Ch.189Work Record #028 – Beautiful Enough to Dazzle the Eyes (5)

Sometimes the smog that settled over these drug addicts’ streets seemed to be created for different reasons than in other parts of the city.

While other smog came from above, the smog here appeared to rise from the ground. It was a place thick with the acrid smell produced by people who had surrendered their minds to the flow of consciousness.

The fact that they actively sought drugs meant this was a gathering place for the more functional addicts. Those whose brains were already sufficiently damaged had given up even looking for drugs.

The body of an addict, struck and thrown by a Belwether Mobile Unit van, lay abandoned on the street, while people with vacant eyes sat without even turning their heads.

To the people here, that scene existed somewhere between reality and illusion. As I walked with my gun barrel pointed down, a vacant-eyed drug addict raised a pistol.

It was a mechanical motion. The way he lifted the gun and aimed it at me resembled Mila’s movements, but it was far more unpleasantly inhuman than hers.

I immediately turned, aimed my gun, and pulled the trigger—two shots to the chest, one to the head. The addict, too full of implants to be called human, collapsed.

“That’s a terminal, Boogeyman. There must be countless more. Where are Ruiner and Tinker?”

“Eight minutes until arrival! No, wait. Belwether granted traffic control and speeding permission. Four minutes until arrival!”

Even eight minutes meant they were driving at an insane speed, and now that time was cut in half. I could easily imagine how they’d come racing in. And it seemed there were some unfortunate victims too.

“How many kilometers are you pushing in the city center… Ruiner! Damn it, Ruiner! Slow down!”

“Both of them are coming. Let’s go see that technomancer brat’s face, Boogeyman.”

I nodded lightly and tried to move forward when a heavy explosive sound came from where a low-noise helicopter was hovering. Capturing the technomancer itself wasn’t our piece of meat.

A video feed connected to the Special Operations Unit’s communication channel and the eye camera of that full-body cyborg was transmitted. I could see a man who had lost his human form, not like a full-body cyborg, but by having implants plastered all over his body.

His hunched back and the camera system resembling compound eyes that replaced his real eyes were inhuman. His hands looked like they had complete android assembly mechanical arms attached to them. His back was probably hunched because of their weight.

He looked exactly like a large insect rather than a human. The head of this human who had lost his humanity was completely pierced through by the hand of the Special Ops agent.

Instead of trying to pull out his hand, the agent detached the connection at the forearm, inserted a new arm, and output a mechanical voice.

“This is Special Ops Unit 1 Chief. The technomancer has been neutralized, but we’ve also identified a dead man’s switch. The terminals will start rampaging once the technomancer’s life signal is no longer detected.”

“That’s why we’re here to handle them. Will Special Ops also participate in terminal hunting? With your help, the job would be much easier.”

“It’s not originally our duty, but… I know the LA branch’s Special Ops has lost some credibility. Taking initiative before talking about jurisdiction and duties helps restore prestige. Yes, we’ll participate.”

Hearing such dry and blunt words reminds me of Special Ops who chose to be eternally imprisoned in neural jails rather than surrender, even though they could have helped restore the company’s efficiency. Special Ops seems to be similar everywhere.

As I surveyed the landscape of drug addicts’ streets, where people stood frozen staring into space with carbines in hand, suddenly an eerily ominous mechanical sound erupted from one corner.

The dead man’s switch must have activated. Ilbelly immediately aimed his shotgun and pulled the trigger. Even the heavy slug round didn’t kill the terminal. It only stopped its operation.

Because the people we needed to deal with here had died long ago. The completely collapsed terminal fell over with a mechanical gurgle, and the sound of a vehicle racing could be heard.

The fact that Ruiner was coming was good news, but the fact that too many people in this lifeless street of drug addicts were getting back up was definitely not good news, at least not right now.

While drug addicts didn’t have human-like eyes, the terminals had eyes that made even drug addicts seem human by comparison. They were literally empty. Like glass marbles without even residue.

Parts installed inside their arbitrarily fleshy bodies forcibly lifted them up with the smell of burning fat. They let out mechanical-sounding howls. The sound was so loud it naturally dampened my hearing.

Terminals without guns began charging toward us headfirst, while those who could get guns raised their barrels to fire immediately. I turned my control lever to full auto.

I squeezed the trigger and raked through the crowd. Ironically, it was easy to distinguish the real drug addicts because they didn’t even think about getting up in the first place. Gunfire erupted everywhere.

As I pulled out Small Evil to face a group of terminals rushing toward us, the sound of the approaching vehicle finally revealed itself. It was a car worthy of Ruiner.

Although it was a fluorescent hot pink color, the vehicle had a push bumper for subduing other vehicles and plowed right through the terminals. The door was kicked open… and Ruiner stepped out.

Anyone could tell it was Ruiner. A madman wearing reinforced armor with grooves mimicking heavy artificial muscles and a helmet with cat ear-like attachments. He scanned the surroundings and raised his gun.

No, to be precise… it wasn’t a gun. Despite being in a controlled urban area, he was holding and firing what looked like a helicopter-mounted machine gun with both hands, similar to what I had used at Heroism and Hope Company.

“Ah… really, really… LA is just too good a city for trigger-happy fetishists like me!”

Everything was swept away, whether real drug addicts or technomancer terminals. Though people had already evacuated, even the occasional shops had their interiors devastated.

I made no comment since that level of firepower was actually necessary. Even if it hadn’t been Ruiner, Special Ops would have deployed similar firepower, and the addicts wouldn’t have cared anyway.

Tinker emerged from the opposite door of the stopped vehicle. He rubbed his forehead as if dizzy, but reflexively raised his pistol and shot between the eyes of a terminal that was aiming at him.

“Damn, I shouldn’t have let Ruiner drive… Boogeyman, Ilbelly! Ruiner will handle the large groups! Let’s shift our strategy to clearing building interiors…”

Red flames erupted first, followed by the blast wave of an explosion. It was a grenade thrown by Ruiner. Tinker, with a pained expression, continued speaking.

“Let’s shift our strategy to clearing building interiors! With just that crazy woman alone, we could have handled ten technomancers, Ilbelly.”

“Ruiner may be a bastard, but at least he’s our obedient bastard. Should we go in pairs, Boogeyman?”

“No. I’m used to solo operations. Since the Special Ops seem to be taking one building each, let’s split up too.”

In the distance, a Special Ops agent descended along the exterior wall of a building and infiltrated it with their characteristic movements. Soon, droplets of blood sprayed from inside the broken window. Finally, the Special Ops I knew.

They were the people who would rush to the scene faster than anyone when variables occurred, faster than anyone when Belwether was in trouble. That was what Special Ops originally was. I confidently selected a building.

I chose a small villa building with many people inside, which meant there would be many terminals as well. I could already hear the mechanical clicking sounds characteristic of terminals coming from inside. It was designated as my work area.

I slung the carbine on my back and entered the building holding only Small Evil and a high-frequency tactical knife. It was a small villa with about five or six rooms per floor, and few doors were properly closed.

The terminals had already left their homes. That should have been the case, but from one home came the sound of rummaging. As I approached slowly, I saw a terminal with empty eyes searching a house for keys.

That wasn’t a resurrected person. It was just an AI occupying a dead person’s body. It was natural that it wouldn’t know where the dead person’s gun safe key was. I approached while its head was turned.

I moved with each click as the terminal searched through a filing cabinet. Dark red liquid, a mixture of blood and oil, was already dripping from the terminal’s hands. And… inside the house was a corpse with its head smashed in.

Taking one long step forward, I smoothly pierced its neck from the side with the tactical knife, which made so little noise that it was drowned out by the clattering of the opening file cabinet.

I deliberately made a large arm movement when withdrawing to cut off the android components connected to the neck. Despite having its head severed, the body flailed in the air before finally losing connection and collapsing.

I grabbed the head containing an artificial brain instead of a real one and crushed it. After shaking off the mixture of blood and oil, I escaped through the window and climbed up the wall, which was quite rough.

A family on the third floor had been completely replaced by terminals. The wife and child were sharing two self-defense pistols from the house. Hanging from the balcony by one arm, I drew Small Evil.

It seems there might be limits to the amount of happiness or joy one person can bring, but there seems to be no limit to the amount of misery one person can create. That wasn’t true.

I pulled the trigger. I dealt with the child holding the gun first. Then the armed wife, and finally the husband who had no weapon but whose build suggested he was meant to be the vanguard. These were already dead people.

Now terminals would start gathering toward the house where gunshots had been heard. They looked just like onlookers gathering at an apartment accident, except they were armed.

After clicking my tongue once, I used just my arms to throw myself from that balcony into the neighboring balcony. The inside of the house was more ordinary than I expected. A man and three children were huddled in a corner of the living room.

But the child in the middle… had no focus in their eyes. They were reaching out from the family’s embrace in an inanimate way. Their hand was pointing toward a drawer in the house. I gestured with my chin to the man.

He shook his head. Desperately covering the child’s mouth, he shook his head with all his might as if to say this would be enough. I struck the man with my gun handle to separate him.

I raised my foot and crushed the head of the terminal disguised as a child. Sparks flew from the broken head, and only dark red liquid, a mixture of oil and blood, flowed out. Vicious bastard.

The man, who wanted to wail but knew that being discovered would endanger the remaining family members, only made choking sounds while holding his head where the gun handle had struck him.

Let’s save the pity for personal time. I grabbed my gun and pulled open the front door of the house, which was half-ajar. Terminals had gathered in large numbers to enter the neighboring house.

Sadly, they weren’t mindless monsters. They looked human, appeared exactly like humans. They even possessed something similar to human intelligence. But they could never be called human.

I pulled the trigger of Small Evil toward a man in casual clothes who was holding a tool to scrape artificial skin from his prosthetic hand, unable to enter the house. His head and that of another terminal beside him were pierced simultaneously.

The terminals that had crowded into the house began pouring out. I turned the control lever of Small Evil to full auto and faced those charging headfirst down the narrow villa corridor.

Cheap security glass shattered, and even the building’s metal doors and walls were penetrated by bullets designed for reinforced armor. Though not quite a cookie-cutter, these were bullets with quite good penetration performance.

Despite killing more than a dozen, terminals kept emerging from the house. I shoved the one charging at the front to disrupt their momentum, put away Small Evil, and took out my carbine.

These were regular bullets, so they wouldn’t have as much penetration power. Three shots per terminal, all to the head since it was close range. Terminals couldn’t move if only their artificial brains were destroyed.

By the time there were only two bullets left in the carbine’s magazine, all the terminals that had gathered at this house had been cleared. I picked up a hammer that one of the terminals had brought from the house. I confirmed each kill one by one.

The hammer, with cheap duct tape wrapped around its head, had a sense of everyday life that was quite disgusting. I decided to take comfort in the fact that the technomancer had died like a dog at the hands of Special Ops.

I headed toward the stairwell. A terminal jumped down from the top of the stairs trying to stab me with a kitchen knife, but I grabbed its ankle and slammed it to the floor. I crushed its head to destroy the artificial brain. I proceeded to handle them slowly.

I moved while recalling the movements of Special Ops. They were machines created to achieve maximum efficiency. I was made of different material, but my purpose and usage were exactly the same. Now the terminals were hiding inside homes.

It wasn’t that natural. My enhanced hearing could detect the terminals’ inability to use language, only making gurgling sounds. I opened a door and entered. A bullet aimed at my chest was blocked by my bulletproof vest.

I lightly stepped on the ground and charged into what was once a living space but now an ambush site, ramming into the terminal. I grabbed its head and smashed it against the wall. I had reloaded my gun, but there wasn’t much need to shoot.

With just a few bullets lodged in my bulletproof vest and traces of bullets grazing my helmet, I finished clearing the building and climbed to the roof in quite good condition. I could see a few remaining terminals.

They… were trying to jump off. Several large terminals were surrounding one small terminal with their bodies, trying to protect it as they prepared to jump. I spoke to Chance.

‘This is what we were talking about when we told Mila about hateful artificial intelligence, right Chance?’

“I judge that even Prometheus was a better AI than this. I have a question. Is the purpose of that statement to scold me, or to express hatred for the artificial intelligence called technomancers?”

I raised my gun barrel and pulled the trigger toward the child-like terminal visible between the bodies of the adults. I pushed the remaining ones off the roof. With that, the building clearance was complete.

‘The latter. Chance, you made the best judgment you could. The technomancer… well, apart from letting us know that non-humans were going crazy, he was completely useless.’