Ch.150Work Record #020 – The Show Must Go On

The additional filming ended without any issues. Gardner, who briefly appeared after deactivating his optical camouflage, left only the agreed-upon line before completely disappearing, leaving Arthur Murphy as the only one remaining in Detroit.

No, that’s not quite right. I still needed to use an alias a bit longer. After taking a full day to rest, when I went to meet Ms. Serena, I was an anonymous visitor. Once again, I used passages that ordinary people couldn’t access.

Still, it was fortunate to be able to enter the hospital room used by the city’s only superstar. She rose to greet me, having replaced one arm and one leg with temporary prosthetics.

In the cultivation tank was a second body being grown with only the back of the head and skull open to insert the brain, not just the lower body. That’s why they had patched her up with crude prosthetics so she could move around.

The body she was wearing now was disposable anyway. That’s how she should think of it, but Ms. Serena kept staring intently at the body being cultivated with its exposed skeleton and new spinal cord. The muscles hadn’t been covered yet.

Only after I entered did she take her eyes off that body, using her prosthetic to prop herself up from the hospital bed, and I gave her a brief salute. She returned the salute with the formal Belwether corporate three-finger gesture. Ms. Serena smiled mischievously.

“Well, look who it is. The hunting dog among hunting dogs of the corporation, isn’t it?”

“Ah, I came to see Ms. Traitor to Nationalism. Don’t you like your new body?”

She laughed off even the word traitor. It was a problem that no longer existed. As I felt satisfaction in that fact, Ms. Serena scratched her head with her prosthetic while looking back at the body.

“It’s just that… I’m stupidly scared. Going back into the cultivation tank, having my brain taken out and put into another body—it frightens me. Looks like I’ll need to borrow a hand again.”

This time I decided to shake my head. Ms. Serena was someone who could now do things on her own. There was no need to lend her my voice anymore.

“No. I won’t help you this time. We need to find balance, right? Between borrowing someone else’s hands and doing things yourself.”

“Oh my. Are you already trying to distance yourself by going laissez-faire? I thought I could borrow your hand at least once more.”

“It’s just that, this body has meaning without me having to comment on it, right? So I want to see the person who walks into the cultivation tank on their own. I find that enjoyable.”

I still remember how it felt when I walked into the cultivation tank myself. It was an overwhelming sensation. Was it the joy of becoming stronger? No, that wasn’t it. Strong or weak had no meaning.

It was the joy of being able to accomplish what I wanted. The joy of stepping over obstacles and taking the next step. It was a brilliant feeling. A truly enjoyable feeling. I wanted Ms. Serena to feel that too.

“Again with talk of enjoyment. Is that so important? Enjoyment is…”

“It’s light. It’s nothing special. It might seem ridiculous to pour one’s life into it. But I’ve decided it’s important to me. Just like you decided. You know what comes next, right?”

I remember the refreshing feeling. I remember the sensation when I met Mr. Günter and could run faster than anything else. How far I could go. How fast I could move. How enjoyable it was.

The pressure of the entire city watching me becomes another form of enjoyment. I remember the feeling of deceiving Walter, who viewed the entire city as if it were in the palm of his hand, ruining his plans, and ultimately throwing a harpoon into his head.

Enjoyment makes it unnecessary to even overcome adversity. It turns outrageous requests into novel challenges to try, and even Gardner’s blood-soaked life into moments of learning.

I calmly admit it. This might be a twisted form of enjoyment. This might be a cruel and fierce temperament. It doesn’t matter. I won’t let anyone define it. This is my life.

I can love people. I can hate people. I can use my head. I can use my body. I can try to accomplish everything, and even if I fail, I’m now accustomed to dying.

So my life is enjoyable. I will gladly shoulder everything I can bear and take pride in how strong my back is. I will run until my lungs burst and enjoy the headwind against my face.

Ms. Serena nodded briefly while looking into my eyes. Her expression suggested she was reflecting on her own enjoyment, just as I had revisited mine. Her voice was calm yet dignified.

“If I decide it’s important, then nothing else matters. Because I decided so. Because it’s my life as I define it.”

Instead of her voice, I heard only the sound of a beast howling. She probably heard the sound of a beast howling instead of my voice too. We weren’t beasts that licked each other’s wounds. There was no need for that.

Ms. Serena drew a breath not from her lungs but from her memories, trauma, yearning, love, sorrow, and grief, and slowly exhaled. I nodded lightly.

“You say you won’t help, but you will end up lending a hand anyway? Fine. I’m really going to wear an enhanced body. And I’ll make a spectacular comeback. As the Serena Vanderbilt series.”

She boldly said something that might have been rude to me. But to her, it wasn’t rude at all. Rather, it was closer to showing respect. I didn’t mind.

“I’ll make people forget the Callsign Gardner series. I’ll make them think of someone other than Officer Ryland when they hear the word ‘hero.’ For that, the body is… just a tool. Just necessary preparation. I’m not afraid.”

Ms. Serena seemed to have steeled her resolve with those words. I couldn’t be an ideal human being like that every moment. Sometimes I might even forget enjoyment. That didn’t matter either.

What was needed was effort. As long as I could remember and pursue enjoyment again after losing my way, that was enough. Enjoyment was my North Star. Damn, it seems Mr. Polaris has really seeped into my daily life.

Anyway, no matter how many steps I took toward the North Star, I could never reach the sea of stars. That doesn’t mean the North Star is meaningless. It could be used as a directional marker to find one’s way.

That’s what enjoyment is to me. Ms. Serena offered her good arm for a handshake, and I shook her hand. It wouldn’t have mattered if it wasn’t her good arm. Either way, it was her arm.

The executive producer of the Serena Vanderbilt series, who had been quietly watching us, approached. He was a man who always exuded a gloomy atmosphere, but his ability was undeniably exceptional.

“I think we need to have one more production meeting. Would you mind for a moment?”

This too was an enjoyable matter. I nodded lightly, and he brought up a hologram screen from his hand.

It was a bike with two wheels connected in parallel like the Smogpiercer, but in light pink like Serena Vanderbilt’s color. It was still covered with logos of partner companies and sponsors.

“We can change the color scheme gradually, but we need a name. Or, we’re considering transferring the Smogpiercer to Serena, but you wouldn’t allow that, would you?”

“Of course not. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. It would be ridiculous for me to go against my own line. And if you’re asking me to come up with a name…”

As I whispered the name, the previously empty project name for the bike was filled with “Atlas.” How many horsepower it takes to carry responsibility has yet to be determined.

However, the Smogpiercer was certainly capable of carrying it. It was clear that Atlas would also be able to carry Ms. Serena, her enhancement suit, and the ashen gray sky of Detroit that she willingly shouldered.

We said our final goodbyes with a light embrace. Perhaps it was a farewell between kindred spirits. I wasn’t quite sure in what sense we were kindred… but I felt somewhat like we had shared blood.

With that, the anonymous visitor left Serena Vanderbilt’s hospital room. Before leaving Detroit, I returned to the penthouse one last time to pack my belongings.

Mr. Chris was there to say goodbye. He approached me as I was packing and handed me something long and wrapped. At his gesture to unwrap it, I found a high-frequency blade the length of a one-handed sword.

It was the same specification as what Gardner had used. I was about to refuse it when she gestured for me to draw it. I drew the sword as instructed. There was a handwritten message on the blade.

It wasn’t anything extraordinary. It was just the courtesy that the people of Detroit had shouted to Heroism & Hope Co. Sighing, I pulled the blade inward to examine it in the light.

‘From Serena Vanderbilt, who was your disciple, your follower, and above all, your friend.’

After satisfyingly scanning those words, I gripped the sword in reverse and returned it to Mr. Chris. This belonged to Detroit. It had nothing to do with Los Angeles.

“So this was to be the first exhibit in the Callsign Gardner special exhibition. I thought you were telling me to take it.”

“Confidentiality agreements are important, so what can we do! How could we leave traces when your identity might be targeted by the entire entertainment industry the moment it’s revealed? Thank you for your work on the shoot!”

“Yes. Thank you for your work too. And I hope the next season of Serena Vanderbilt goes well. I’d also like to see a Lobringer personal series someday. And as for the producer…”

He created hope. He brought a revenue model to a destroyed city and created heroes for people with devastated spirits to follow. People who were well-fed, wealthy, and at ease could become beautiful.

I glanced at the scene on the billboard showing citizens gathering parts for Gardner’s Smogpiercer. That gloomy man no longer looked gloomy. Perhaps he had discovered the formula.

“Hope makes for good content. Many people want it, but there aren’t many suppliers. That’s all there is to it, right? People won’t get tired of it no matter how much you produce. Please continue to create good works.”

“Of course we will. I personally feel quite pleased to have proven that even someone who learned the word ‘world’ and all its components from the entertainment industry can formulate hope.”

Honestly, I couldn’t quite understand why he had decided to work with the material of hope. Perhaps he had stumbled upon it while researching the artistic vision and methodology suitable for hero stories.

Of course, such motivations were meaningless. What mattered was the image of a man who knew nothing but entertainment somehow defining and building up the concept of hope.

To him, the show was life itself. So the old adage that the show must go on might have meant to him that life must go on. I liked that idea.

Well… if what ultimately came of it was a city with 24-hour live murder broadcasts, I had nothing to say about that either. I had no intention of denying the twisted nature of it. Still, it wasn’t such a bad city to live in.

With that farewell, I said goodbye to Detroit. Once again, I boarded a first-class seat on a Pathfinder aircraft and flew toward Los Angeles. It would only take about four hours.

During the flight, I browsed the net, which was its usual self. It was full of people trying to create a coupling between Gardner and Serena, with fan art labeled “not recommended for workplace viewing” pouring in.

Ah, these disgusting broadcast-obsessed viewers and secondary creators who seem capable of nothing but exploitation, yet they’re the audience I love with all my heart—ordinary citizens and employees of Detroit and across America.

All of these things were simultaneously correct. It wasn’t bad. The hatred was more of a playful love-hate relationship. With a chuckle, I closed the page and deleted my browsing history. I didn’t want Ms. Eve to see it.

There was only one thing I could definitively say these people got wrong: their imagined appearance of Gardner. I wasn’t one-eyed, nor a white-haired old man, nor a full-body cyborg. They were all wrong.

Still, this wasn’t something worth commenting on. After all, I was someone who had never played the role of Gardner. I faced the smog-filled sky of Los Angeles. The plane was landing.

As befitting a first-class passenger, I was the first to disembark, and as a freelancer authorized by Belwether and Heroism & Hope Co., I could exit without any baggage inspection. Ms. Eve was waiting there.

Seeing me pulling a cart loaded with luggage bags, Ms. Eve pushed a virtual screen toward me. It was news about Arthur Murphy killing a traitor. Her smiling expression was special.

“Can’t break the habit, I see?”

“I’m breaking three good habits a day, I’ll have you know.”

“Teasing me?”

“That’s a habit that brings me no benefit to break.”

I comfortably accepted the playful tap of her fist against my forehead. I subtly avoided her attempt to take my carry-on bag, and pleasantly received her sharp glare.

“Cheeky brat. Oh, did you hear we got two new recruits? They’re both doing well during their two-week probation period. They’re also quite pleasant people, probably because the working environment is better than in the entertainment industry.”

That meant the Night Watch now officially had ten employees. With two reserve riflemen on board, work wouldn’t stop even if one or two people were absent. Things were going well.

“I look forward to working with them. How about Mila?”

“Don’t even get me started. She’s such a marksman. She takes out three people with three bullets using just one pistol! Does that… strange shooting technique actually help?”

As if suggesting she should learn it too, Ms. Eve made a gesture of holding a pistol and motioned into the air. I didn’t laugh at her clumsy imitation. I’d already been scolded enough for today.

“Ah. So we decided to change some positions too. With the emergency treatment that all Eves typically learn, and my knowledge of how to use Hollow Creek pharmaceuticals supplied to Belwether… I’m now a full-time medic.”

She lightly tapped the compact Hirichum submachine gun, as if it was a replacement for the rifle she usually carried. She was someone who liked caring for others as much as she disliked killing people, so this was good news.

“Before you say it’s good news, think about how much nagging you’ll get from me if you get hurt on the job, Arthur. How was work?”

“You know I like protecting people too, right? It was the best job. I learned a lot, and there’s much more I can do now… Oh, have you seen the new production from the company I worked for? On site, it was quite…”

“Callsign Gardner? No. I don’t really like such violent shows.”

“When I saw it on site, it was quite terrible. Too violent.”

Ms. Eve continued her playful interrogation as I changed my answer based on her reaction and joked around. As we exited the airport, a hologram advertisement for Heroism & Hope Co. caught my eye.

It was an advertisement showing how many weeks remained until Serena Vanderbilt’s return. The show must go on. Life must go on. The Smogpiercer may no longer run, but Atlas will continue to do so.