Ch.183Work Record #027 – Eve #113764’s Escape (2)

The day after the briefing, the meeting place for the wrist-cutting operation wasn’t Yakkyung’s office but a shared office used by freelance mercenaries. In the locker room, I changed into the prepared combat uniform colored like a wasteland.

Instead of my usual display helmet, I wore a combat uniform with a mask that barely revealed my eyes, adding goggles to conceal my identity. I went down to the parking lot meeting point and exchanged a nod with Tina.

I got into the passenger seat of an armored van with no company logo. Even the carbine I was using had been painted differently from usual. After boarding the van, I kept my goggles on and spoke to Tina.

“It’s a workday, but we’re starting early. You must be tired after yesterday’s briefing and preparations.”

“Nooot at all. Uncle Enzo did all the prep, so he’s the only one who’d be tiiired… These days, thanks to someone, the company’s flush with cash, so our cash wizard can work his magic to the fullest.”

I couldn’t help but think that being able to prepare all this in just one day and still have time to rest was more impressive than showing superhuman movements in a Type 4 suit.

Soon, other colleagues arrived at the van. Vola had somehow managed to dress like a normal person, but her frame was still so large that it barely concealed the fact she was a full-body cyborg.

Still, except for Vola, the rest of us could definitely hide our affiliations. Today again, we departed toward the wasteland in two separate vans. I connected to the communication channel.

“Everyone except Boogeyman, attach and wear B-type filters on your gas masks. We can’t do much about their enhancement suits, but this should protect against the cultists’ blind bullets. K, please display that.”

They must have done additional reconnaissance, as a clearer image appeared of a blonde, blue-eyed woman wearing what looked like a black latex bodysuit. Another Eve. The cult leader’s lovers, who were ninety or a hundred years old.

“This is the enemy commander. Since it’s open terrain, sniping shouldn’t be difficult, and she’s not that well-protected, so killing her shouldn’t be hard either. Hollowed Creek doesn’t value them that much.”

That was true. Every time I visited Eve and the cult leader, the Eve guarding the place had changed. If they truly valued these Eves, they would have increased their forces. I felt nothing but disgust.

The cult leader hadn’t increased his forces to protect the Eves. He thought this would be the last time Eve would come looking for him, and he was trying to capture her. We needed to cut off the wrist completely.

The two vans departed, taking different routes but eventually meeting in the wasteland. I checked my small evil deed and carbine. I couldn’t use the grenade rifle since it was unique to me.

I could drive to the destination with my eyes closed, so I could roughly gauge our position even in the featureless wasteland. We were getting closer.

After driving for nearly two hours, the van carrying the office workers and President Yoon entered the wasteland first. We could now visually identify the Hollowed Creek inquisitors’ position. Just a few kilometers left.

I opened the passenger door and lightly jumped out into the dust cloud created by Tina’s van. In the gray dust, wearing a grayish-white combat uniform, I ran and blended into the wasteland.

The smog remained thick, and the desolate wind concealed me in the gray dust. I ran at almost the same speed as the moving van. President Yoon’s voice began to come through.

“Sniper preparations complete. Both the commander and enemy snipers are in my sights. Field team, determine the timing for the shot.”

“Confirmed! Tina, as soon as the van arrives, turn it so the exit faces those meat bags. Snipers, please counter-snipe as soon as the vehicle begins to stop.”

Vola’s mechanical voice rumbled like a low metallic growl. From her perspective, Hollowed Creek consisted of the softest meat bags. Machines were strong and real. Fanaticism was the opposite.

I spoke only through my voice module without opening my mouth. The snipers, not the commander, could harm Vola. That meant eliminating the commander would naturally fall to me.

‘I’ll eliminate Commander Eve first while they’re distracted by the gas grenades, machine gun fire, and their snipers being killed. The faster we kill her, the more time we’ll have inside.’

The van that had been moving suddenly stopped and began turning exactly a quarter turn. At that moment, a sniper bullet embedded itself in the van’s armored side panel.

Despite the preemptive attack, Tina’s driving was perfect. She was exceptional even among road racers who craved maximum speed.

Most road racers feel they’d be fine dying if they could achieve top speed, but not Tina. She had Nadia, which made her not just any road racer, but Tina.

The vehicle stopped precisely despite all windows being covered with armor plating. The van door opened immediately, and gunshots rang out. A splash of blood appeared in the wasteland. More gunshots followed. The snipers were dying.

“We’re under attack! Protect Eve first! Cultists, return fire! Whoever they are, they’re mercenaries based on the armored van…”

Gas grenades fell, and even the brainwashed cultists couldn’t suppress their nausea, failing to return fire. The inquisitor stopped talking and took cover as machine gun fire rained down.

I needed to find Eve. With her blonde hair standing out in this gray environment, she should be easy to spot. I strained my eyes searching. Through the gray dust, I caught a glimpse of golden hair shimmering.

‘Commander Eve is in the arms of the rightmost inquisitor. Requesting sniper support…’

Before I could finish, the head of the inquisitor holding Eve was pierced by a sniper bullet. Eve screamed as blood poured over her golden hair. She stumbled backward.

I could kill her cruelly if I wanted, but decided against it. Following orders didn’t lessen the crime, but the one following orders deserved a lighter sentence than the one giving them.

I switched my carbine to single shot and aimed precisely between her eyes. Commander Eve died without even screaming, but I fired two more shots to confirm the kill.

The surroundings were completely devastated. The cultists were choking on the vomit gas while being torn apart by machine gun fire, and the inquisitors weren’t in much better shape.

‘Commander Eve has been eliminated.’

After reporting, Vola tore off a patch attached to her combat uniform’s shoulder… and a can-sized object shot out from her shoulder. It spun as it flew into the air.

I worried she might be firing a cluster bomb near the road, but this wasn’t a cluster bomb. It fell among the inquisitors and exploded, spewing something sticky.

What looked like melted plastic stuck to their closed enhancement suits. It wouldn’t completely block their breathing apparatus, but no one could fight when they couldn’t even see properly.

While they were in disarray, Vola’s machine gun, loaded with anti-enhancement suit rounds, swept away the remaining inquisitors. Soon, a drone approached me. It was K’s.

“Arthur! Could you turn your head right and shoot one of those windows? Is it the smog or are there really no open windows?! Do they live without ventilation? Well, I guess that makes sense…”

K was starting to get mushy again, so there shouldn’t be any problems. I shot at the firing point indicated by K’s drones, breaking the window. K’s drones entered through it.

“Good… I’ll destroy the CCTV recorder first, so don’t worry about your face being exposed, Arthur!”

If we had used cluster bombs, the road would have been damaged, and while Belwether might forgive fighting Hollowed Creek, they wouldn’t tolerate damage to the road.

The wasteland roads are North America’s arteries. Cutting them wouldn’t lead to good results. The melted plastic wasn’t permanent damage. Soon, K’s drone exited the villa.

“Job done! Looks like Vola’s finished too… We’re preparing for extraction, so go in and spend time with Eve! Oh, I need to back up the brain scan, so I’ll come with you. I’ll be in the server room!”

After the cult leader died, they didn’t properly maintain the villa’s interior, designing it only as a trap to catch Eve. I rushed into the villa with Eve, who had hurried from the field team’s van.

A hologram projector activated as soon as we arrived, and the cult leader’s hologram appeared. He seemed surprised. His voice, uncharacteristically flustered, came through. I listened calmly.

“Judging by the gunfire alarm, you brought soldiers this time. What message do you have that’s worth starting a battle, Eve…”

Eve removed her mask and goggles, revealing her face. She took a deep breath, drawing air not from her lungs but from the depths of her heart, as she faced the cult leader’s hologram.

She opened her mouth. What came out wasn’t a human voice but the cry of a beast. The sound of a fragile, scarred creature that had somehow managed to survive.

“It’s nothing extraordinary. Just something that should have ended years ago. I’ve come to tell you that Eve No. 113764 has escaped from Hollowed Creek, as of this exact moment.”

The cult leader’s hologram collapsed to his knees. Even without a body or knees to touch the ground, he knelt. Despite being an emotionless copy, he wore an expression that seemed overcome with emotion.

It was merely an imitation of emotional expression from his lifetime, a convention… but it didn’t really matter. This hologram of the cult leader was as human as Arthur-2. Eve continued speaking comfortably.

“I no longer think of a crowd with identical faces when I hear the word ‘Eve.’ Love should only be directed toward the cult leader? Go to hell. The person I love is right beside me now.”

The cult leader’s method of cutting emotional ties had failed. She still wanted to meet him to say these words, still felt guilty toward him, still felt sorry for him. It didn’t matter.

A different method had produced the same result, so it didn’t matter. She had decided to live embracing the horizon she saw, neither completely burying the past nor sacrificing herself for purity.

“Creek will keep telling me I shouldn’t be happy. That the only way to cleanse my sins is through Creek. I won’t care. I can now accept what I’ve done and live with it.”

Her voice exuded the scent of freedom. If freedom had a smell, it would be this refreshing sensation. She no longer hesitated to pour out what she wanted, her pleasures.

“I’ll still have nightmares sometimes, and I’ll still hate seeing people die… but that’s fine. Everyone has their own story. I’ve become able to live like a human being, and I will.”

She continued with a slightly trembling voice after speaking confidently until now. This was the realm of uncertainty.

“So now, I’ll take the cult leader…”

“William… no, call me Bill. Cult leader is not my name. Never. Not at all…”

In that moment, both Eve and I knew we hadn’t been wrong. This man had never been the cult leader.

“Alright, alright. Bill. This time, I’ll take you away with me. Even if only 42% remains, still…”

K’s voice came at an ominous timing. She sounded quite flustered and hesitated a bit.

“Um, Arthur? You should see this… This is indeed William Weber’s mind, but… just look!”

The virtual screen she displayed over my vision showed information about the artificial intelligence controlling these holograms, created using Bill’s brain scan.

What was stored here was a copy. Records indicated it was duplicated from Hollowed Creek headquarters’ central control system, meaning the original was likely at their headquarters.

Eve was also struggling to speak as she looked at the virtual screen when a display of unknown purpose in the house turned on. The image of Hollowed Creek’s cult leader appeared.

He looked like an elderly man with almost no hair except for a few sparse grayish strands, too weak to hold his body upright… but his eyes, nearly covered by eyelids, looked beastly.

The cult leader on the screen burst into laughter. With almost no teeth left, his laugh sounded like an unpleasant deflating sound. The camera slowly pulled back, revealing what must be Hollowed Creek headquarters.

In a cathedral-like space filled with medieval or early modern religious paintings, the cult leader was surrounded by Eves wearing enhancement suits several times larger than their bodies, giving them bodies that didn’t match their age. He whispered:

“Take that fake and run away if you want, Eve No. 113764. Though I can’t see you, you must be the only one who would infiltrate there. Did you find skilled friends, or did you seduce them with that face?”

K had done her job thoroughly. Hollowed Creek’s cult leader licked the mushy food handed to him by single-digit numbered Eves around him. It was simply disgusting.

As Eve was about to snap back, William Weber’s hologram stood up. He moved the hologram projector’s cameras to face the display and spoke:

“If it’s a perfect copy, what’s the difference between real and fake, John? Are you trying to lure back a child who escaped your grasp with more meaningless wordplay? You snake…”

“It’s been a long time since I heard your voice, Bill. No matter what you say, the copy label attached to you won’t disappear. And it’s Eve No. 113764’s choice. What she wants to save.”

Hollowed Creek’s cult leader used his enhancement suit’s heavy hand to throw a hologram projector onto the floor. From it emerged a hologram identical to Bill Weber here.

“Ah, if you disappear there… I’ll tearfully erase your original. Can our Eve No. 113764 handle that, Bill? I’m asking her to make a choice for herself.”

The original Bill Weber hologram, capable of recognizing audio and video, looked around. He was assessing the situation from the ongoing conversation. Then came an unexpected sound.

Laughter. Both the copy of Bill Weber here and the original there were laughing simultaneously. The hologram called the original spoke first:

“I’m the real one? You’ve learned to make jokes, John. My last Eve, what happened to the real William Weber?”

He realized that Eve—the Eve I knew—was on the other side of the screen and asked. Eve gritted her teeth and answered:

“I killed him. Because of a meaningless misunderstanding. Meaningless distrust. Meaningless stupidity. Don’t worry. I no longer cry or make excuses.”

“That’s good, my last Eve. I’m fake too, John. Just a fake made from fragments of my shattered brain that you destroyed to snatch that child. A real copy and a fake copy—you’ve definitely improved your jokes.”

Next, the holograms from both projectors spoke simultaneously. Not a single word differed, which might have been creepy, but it didn’t feel that way at all:

“You’d be doing me a favor by eliminating me. My gratitude goes to the Lord, not you, though you get a small share. Thanks to you, I can be both a martyr and a shepherd. Things you can never be.”

The hologram of Bill Weber beyond the screen began to laugh. The cult leader hurriedly rose and crushed the hologram projector with his enhancement suit’s foot. The laughter stretched and then cut off.

I stopped Eve as she tried to raise her submachine gun toward the display. Instead, I punched through both the display and the wall behind it in one blow. The video feed cut off.

With K’s announcement that she would transfer him, William Weber’s hologram disappeared. But he wasn’t gone. Soon, K’s drone flew in and handed the storage device containing him to Eve.

We left the villa and boarded the van waiting for us. We crossed the wasteland. Eve took one last look at the landscape she would never return to, then never looked back. It was a declaration of severance.