheeks, Polaris finally broke into a warm, good-natured smile.

“Then wish me luck. That’s definitely within the range of what an uninteresting person can do.”

“For the performance?”

“No! That someday after the performance ends and I leave this city, I might meet ‘someone who absolutely never played the role of Gardner.'”

Gardner—Arthur—showed her his index and middle fingers crossed. Polaris was satisfied with that. There was about half a day left until the performance would begin.