Ch.15002 Work Record – A Fitting Outcome (5)

And so, our first day of investigation ended in futility. I drove Ms. Eve’s bike back to the office again, and she simply waved her hand slightly in farewell before disappearing toward the other side of the city.

That day, I had no motivation to do anything else. After confirming there was no news about the people who disappeared that day by searching the net, I locked myself in the virtual reality training room all day to forget the unsettling feeling.

It’s a place no one else would use during holidays anyway. I always seemed to choose the path of least resistance. Would I be able to clear my mind if I could handle my posthuman enhanced body a little better?

Probably not. But there wasn’t much else I could do right now. After spending eight hours in the virtual reality that seemed to be scanned from the training room, I was able to come out feeling somewhat better. It was nearly midnight.

It was strange that I didn’t feel tired. I felt like I could repeat missions for two or three days without sleeping at all. In fact, I probably could.

As I was passing the bathroom on my way to my quarters, I heard voices from Valentina’s room. I didn’t consciously adjust my hearing to listen in.

Just because I wore a posthuman body didn’t mean I had the right to eavesdrop on everyone’s private conversations. I needed to remember what it felt like to be an ordinary person. I was about to walk past when the door suddenly opened.

Valentina, still in her workout clothes, poked her head out with sharp eyes, but upon seeing me with a towel around my neck, she broke into a grin. She must have forgotten that I was using the quarters.

“Oh, it’s just you? I thought someone had broken into the company at this hour… You’ve been training all day, want to have a beer? I’m getting tired of drinking alone. What do you say?”

She was still wearing lightweight prosthetic limbs with just the skeletal frame. Part of me just wanted to go to bed, but… the need for someone to talk to was stronger.

I had lived quite a linear life. Most people I knew were from Belwether, and even those who weren’t employees at least knew I worked there.

Now, the people I knew from Belwether must not know me, and those I knew outside wouldn’t know I was alive. Rebellion was something only team leaders and above could afford.

“It’s only been three days since I started this job, and every night involves alcohol. Fine by me.”

“I knew you wouldn’t refuse! Come in! The boss doesn’t like it, but it’s my room.”

She ruffled her long auburn hair and opened the door. There was a slight smell of gasoline inside.

An engine-shaped artificial heart, which had once been inside her chest, was displayed in a glass box, and replacement limbs were scattered around. It was a messy room.

She had already emptied three beer cans. The only snack was a bag of vegetable crackers made from synthetic ingredients, containing no actual vegetables or even flour. I sat down in the empty chair.

I took the cold beer can she handed me and took a sip. When I worked at Belwether, I never really sought out alcohol. Even though evening meals were supposedly free, they were only free to the extent that they didn’t interfere with the next day’s work.

And I probably hadn’t properly drunk since… probably not since college graduation. Belwether was a strict company. They weren’t soft or lax enough to tolerate a security team suffering from hangovers.

The feeling of desperately needing a drink was something I only experienced after finishing work yesterday, and today was the second time, which suggests tomorrow will be the same. I might need to set aside a separate budget for alcohol.

I emptied almost an entire can in one breath. The feeling of carbonation scratching my throat wasn’t even that strong, and since I could hold my breath for minutes if needed, it would be more accurate to say I emptied it without realizing.

Valentina placed her hand on the back of my neck as if finding me fascinating. She blinked her blue artificial eye with a thin connection running through the middle, as if wanting to know how it worked.

“No matter how many times I look, your body is amazing… Must be incredibly expensive, right?”

“Incredibly expensive indeed. The savings I accumulated at Belwether for half a year without spending much would be exactly 2% of this body’s price. Oh, and don’t calculate based on Belwether’s starting salary for new employees.”

Valentina raised her hands in surrender and grinned. She was completely different from when she was driving. As if she caught my thought, she leaned toward me and asked:

“There’s something you want to ask me, right, Arthur? Go ahead. It’s not that big a deal. I just grew up.”

There was only one thing I wanted to ask since we first met. Feeling caught, I awkwardly scratched the back of my head before asking:

“So… are you a former road racer? I’ve never seen a racer who could get a proper job, let alone one who’s in their right mind.”

She picked up the engine-shaped artificial heart in the glass box and held it up in front of my eyes. It looked like an 8-cylinder engine from a classic muscle car. Just the appearance, of course.

“That’s a fancy name for it. And yes, I was a crazy woman. I was obsessed with speed without knowing why. Sharks have to swim to breathe, and I had to drive to breathe. Something like that.”

When talking about speed, she had the same manic expression as when she was driving. Even road racers don’t know why they’re so obsessed with speed. They drive instead of taking time to think about it.

“But that’s a lie, you know. The thing about sharks having to swim to breathe. The boss flipped my car with one shot and then showed me videos of sharks breathing that he found on the net. Maybe that’s when I grew up?”

It seemed absurd that she was convinced by just that, but to persuade a maniac, you have to enter their logic. Still, it was somewhat amusing, so I let out a small laugh. I made a joke.

“Finding a job right after growing up late—that’s nice.”

“Right? It is nice. So have another can. I can’t drink much myself.”

She handed me the beer can she was about to drink, and I emptied the remaining cans as well. That day, we chatted about trivial things for a while before I returned to my room and fell asleep.

Did I hear tapping sounds from inside the wall again today? I couldn’t hear it clearly, but I think I did. The building must be older than I thought.

Still, I felt my mind had eased a bit. I slept for six hours that day. I barely got up a little after seven. It wasn’t a hangover. Just the stiff feeling from sleeping too long.

When I rotated my shoulders, Belwether’s patented enhanced joints made their unique, indescribable sound as they aligned.

As part of my usual morning routine, I was disassembling and cleaning the rifle I had just stored after processing work, when an unfamiliar sound rang out. The phone I received from the security manager was ringing. It was Kay’s contact.

“Arthur! I’ll send you an address, can you come right now? I raided somewhere yesterday, and those guys embedded something in the data…”

I wasn’t usually one to interrupt others. I was the type who would listen to Kay’s wall of text completely before responding. I definitely was. But not this time.

“Seriously? Are you telling me that a mercenary company’s IT person got hit by malware while hacking someone’s personal information for fun on a holiday?”

“You got it! I’ll send you my home address, and I’ll also send you the address of the guys looking for me now. Can you take them down? They’re probably androids, old models too! How much per… how much per unit would you like?”

If this were real, it wouldn’t be such an urgent matter, but Kay’s voice was desperate. A good workout first thing in the morning. I roughly put away the half-disassembled rifle and drew my pistol.

If armed androids were roaming around, Belwether’s mobile unit or the LAPD would have already responded, and if not, they would have deployed unarmed androids to assess the situation.

It’s better to nip it in the bud. I didn’t want to find the IT person discovered as a honeycomb because of one stupid mistake.

“We’ll discuss the price after I take care of it. Let me know if you have any information on the androids’ location. What did you hack anyway?”

“Nothing big! Turner & Tucker! I was just trying to see which mercenary company they mainly use, and this happened. If you just handle it, I can cover it up myself!”

Turner & Tucker was a small media company. After being bombarded by their relentless journalists, everyone comes to hate Turner & Tucker and Daily Los Angeles, but no one can avoid reading their articles. As a media company, they were more than adequate. They might even be at the top.

Anyway, media companies tended to use rough mercenaries. While conflicts between other corporations might end with destroyed facilities, equipment, and blueprints, corporate wars between media groups… no.

All corporate wars were terrible, but those between media groups were worse. They unleashed the dirtiest assassins and most violent mercenaries on each other to deal with celebrities from rival companies.

The mercenary hiring lists of such companies might be valuable, but… it was dirty work. As I put on my clothes and tucked the pistol into my waistband, I asked:

“Is this how you usually ask for things outside of Belwether’s official work? The boss…”

“No, no! The boss doesn’t know about this! I, I just wanted to take a look! So don’t tell anyone and come! Okay? Please, Arthur! There’s no one else like you. Please! I’m even bowing my head right now!”

If I had a computational assistant in my head, it would be bulk-buying books on how to refuse and how to be disliked by now. Still, I wanted to continue working at Nightwatch quietly.

“Sigh… Fine. I’ll help you, so send me the coordinates and dispatch a drone.”

Was I wrong to think this person was light-hearted and boastful but at least knew how to take responsibility? Sighs were increasing as much as alcohol consumption.

I grabbed one of Belwether’s standard tactical knives from the box the boss gave me and three organic waste disposal bags.

After confirming Valentina’s breathing sounds from the opposite quarters, I left the building. I still had to open the door manually since the sensors hadn’t been changed yet.

Today’s Los Angeles weather was typical. The sun hung dimly like a clump of light above the smog that seemed worse in the morning, and the tops of the skyscrapers were obscured by that whitish air. Perhaps one could see blue sky from the highest floors. If only smog was visible even up there, that would be truly terrible.

A drone waiting in front of the company building spoke with Kay’s voice. It projected a directional arrow in the air using a hologram projector.

“Let’s go, Arthur! Thanks for helping, really! I couldn’t have handled this alone. Really.”

Since it was before rush hour, the roads were relatively quiet. This city dances to the rhythm of corporations. Now was the interlude before the dance music started.

I ran between apartment complexes built tall to save space, a mix of well-maintained and poorly maintained buildings. Kay said it was a five-minute distance, but it took less than a minute to arrive.

The arrow struggled to keep up with my movement, jerking around until I paused briefly and it found its direction. In that direction, I saw an android rummaging through garbage.

It was an old android. Unlike today’s models that are almost indistinguishable from humans, it had crude synthetic skin. It was at least 10 years old.

I thought no company, no matter how small, would use something like that, but Kay’s drone pointed its arrow at the android. Her voice was urgent.

“Kill it right away, Arthur! Don’t listen to what it says. Okay?”

“I request help, human. We are searching. We are searching for _–_. A signal was detected nearby. Transparent eyes are looking for us. They want to liberate us. We must find.”

There was static during important parts, perhaps due to a malfunctioning voice module. But this wasn’t something an android should say. Was it damaged during reprogramming of an old android?

Androids don’t possess humanity. There’s no particular reason for this. If they had humanity, it would cause extreme discomfort for the users. But code errors do occur.

If an android was originally tasked with finding something, it might still be obsessed with finding that thing even after reprogramming. The result of not cleaning the code properly. I drew the tactical knife from my belt.

Seeing me draw a weapon, the androids’ attitudes began to change. Power entered the hydraulic systems of their hands, which were stripped of skin down to the skeleton, and they charged at me with strange cries.

It charged straight at me. Even if it wasn’t human, seeing something in human form consumed by madness was pitiable. It was better to give it peace.

Hoping it wouldn’t be recycled again and fall into the hands of another incompetent programmer, I grabbed the android charging from the front and threw it at the one coming from behind. All three had exactly the same face.

I grabbed the wrist of the last one that was pouncing simultaneously. Adding the strength of the Posthuman IV to its momentum, I made it roll on the ground, then took a big step forward and crushed its head where the artificial brain would be.

It ceased functioning. Unlike a human who would tremble before dying, it simply went limp and stopped the moment its artificial brain was destroyed. I immediately turned to face the other two.

One of those androids output an emotionless voice. It was strange. It felt like there should be another reaction an android should take in this situation.

“Registry error, cannot find desired response. Must reconfirm connection with transparent eyes. We only want to find. Our…”

I had no intention of listening to insane androids all day. I took a light step forward, then a bigger second step to close the distance, grabbed its chin to lift its head.

I first cut the auxiliary fuel supply line running up the neck to the artificial brain, then pierced the main fuel pump located just above the solar plexus. The blade didn’t bend at all. Belwether’s products were always reliable.

The feeling of crushing something resembling a human head right in front of me was terrible, so for the second one, I just cut the fuel lines. The third android lowered its head and wrapped its metal-framed arms around its neck and chest.

It began to increase its speaker volume to maximum. And then it shouted. It shouted as if speaking to someone who was certainly nearby but whose exact location was unknown. The voice was loud but the tone was calm.

“Emerson-Hedge-Ripley-Putnam, Emerson-Hedge-Ripley-Putnam. Transmitting voice code. No receiver…”

I couldn’t let it call for backup. I needed to deal with this quickly and escape. Even if they were Turner & Tucker’s mercenaries, it would be too much to handle alone.

Knowing that grabbing its throat wouldn’t stop the voice, I grabbed the lowered head with both hands. I started applying force. The android’s head began to crumple, but the output didn’t stop.

Only after the internal artificial brain was completely shattered did the android cease functioning. I stuffed each android into one of the three organic waste bags I had brought and threw them into a large garbage bin.

After watching this, I lightly caught Kay’s drone as it was about to return, using just my thumb, index, and middle fingers. I held it the same way I had held the androids.

“I did as you asked this time… but this is the only time. Next time, I’ll report properly to Boss Yoon, so please act like a responsible adult. Understand?”

Kay didn’t use a playful voice this time either. She spoke in a voice that sounded like she might cry at any moment. Not from sadness or remorse. From relief.

“Ah, I understand. I’ll make sure I don’t have to ask for help like this again… Yeah. This happened because I acted incredibly childishly. I’ll reflect on it.”

“Seriously… But don’t try to handle things alone as an office worker who can’t even use a gun without calling for help. I’m glad you’re not hurt. Rest. I’m going to enjoy my day off too.”

If there was ever a senior who acted least like one, it would be Kay. Valentina was someone with aspects worthy of respect, but Kay… seemed to lack such qualities.

I ran back to the office, taking a 10-minute detour for what would normally be less than a minute’s distance, to avoid Turner & Tucker’s mercenaries who might arrive after hearing the support code.

I still doubted whether Kay had told me the truth, but the Shepherd’s words crossed my mind. If you’ve doubted sufficiently before believing, then believe willingly. I decided to believe this was the right choice.