Ch.146The Second Twilight of Idols – Atlas of Detroit (4)

The paparazzi’s aim was perfect. Even with the strength-assist device attached to their body, the gun barrel still kicked significantly. Still, it wasn’t a problem for firing a single shot. The same applied to hitting a stationary target.

From Serena’s drug injector, a mixture of stimulants and painkillers—a liquid whose purpose would normally be unknown—flowed into her bloodstream. This time too, she was holding a body bunker to minimize the impact as much as possible.

Nevertheless, Serena didn’t close her eyes. She believed that just by standing here and buying time, Gardner—no, someone far more terrifying than Gardner—would kill the paparazzi for her.

What mattered wasn’t that she take all the responsibility herself. What mattered was the city’s survival. That the city remain intact, that the city continue to exist even in this ambiguous boundary between fiction and reality.

Arthur also heard the gunshot. He couldn’t make a sound like swallowing his breath. Gardner wouldn’t make such a sound. He simply waited for Chance’s analysis results while bringing up a camera in his own field of vision to observe.

By the time the gunshot is heard, the bullet has already hit its mark. Serena traced the path where the anti-reinforced suit bullet had pierced through her body bunker and reinforced suit. The paparazzi had fired. They wanted her to scream.

The mark left on the reinforced suit was so deep that Detroit was visible through it. Serena pulled the shield closer to her body to hide the crushed interior from the camera. The neural connection system of the reinforced suit was working well.

And while she felt throbbing pain due to the stimulants, she was much less dizzy than if she had only taken painkillers. This was enough. This would be enough. Serena would do her part.

The leg that had been undergoing rehabilitation stopped moving once again. Preservation fluid was injected. It clung to the surface of her nearly severed pelvis, stopping the bleeding. One leg floated limply inside the reinforced suit.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Since she could move only the reinforced suit through neural connections, Serena walked forward while covering her wounds. She reclaimed half of the cameras the paparazzi had hacked.

The paparazzi was merely playing along the security vulnerabilities created by Heroism & Hope, riding along threads, so Serena could easily counter them. Gritting her teeth, she spoke in her broadcast voice.

“This seems so important to you? A city full of puppet shows. A definitive city where truth and lies can be cleanly cut apart with a knife! But for me, it’s not. What’s important to me is…”

Another gunshot rang out. This one missed. The paparazzi was getting excited. That was welcome. It would only make them waste more time. The paparazzi’s voice poured through the broadcast program.

“Shut up! Stop pretending to be a hero until the end. You were just another dime-a-dozen cop at the DPD! A woman like that dies, comes back to life, and instead of being locked up in a mental hospital, she becomes a hero? That’s unrealistic!”

Consecutive gunshots rang out, but bullets fired wildly by someone who needed to focus perfectly on a single first shot had little chance of hitting their mark. Serena overcame the pain and made the reinforced suit walk.

The reinforced suit was more reliable than her severed leg. The reinforced suit took a step forward. It planted heavily on the ground, advancing with the weight of the responsibility she had been carrying.

“That’s just your reality. Can’t you report on things that don’t happen in your reality? If something seems pathetic to you, does that make it pathetic? Don’t make me laugh!”

Her severed leg rattled inside the reinforced suit. The paparazzi was feeling a bit of fear. They had hit the mark precisely. The Serena they imagined should have collapsed right there.

Someone forcibly wearing a hero costume and doing heroic work should have reached their limit by that point. No, maybe not quite. The paparazzi barely calmed down and raised the gun barrel again.

Perhaps the first shot had missed. The paparazzi nervously pulled the trigger for the second shot. Despite having her shoulder pierced through, Serena showed neither pain nor even a flinch.

Holding the bulletproof shield was now entirely the job of the reinforced suit. Fortunately, the suit was functioning well enough that she could walk and talk. Serena wished she had injected more painkillers.

One arm and one leg. A small price to pay. A manic gleam flickered in Serena’s eyes. Taking one step at a time, making each screen hers one by one, she shouted:

“Keep shooting. Judging by how meticulously you’re avoiding my head, it seems you want me to roll on the ground screaming, but I’ve left all that behind. I won’t be swept up in your rhythm.”

Preservation fluid stopped the bleeding from her shoulder, which was carved out like it had been gouged. Additional preservation fluid that Serena had loaded in advance began circulating through her body, replacing some of the blood. It was enough to endure.

Even as she felt the smell of blood and protein rising from within, Serena continued to speak in her broadcast voice. This was manufactured hope. She decided to phrase it differently. This was hope she had created herself.

So the show must go on. This city standing on the boundary between fiction and reality must remain within it as long as it gives hope. Serena raised her head and spewed out words. They didn’t sound like human language.

It was the howl of a beast. The sound of a fragile beast too weak to even shoulder responsibility, a beast that had given up the virtues of the lord of all creation walking on two legs, and instead crawled on all fours to drag and carry its responsibilities.

“You don’t even have the courage to shoot properly, do you? Because this is reality. Because you’re not strong enough to admit that someone you thought was the fakest of fakes actually has real heroism.”

The paparazzi, watching this scene, failed to time their retreat properly. Chance began to pinpoint their location, identifying their position by accessing the city’s broadcast system and confirming the skyscraper’s location.

Serena felt a thirst. Probably from losing too much blood. Because proving she wasn’t fake but real would mean being sucked into the paparazzi’s logic.

The city’s guardian nodded slightly and sent a pre-entered message to the control room. It was permission for ad-libs containing spoiler content. The PDs, entranced by the scene, granted permission.

It was time to show how worthless in this city was what the paparazzi valued so much. Serena took another step forward. About half of her torso wasn’t moving, and she was operating solely through the reinforced suit.

She had repeatedly refused support from emergency services. Even if only her head remained, she could last three minutes. In her current state, she could last ten more minutes. Serena wanted to use that time for herself.

“But, though you may be weak, you seem to be smart. You’re right that this is all fake. I’m not the city’s guardian Serena Vanderbilt, but…”

Serena threw off the Leland Winters helmet she had been forcibly wearing. Continuing her words with great pleasure, in the manner of a certain freelance mercenary who made everything so simple:

“Since surviving a stupid human experiment conducted by DPD higher-ups on field workers! I’m just a stupid cop bitch who’s always shouting ‘I have to do this’ and ‘This is my responsibility.’ Yeah, like you said, it’s all a puppet show.”

The paparazzi heard the admission they wanted—that all of this was a lie—but it didn’t make them feel any better at all. Serena didn’t seem to find the fact that it was a puppet show painful.

Rather, she seemed to be enjoying it. Admitting it was a lie. Saying shocking things and using a voice never heard on broadcasts before—she seemed to enjoy all of it.

At that moment, the paparazzi’s location was pinpointed. The Smogpiercer ran in silent mode, and the building where the paparazzi stood began to appear in Gardner’s field of vision. It would be soon now.

“But I don’t care at all whether it’s truth or lies. Even if I spoke with a voice trained by H-Enter staff, I created the words I spoke. I created that character too!”

Even the interior of Polaris’s concert venue fell silent. One might go to other cities to see Polaris perform, but this moment of Serena could only be seen here and now.

Despite having her attention stolen, Polaris didn’t mind at all. Rather, with an exhilarated expression, she displayed the Serena Vanderbilt series on a large screen inside the Hope Globe.

Everyone knew to some extent that Serena was a manufactured hero. Everyone knew that Serena Vanderbilt was fake. Is this fake? Is this real? The crowd couldn’t decide.

But, stripping away all modifiers… they were watching that scene. They were watching Serena removing her mask, the moment when the boundary between truth and lies collapsed, as if it were the highlight of the series.

“Do you know why I do this clown act? Why I’m doing this even though I didn’t become a cop to perform stupid entertainment stunts in front of cameras. You wouldn’t know. Because you’re only curious about what’s real.”

The paparazzi felt the urge to flee. They wanted to run away from that unmasked cop who posed no threat to them whatsoever. Rationally, there was no need. The distance was far, far too great.

The pain and throbbing Serena felt only grew worse. It didn’t matter. Serena was panting from holding her breath to endure the pain, and she put strength into her increasingly drained voice and shouted:

“This! Is because it was the only way to protect the city I love, and… the people who call this city home. If they tell me to sell my soul for ratings, I’ll gladly do it. Because if there’s one thing I know how to do…”

Serena lifted the part of the reinforced suit where her arm lay scattered. She proudly showed people the area that wasn’t just a simple penetration wound but had a complete hole punched through it. It was pain no human could endure.

“I’m good at crawling out of hellholes. That’s how I got here. That’s how I escaped the incubator trying to suffocate me, and that’s how…”

Serena raised that empty reinforced suit arm to the sky. She gripped it with all her might. The hand gripping the air trembled. It didn’t matter. She applied force again.

And she pushed her body up. Gardner grabbed the curtain wall’s glass surface, which had no handholds, and pulled himself up. Not much distance remained to the paparazzi. He pulled himself up onto a small rooftop at the edge of the building.

Gardner’s view appeared in Serena’s field of vision. Serena spoke while suppressing the urge to laugh. Truly, he was a human hundreds of times more frightening than the character Gardner.

“I was able to eliminate this city’s pathetic thought criminal, the paparazzi.”

Gardner made no sound when walking. Gardner began walking toward the paparazzi on the opposite side of the roof. The paparazzi let out a near-scream. She was fading.

The image of a journalist seeking truth mixed with that of a trash journalist creating truth… was fading and falling according to Serena’s paradigm, degrading into H-Enter’s third-rate villain.

“Stop the bullshit! Forget about being a hero or whatever. Seeing all that pretentiousness, you’re clearly fiction, just created by the entertainment industry! How are you going to catch me? Are you going to fly up here in that state?”

Serena pulled her view so viewers could see. She had shared the paparazzi’s position with Gardner, so she pulled the view until the paparazzi’s face could be seen in her field of vision. She could see the paparazzi lying prone.

And behind the prone paparazzi… stood Detroit’s bogeyman. Gardner, who had approached without a sound, was standing right behind the paparazzi who had been focused only on Serena.

Cheers erupted from the Hope Globe. Even Polaris momentarily forgot her performance and stretched out her hands to join in the cheering. Serena felt she needed to deliver her highlight line.

“How am I going to do it? I’ll use this city’s ruthless solution. I will fly. I’ll soar across the skies of this city, so look forward to it.”

Serena took a breath. With a broadcast-worthy smile on her face, she spoke with a slight giggle.

“Because you’re going to fly.”

Those words served as a signal to Gardner. The paparazzi felt a grip they had neither expected nor imagined seize the nape of their neck. Gardner was behind them.

Gardner threw the paparazzi off the 127-story building. The paparazzi flew through the city’s night sky, stained with neon colors, facing Serena’s face splattered with their own blood.

The sniper rifle they had left behind was now in Gardner’s hands. Gardner leisurely extracted the cartridge, while the paparazzi fell in a gentle arc. Gardner loaded a new bullet, and the paparazzi watched.

Gardner, who had linked the rifle’s camera to his field of vision, aimed at the free-falling paparazzi. The paparazzi tried to cover their head with both hands. Gardner would not hesitate to pull the trigger.

A gunshot rang out. No different from the one that had sounded minutes before, but this time people cheered at the sound. The paparazzi’s lower body fell desolately toward the city. It plummeted to the ground, turning to mush.

People waited for Gardner’s line. They wanted to enjoy the entertainment echoing through this city of entertainment. And Gardner did not disappoint their expectations by disappointing them.

“Returning to my workplace. Having expelled the brat trying to ruin the garden, I should get back to guarding it. Heading to the Hope Globe.”

It was the most Gardner-like line. Passing by as if he had no interest in Serena’s heroism was precisely Gardner’s role.

Yet being the person who built up that heroism was Gardner’s character trait. It was the method that elevated a third-rate “retired agent” type character to at least second-rate.

Gardner mounted the Smogpiercer again. For the first time in a long while, the Smogpiercer carried a proper driver rather than the ghost of Leland Winters as it sped toward the Hope Globe. It was sucked into the parking garage.

And then, as if nothing had happened, he appeared beside the security guard named Theo who had been standing behind Polaris. Playful jeers poured down. Soon they turned to cheers. Only then could Polaris clearly feel it.

The person behind Gardner’s mask was someone like herself. So similar, and if not for that single layer of Gardner’s mask, they could have been close friends. She didn’t want to be forgotten by him.

So Polaris went backstage herself and dragged Gardner to the front of the stage. Ignoring Gardner’s look that seemed to say ‘This isn’t my place,’ she raised the stage slightly.

A few steps formed. Polaris and Gardner, whose eye levels had been mismatched, now faced each other. Polaris quietly reached out and lifted the sniper’s veil Gardner had put on, revealing the helmet.

A small silent zone formed around them. Only Gardner could hear Polaris’s voice.

“Last time, you said even thinking separately from the character was a contract violation, right?”

Gardner nodded briefly. Polaris smiled innocently and mischievously, leaning her head toward Gardner’s helmet. She lightly pressed her lips against the helmet, which wouldn’t be stained by lipstick, then pulled away.

Well, I’m screwed, Arthur thought quietly. He could already see tomorrow morning’s news—no, breaking news—exploding. Nevertheless, Polaris whispered innocently:

“Then this was for Gardner. Only for Gardner. It wasn’t even on lips but on a helmet, right? If you ask why I did it…”

Polaris turned off the silent zone for just the last sentence. It was also meant for the “someone who has never played the role of Gardner” inside Gardner.

“Because you’re an amazing person. So, I wanted to do it. So you wouldn’t forget this fact, this moment, me.”