Ch.174Work Record #025 – Wins and Losses in Coin Tossing (7)

Jerome’s car left the slums and returned to the Los Angeles we knew. Though I hoped I wouldn’t need to contact him again, I made sure to keep his information.

At least he wouldn’t be wandering through black markets anymore, and he might even get rid of the illegally imported incubators. He must have seen how many people died because of that business.

Using Jerome’s ID chip, I connected to Coco one more time to inform her father, or the person called that, that everything had been resolved. Now in this city… nothing would happen.

Belwether is always investigating crimes somewhere or creating crime scenes that no one can easily touch. All of this is routine. And that routine is set to continue.

After a brief farewell with Jerome, I return to my apartment. The only ones who didn’t need sleep were Arthur-2, who had already rested enough, and myself, who needed just as little sleep. The schedule had been a bit excessive.

The bed belonged to Ms. Eve and me, while the bean bags were given to Arthur-2 and Mila. Ms. Eve’s hideout, despite being old, was originally a luxury villa. The bed there was definitely bigger.

But it didn’t really matter that much. When bodies are pressed together, extra space becomes unnecessary. Ms. Eve wore a slight smile, her worries somewhat eased.

When I visited her hideout and used the bed there, I didn’t think much of it, but now I found myself lightly pressing the mattress with my hand, feeling strange about her being on my bed in my room.

If I had a tail implant extending from the end of my spine, it would surely be swishing about now. With that thought making me smile, I wrap my arms around her waist and drift off to sleep.

I didn’t sleep long. When I woke up, it was around 9 o’clock… so I must have slept for about an hour and a half. Arthur-2 was sitting quietly in the desk chair, watching.

Our eyes met, and I tilted my head as if to ask if she had something to say. Arthur-2 shuddered and shook her head. I could somewhat guess the reason.

“No, I just came inside because the woman outside talks too much. Is she always this energetic?”

As expected. I grinned quietly so as not to wake Ms. Eve and nodded.

“She’s always that energetic. It’s not strange for someone who remembers the pre-war era, Arthur. What about Ms. Mila?”

“She’s probably asleep. She said she was going to explore the life that was never mine and slipped away.”

“It was only three months, why call it a life story? So, this time it’s not identity ‘recovery,’ but if Jerome helps create a new identity, what will you do?”

There must be at least thirteen hundred people named Arthur Murphy in Los Angeles alone. Across America, there might be around a hundred thousand with this common name. Adding one more wouldn’t change anything.

It wouldn’t be a doppelgänger story, just a trivial case of people sharing the same name. Therefore, I had no intention of blocking the path of my three-month-younger self. He wouldn’t want to block mine either.

Arthur-2 seemed to be contemplating for a moment. She tapped her fingers on the desk, just like my habit, then let out a deep sigh. I could roughly guess how she felt.

“I need to earn money first. You know solving the basic survival problem comes first. After that… I don’t know.”

“I can lend you enough money to cultivate a body. Freelancers don’t earn just pennies, you know?”

Arthur-2 sighed and shook her head. Somehow, I could understand how Mr. Günter must have felt when looking at me refusing everything.

“Borrowing someone else’s hand is one thing, but borrowing my own hand would feel twice as bad, and you know it. What I’m curious about is how you’ve been living.”

“Very randomly, sometimes finding my way because someone showed kindness, and sometimes just charging ahead when I couldn’t see the path. Probably not much different from you, Arthur.”

Adding the dash-two was just for distinction. When talking between ourselves, there was no need for such differentiation. She also leaned against the desk.

“I don’t think I was the type to talk nonsense, Arthur. Do you really think doing that changes anything? How did you get into Night Watch after leaving Belwether?”

“Francis gave me the Night Watch job that was offered to him. He probably thought it was his fault. Though it was more Walter’s fault than Francis’s.”

Arthur-2 sighed as well. She remembered Francis too. Though somewhat frivolous, he was good at his job as a security team member. That frivolity also led to his downfall.

“That day, I was just asking Francis if meeting women during work hours was appropriate, right, Arthur? You have three more months of experience. You’d probably have a better answer.”

“You’re saying that after seeing the butterfly effect play out? If that hadn’t happened, Los Angeles might not be the Los Angeles you know. I was just where I needed to be when I needed to be there.”

“Though no one would have expected you to be there. I can only hear the supervisor shouting, ‘Shepherd Six, what are you doing there?'”

That made me laugh quietly, trying not to wake Ms. Eve beside me. It always feels this way when my inner thoughts come out of someone else’s mouth.

“I thought so too, but it wasn’t quite like that. Shepherd Six quickly becomes not Shepherd Six. Just like Alsatian One quickly became not Alsatian One.”

She recalls the college callsign that was injected into her, or copied… either way, it revives her memories. They were my memories too. I could tell which part she would recall.

“Right, just like Alsatian One quickly became not Alsatian One. Would mercenary work be easy? If Jerome properly vouches for your identity, getting one should be easy.”

“It’s not difficult for people like us who can do easy things easily. Belwether made us that kind of person, didn’t it? Perfect for being thrown into the world with nothing.”

She laughed a little too. Flexing her fingers with an expression that suggested she felt strange, she replied.

“What we said the morning we died.”

“Yes, that’s unavoidable. What we said the morning we died.”

It was about how someone who had only ever been told to keep pushing forward couldn’t easily develop something like confidence.

“Still, I can write you a recommendation for Night Watch. I’m quite trusted by the boss, and Night Watch is expanding. If there were two of me, Boss Yoon would be delighted. I’m sure of it.”

“I told you I don’t want that kind of help. Once I get my identity, I’m leaving. I’m thinking of going to another Belwether-owned city… so how about reciting a guide for a penniless returned child to survive in this high-speed era?”

She leisurely stroked the server computer containing Chance. Everything in the room was in Arthur Murphy’s name, not hers. She looked around and giggled.

How to live. The only way I knew to stop fearing soft beds and to stop recalling that tingling sensation like your neck being cut was something I learned from Mr. Günter.

“Well, introduction. People live believing many things, Arthur-2. Blindly pursuing what others have created, or living while choking with their necks constricted by what they believe is right… Great people create what they believe in themselves.”

I recall the stupid kid who believed efficiency, cold and hard, couldn’t coexist with humanity, warm and soft.

I also recall Ms. Serena, who, as an ordinary person capable of shouldering only one life, confined herself to Leland Winters’ shadow to support a city.

I recall Mr. Günter, who claimed the wastelands and ashes left after that war, no, the extinction war, as his domain, and shaped the world with only fanatical hatred and obsession with efficiency.

Perhaps they were not so different from each other, but someone collapsed and became organic waste, someone became a true hero capable of supporting a city… and someone became the zeitgeist of this era.

Everything I know is inductive. I know what happened, but not what caused it. I was still trying to figure that out.

“As you know, we’re not such great people either. I’m also living with what someone I met during those 3 months more than you created for me. Slaves obey, machines produce, and only humans enjoy.”

Unlike the weight that phrase held for me, Arthur-2 didn’t seem particularly impressed. When I first heard those words, I barely thought of them as meaning “enjoy life.”

“Honestly, I don’t know if this is an idol or an ideal. I just believe that… if I keep knocking down the visible idols one by one, I’ll eventually be able to distinguish which of the two I believe in.”

The idol of Belwether fell, as did the idol of efficiency. Efficiency was no longer a fundamental value of life. Things being fast is still good, and we still talk about accelerating more, but not like efficiency fanatics.

I’ve also seen responsibility, once an ideal, become an idol that binds a person. The more I see, the wider the world becomes, and fewer people devote themselves to efficiency. Perhaps people are becoming more human.

“So, I don’t think it’s such a big problem that you’ve been thrown into the world quite randomly, with no purpose… no, with just one trivial purpose. Sincerely.”

“Because people are born that way?”

“Because people are born that way.”

She didn’t need to experience an identity crisis. If there were an Arthur Murphy competency test in the world, both she and I would pass with little difference.

Whether two or whatever, we are Arthur Murphy. We have the same identity. More precisely, we had the same identity. From now on, it will be different. She was still a Belwether acolyte at heart, and I was now… just Arthur Murphy.

“So, whether you move away or settle in Los Angeles, just… do what I do when you have time from work. If you’re me, you’ll probably enjoy it, Arthur.”

“Well… I’ll try if I have time. If I have time.”

Hearing her tone, I laughed lightly. Yes, this must have been how Mr. Günter felt. She hit the nail on the head.

“You don’t really want to, do you?”

Arthur-2 laughed back. With an awkward hand, she brushed her awkward hair and rolled her eyes.

“Can’t I fool myself? You’re right, I don’t really want to. You’re the one with the hobby of breaking idols, Arthur. I’ll look for something else. Probably.”

“We’ll end up at similar destinations anyway. But if you’re not going to take Jerome’s money, will you work at Night Watch for a while? Having experience at a reputable company would be much better.”

“That… I can’t deny. I’m not the type to live off others’ money. Even if they’re filthy rich corporate people.”

I was someone who had completed a job without taking a penny from someone much richer than Jerome, someone who could perhaps even determine what value money holds.

Arthur-2 leaned back on the bed, now comfortable as if it were her own, and grinned. She clearly showed that she had taken one brick from my words.

“Still, not bad. That saying about people being born that way. Did you just destroy the idol of a purposeless cloned human thrown into the world, O Idol Destroyer?”

“Ah, don’t mock me mockingly, Arthur dash two. And if you can take a brick from someone else’s words to fill a gap in your wall, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

Arthur-2 raised her body from its lying position and looked out the window with a grin. It was a day with quite thick smog, though not enough to require a gas mask, making the sky a mortar-colored gray.

We slumped without needing to speak, communicating with shoulder shrugs, when I noticed someone peeking their head through the bedroom door. It was Mila.

Had she been listening? Whether it was because I hadn’t sensed her presence or because I was focused on my conversation with Arthur-2, I only noticed her now. I wave to her as she watches with sparkling eyes.

She walks out from the corner, hands tightly clasped, looking at me. Her beaming smile feels almost out of place, but perhaps all pre-war people were this bright.

“As expected, you’re truly valuable! I didn’t decide that for nothing, did I? Someone who makes people dream of the future! Such a rare commodity swept away by that war, you have no idea how much I’ve searched!”

I activate my computational assist device. While naturally smiling and responding, I connect with Chance. My mouth and mind speak different things. Different expressions, different intentions.

“I’m not that great of a person at all. Just a freelancer struggling to get by on my own. Oh, we’ll wake Ms. Eve.”

‘This is similar to Foresight’s motto, should I try to lead her on to confirm?’

Chance seemed quite pleased that I hadn’t forgotten about Prometheus. It was simply that there had been many other matters, but I had never forgotten.

“Affirmative. If Mila Joyce is connected to Prometheus, quoting part of Foresight’s motto or response would likely elicit a positive reaction.”

If it seemed like deliberate provocation, I was going to let it pass quietly, but if Chance agreed… it’s worth checking one more time.

“And I do like dreaming of the future. Constantly revisiting the past and being unable to live for tomorrow is regression, isn’t it?”

‘Is that enough? Or should I say more, Chance?’

As Chance’s voice echoed in my head, Mila’s excited response came back. Both answers were affirmative.

“That seems sufficient, Agent Arthur Murphy. As unpleasant as the phrase is, it must be a core value for Prometheus. And for this woman who learned from them.”

“Oh, I didn’t expect to hear those words from someone after that war… Yes! That’s right! Abandoning tomorrow’s potential for hope and pioneering because you’re anchored to yesterday is regression and retreat!”

Prometheus opened the counseling site Foresight. And sent Mila to Los Angeles. What could they observe from that? It must be about people and megacorporations.

Through Foresight, they could interview elite soldiers of megacorporations, and what Mila, a novice mercenary, observed and reported back to Prometheus would provide knowledge about the general social landscape.

So Prometheus is… simply observing? They might be reassessing the nationalists as legitimate successors to the pre-war federal government.

Mila seemed to see me as someone who would carry on Prometheus’s will, while Chance saw it as something that must be destroyed. I… decided to reserve judgment for now. I shouldn’t narrow my thinking.