Ch.170Work Record #025 – Win or Lose in Coin Tossing (3)

In a city owned by Belwether, living as a Belwether-certified freelancer allows you to keep certain secrets. It means that when a hospital asks about a patient’s identity, you can simply say, “Injured on duty,” and they’ll let it go.

If I hadn’t been a freelancer, Belwether would have had to go to a cheap back-alley doctor who only maintains minimal surveillance. Someone whose medical license might be questionable, if they even had one at all.

At least I didn’t need to entrust another version of myself who fell from the sky to such a person. Since the person admitting the patient was a Belwether-certified freelancer, the doctor assignment was made immediately after emergency patients.

Having a freelancer license means the words “waiting room” or “waiting” in the encyclopedia in your head collect dust. I carry Arthur-2 into the examination room and place him on the patient bed.

Among Los Angeles doctors, there wasn’t one who didn’t know how to examine gunshot wounds. The doctor quickly assessed the two bullet wounds precisely lodged in the ankle, then looked at me. Clicking his tongue a couple of times, he said:

“Were you walking around with your HUD turned off? Even as a freelancer, if you mistreat your mercenaries, you’ll get shot in the back of the head. What, are Belwether-certified freelancers supposed to survive even with bullets in their skulls?”

I had said “injured on duty,” and since there were no wounds other than the two shots to both ankles, he apparently assumed I had accidentally hit her in crossfire. The shooter was right.

I didn’t add anything further. The necessary procedures were entered, and anesthesia was administered for bullet removal and regenerative surgery. Having died and come back to life, I had no reason to welcome anesthesia.

As I slowly approached her, seeing her entire body tensed with clenched fists, Ms. Eve stopped me. Instead, she went to Arthur-2 and leaned over.

Ms. Eve knew very well when Arthur-2 had been cloned. She knew that someone who could be calm, rational, and reasonable was acting like a beast because they had just experienced something terrible.

She gently stroked her hair and whispered a few reassuring words. Arthur-2 tried to say that she wasn’t the Arthur that Ms. Eve cared about, but I wasn’t the only person in the world who received her warmth.

That’s why Hollowwood Creek needed to die. Someone who could share warmth with many people became afraid of warmth because of the terrible burns Hollowwood Creek inflicted. She became unable to enjoy it.

When dealing with Arthur-2, Belwether’s returned child, I used to talk more about efficiency, but now I needed to talk about joy again. What needs to be said and what one wants to say are always different.

Eventually, Arthur-2 relaxed her body and slowly drifted into anesthesia. After watching her, I turned to the doctor who was preparing for the next patient. I had something to ask.

“Could I hear the scan results? It’s related to my work, so I’d like your understanding.”

The doctor looked at me as if he didn’t know what I wanted. After reviewing the medical drone scan results, he said:

“It should be the same as what’s on that woman’s resume. The body is artificial… not military grade, probably a Meditech product. Ah, you’re asking because there’s no serial number, right?”

It seems we’re people cultivated too secretly to have enhanced body serial numbers. I swallowed a laugh that threatened to escape at how our lives matched in such strange ways.

“Recovery is good, the wound is fighting infection on its own… Yes, definitely a Meditech product. Not the latest model. Something this basic would have been sold at a discount price. I wonder why they’d make it without even putting a serial number on it.”

It’s a basic model. The reason my Posthuman Type IV has no serial number is to prevent identification so it can be used as a trump card, but for a basic enhanced body to have no serial number… there’s probably only one reason.

A Type IV without a serial number is threatening in itself, but nobody cares about a single basic enhanced body without a serial number. Perhaps the goal was to release Arthur-2.

I’d need to hear the details to know for sure, but it would be better to find out what I could. Since she also had a computational assist device implanted, I naturally shifted the subject and asked:

“Maybe it’s so common that putting a serial number would be wasteful. Is there any problem with the computational assist device? Any backdoors? She received the procedure somewhere I don’t know about.”

“Huh, you worry too much. There’s no problem. It’s just a regular civilian model… how should I put it? It seems like it was purchased from a Belwether flagship store. A place where you can buy Belwether civilian products.”

Until Walter released Belwether-made standard rifles on the black market, Belwether was a company with quite distinct civilian and employee product lines. It was obvious considering that only rifles had been released in Los Angeles.

If he’s using examples like rifles locked to prevent fully automatic fire, or combat suits with clean Belwether coloring but no camouflage function sold at flagship stores, it means the setup was amateurish.

Then she wasn’t revived for combat purposes. No, that’s obvious from the start. The fact that they had my brain scan data means they knew my face. It was strange that they put her in a female body.

They revived her in a female form, and the computational assist device is a civilian version clumsily imitating military grade, as if purchased from a Belwether flagship store. Even the artificial body, though enhanced, is a Meditech product.

It’s amateur work. Looking at Arthur-2’s face that I had photographed, it doesn’t appear to be a patchwork of common faces, which suggests whoever made the artificial body has some expertise in that field.

But they’re definitely not a dangerous person. Arthur-2 wasn’t being tracked. If someone had been sent to follow her, it wouldn’t be this quiet. They would have had to trace all her movements.

But the scene around the house that Chance showed was only quiet. Even Half & Half Company had boldly posted a request looking for the woman who attacked their security team.

In some ways professional, but in others, terribly ignorant. Is the person who cultivated Arthur-2 really dangerous? It was a dangerous action, but it didn’t seem like the action of a dangerous person.

If I were to investigate, it would be better to look among people who make aesthetic artificial bodies rather than going down a list of dangerous individuals. After figuring that much out, I just gave the doctor a short nod.

The bullet removal and regenerative procedure didn’t take long. Arthur-2, with bands full of preservative fluid on both ankles, was given a private room. They must have had space available.

Although things were delayed a bit because I shot her ankles without hesitation, Arthur-2 didn’t complain much. She was still me, after all. She knew whose fault this situation was.

Instead, with her ankles properly covered by the hospital bed blanket, she waited until the nurse left and then spoke. But what she said… made me question the authenticity of my memories a little.

It wasn’t serious doubt. It was just bewildering how similar our experiences were during cultivation. I turned on the noise canceller on my wrist.

“I don’t know exactly where I was cultivated. But while I was being cultivated, I confirmed that it wasn’t Old Pasadena General Medical Center, so I prepared to escape.”

Since the name of the cultivation AI wasn’t Bertha, it seemed she didn’t have memories of being in the Posthuman Type IV cultivation tank. It could simply be that they were impersonating a Belwether partner hospital.

“The problem was that I couldn’t break out of the cultivation tank with this body. So I pretended to be panicking and knocked on the tank wall. As soon as the person who cultivated me opened it, I grabbed the inside handle…”

If she could have broken the tank, she would have done so just like I did. As I let out another laugh, she demonstrated by grabbing the bed frame and making a kicking motion with both feet together.

“I kicked the guy who cultivated me and got out. From what I could tell of the structure… it was like a luxury apartment. When I left the cultivation room, there was a hallway… living room to the left, entrance to the right. Which way do you think I escaped?”

“Given it was a luxury apartment, there must have been a balcony outside the living room window. And typically, such balconies have fire escape ladders. They might be able to block the entrance, but not that.”

Arthur-2 nodded briefly. We kept confirming that we weren’t “we” but “I’s,” trying to gain some stability. She was anxious about what she might be involved in.

“Correct. I roughly remember the address, but the situation was urgent and the direction I escaped from makes it hard to remember the exact unit number. I think I could find it if I went there…”

“I’ll definitely go there, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Anything else memorable?”

“What else I remember… That guy, seeing how he fell backward from my kick, he’s not an enhanced human. Probably just a regular office worker. The room was… packed with soundproofing material.”

Soundproofing, soundproofing. So it was another secretly conducted experiment? I couldn’t get a sense of what kind of person this was, and my thoughts kept circling in my head.

Ms. Eve, who had been watching us converse with the same gestures and speech patterns, differing only in voice, approached as if finding it somewhat creepy and asked:

“During the surgery, the doctor said the person who cloned you seems quite amateur, so why would they plaster soundproofing everywhere? It was a luxury apartment, so neighbors wouldn’t be likely to report anything.”

Living in a luxury apartment where soundproofing is already good, yet adding more soundproofing material. And wearing what seemed to be a Meditech artificial body. I slowly connected the thoughts and clues.

Could it be some Meditech employee who kept one of the company’s cultivation tanks in their home and cultivated Arthur-2? They’d certainly lose their head in many ways if discovered by the company, so maybe that’s why they’re anxious.

But if I start thinking they’re not that significant, then how they obtained the brain scan data becomes another mystery. They might have access to the black market, but the important question is motive.

What would drive an ordinary Meditech employee to go to the black market, obtain my brain scan data—someone who died at Belwether and whose records were erased then restored—and cultivate it?

It’s something I can ignore for now, but it’s still good to think about it. That’s what I learned when hunting the Headhunter last time. Even seemingly unnecessary things should be considered, even if at a lower priority.

In the end, the answer will only come from visiting the place directly. As all four of us in the hospital room were pondering, Arthur-2 looked at the clock and then at my face, as if just remembering something. With a confused expression, she finally asked:

“Wait a minute. You, no, me. No, you. Why are you living there instead of the employee dormitory? Why were you at home at this time? Is it your day off?”

Ah, the familiar dead end. Mila, who had been thinking quietly with us, approached Arthur-2’s bed and said:

“No! Work hours are until 8 PM! Arthur is a mercenary, a Belwether-certified freelance mercenary! From the mercenary company Nightwatch… um, Arthur, what was your position again?”

“I can do whatever the boss needs, so I haven’t really been assigned anything specific. Thanks for the introduction, though. But, Arthur-2, didn’t you come here knowing I was a freelance mercenary?”

“Not at all. I accessed the housing management department with my computational assist device to check my house. I’m not sure if this counts as a personal information leak, but you know?”

There’s no reason to take the roundabout path when you know everything. I pulled up a chair and sat facing her. I told a story that was both old and current.

“So. First of all, we died and came back to life, right?”

“In common terms, we died and came back. Since the brain was intact, we weren’t really dead.”

“Good. But from the moment we came back to life, things got messy. Some guy pretending to be a doctor said he’d let me have a Posthuman Type IV… what choice did someone with only a brain have?”

Arthur-2’s expression gradually twisted as she listened quietly. With just that much information and my tone, she figured out more than expected and asked:

“It’s really unbelievable… so you couldn’t go to Old Pasadena General Medical Center either.”

“If I had, I’d have two attendants instead of Eve and Mila. What we did deserved at least that much in return.”

“It did. It really did. But you… from the way you move, you’re wearing a Type IV now, aren’t you? Or not? You seem to move even better than the Type IV I saw in the catalog.”

Since I was essentially talking to myself, it wouldn’t violate any confidentiality orders. After checking the soundproofing on the hospital walls again and sending Mila out of the room… I summarized the whole story.

I told her everything—that it was Deputy Director Adrian Goodman who killed us, that we were cultivated for a Belwether coup which fell apart when we escaped, and all the consequences.

I explained how I received freedom of contract to become a freelance mercenary, and how I handed over all credit for helping suppress the coup to Deputy Director Adrian Goodman. Arthur-2 became somewhat gloomy upon hearing this.

“Ah, I had my suspicions… so I was human. Yeah. Damn it. Looking at it this way, would it be any comfort to say my situation seems better? No, you wouldn’t need that. Because you’re me.”

“Yes, because you’re me. We were always that kind of person. Whether I won the coin toss to be here, or you won to be there, doesn’t matter at all. It just happened that way.”

Arthur-2 finally stopped acting like a frightened animal and stared directly into my eyes. What I saw was someone else’s face.

Her brown bob hair swayed like Ms. Eve’s, and the lines of her neck and shoulders were delicate. She wasn’t complaining about her visible chest or the body beneath the hospital gown.

Nevertheless, her eyes were unmistakably mine, beyond any possible disagreement. It wasn’t about the color. It just felt instinctively that my eyes would look like that.

I heard the cry of a beast in her voice. The fact that she was, after all, me was demonstrated more clearly than any other means of proof could have shown.

“Forget about coins. If my coin shows tails, I’ll just toss it again until it shows heads. I am Arthur Murphy. People’s childhood memories can be a bit hazy. I don’t care about that.”

“Yes, you’re Arthur Murphy. The returned child who received a chance to dream from Belwether… no, a chance to have a chance to dream. If that’s how you want to define it, I don’t mind. We’re both Arthur Murphy, but you’re not me.”

With those words, I handed her a white-slide pistol I had brought from under my bike seat. It was the pistol from Belwether’s welcome package. A Belwether employee’s gun.

She took the gun with familiarity, removed the magazine to check it, and inspected the interior. Though it was a gun I no longer used, it was well-maintained. Still, she sighed.

“You said you have work from evening. I need time to recover too… go ahead. Afterward, we need to find out who pulled this stunt, so don’t come back tired.”

“With a Type IV, you say goodbye to the word ‘fatigue.’ What else do you need?”

“Your contact information, and… gun cleaning tools. You know what calms us down.”

I handed her the gun cleaning kit I’d been using since high school, which I had brought from the bike, along with my contact information. She didn’t need someone by her side.