Ch.210Your Time Is Gonna Come! (3)

#210

“I’m so sick of them not listening.”

Dexter, riding in a disguised van dispatched from the California branch and heading toward the abandoned airport, clutched his head at the sight of the four women who had stubbornly followed him.

“Don’t follow me inside the airport. I’d rather get hurt myself than see any of you injured.”

Dexter spoke with genuine seriousness.

“Then Dexter has to promise too.”

“Promise what?”

“Not to get badly injured like last time.”

At Judy’s proposal, Dexter rubbed the back of his neck.

“Is that even under my control?”

“It’s a minimal promise. You should at least show some will to avoid getting hurt.”

When Judy held out her pinky finger, Dexter linked his pinky with hers.

“If this is what you want.”

“Good. If you break the promise, you’ll have no free time for a while.”

“What do you mean, no free time?”

“The four of us will take turns sticking by your side.”

“Oh my, how frightening.”

As Dexter chuckled while saying this, Judy furrowed her brow.

“I’m not joking.”

“I was also being sincere about being scared.”

In prison, he was stuck with Judy; at OSA, he was with Himena; and at home, he was with Jessie and Emily.

Free time was a non-existent concept for Dexter, and Jessie knew this best.

“Don’t push him too hard. Dexter has it tough enough.”

“…Come to think of it, Jessie is always sleeping next to Dexter, right?”

At Judy’s words, Jessie flinched, and Emily, who was beside her, added:

“I always sleep alone too.”

“I might be one thing, but are you really going to let Emily keep sleeping alone? Seriously?”

“No, it’s just… I don’t have any sleeping habits…”

As Jessie stammered, Emily shook her head and said:

“Don’t lie. I’ve heard Dexter clearing his throat to wake you up when you grind your teeth.”

“Dexy, is that true?”

“I am a neutral country.”

When Dexter avoided answering Himena’s questioning, Jessie became flustered.

“Wait, do I really grind my teeth? For real? I thought I didn’t have any sleeping habits!”

“Who actually knows their own sleeping habits well?”

“I sometimes sleep in weird positions and get stuck against the wall.”

“Emily, you shouldn’t be saying things like that here.”

As the van interior suddenly became noisy, Dexter sighed deeply and said:

“We’re going to catch bad guys, and there’s absolutely no tension here.”

At Dexter’s words, the van suddenly fell silent.

They realized that fighting over who gets to sit next to Dexter was childish, especially at such a crucial moment.

“Ahem. So, what’s the plan, Agent Libero?”

Jessie, who had started the whole thing, suddenly adopted a formal tone, even lowering her voice.

Himena played along and spoke in a serious voice:

“…Since it’s an abandoned airport, there’s no security personnel, and the facilities are extremely dilapidated, so entry itself should be easy. The problem is that we don’t know how many troops are inside.”

“What’s the estimated force?”

“According to satellite maps provided by NORAD, there are many trucks, buses, and trailers parked there now, unlike a few days ago. They also captured some photos of what appear to be civilians being taken there.”

“Civilians?”

This was news to Dexter as well.

If civilians were involved, his approach would have to be very different from his usual methods.

“We should bring in SWAT team members for this.”

“It’s not that simple. They’re already preparing to launch the orbital bombardment ship, and it would take too much time to prepare a SWAT team that can maintain secrecy. Even the Rapid Response Team wouldn’t be enough.”

“This should have been the Rapid Response Team’s job in the first place. Why is Dexter getting involved?”

“As long as the neutrality treaty exists, OSA must continue to hide the existence of such organizations. Preventing civilians from approaching OSA headquarters is also one of the Rapid Response Team’s duties.”

“So basically, available personnel have been reduced because of problems at OSA headquarters.”

“Director Makoa probably didn’t want to send Dexy either. After all, just a few days ago, he was lying in bed like he was dead for a whole week…”

“OSA seems too understaffed.”

“I sympathize with that, but except in emergencies like this, we’re always warned to reduce personnel, so…”

In normal times it’s fine, but when something like this happens, the number of people who can respond drops dramatically.

“That bastard Rascal. I’m sure among the information he sold were our weaknesses too.”

“What’s the point of cursing someone who’s already escaped?”

“…Does Himena use such language too?”

“The first curse word she directed at me when we first met was ‘fucking bastard.'”

“Ah, why are you telling Judy that!”

“Because I was really hurt by it?”

“Hurt? You tease me about being foul-mouthed every time we meet!”

“That’s because I was so hurt that I’m trying to heal the wound by teasing and transforming it into laughter… Hey, hey! Don’t hit me while I’m driving!”

Dexter giggled, momentarily forgetting his gloomy mood.

The abandoned airport, once used as a military base, was a wide and flat terrain.

However, it was surrounded by gentle mountain ranges that seemed to embrace the abandoned airport.

Dexter planned to carefully climb up the mountain range, conduct some reconnaissance, and then infiltrate.

“Will there be patrol personnel?”

“Patrol personnel in this heat in the wasteland.”

The temperature in the Nevada wasteland was approaching nearly 40 degrees Celsius.

No sane person would order patrols in this weather, and since it was wide open except for the mountain ranges, it would be difficult to spot Dexter’s group climbing up the opposite side of the mountains.

“If we’re discovered, we’ll have to eliminate them immediately.”

Avoiding detection was crucial for success.

“If we could go faster, couldn’t we have taken a spaceship?”

“With the Commander-in-Chief’s temperament, if we went by spaceship, my ship might have been half-destroyed by a hand cannon.”

There was a reason Dexter chose to travel in a slow car.

“That spaceship isn’t even a year old yet. Don’t try to use my spaceship so recklessly.”

“When Earth is in danger, it seems a bit much to be so protective of your spaceship.”

“Hey, do you know how much I suffered to get that?”

Dexter’s spaceship was imbued with his blood, sweat, and tears.

“We’re almost there. It’s hot, but let’s be careful.”

The disguised van slowly climbed the rocky mountain range.

After parking the van between split rocks where it could be concealed, Dexter covered it with camouflage cloth similar in color to the rocks and headed for the shade of the rocks.

“This way.”

“…I really can’t live in Nevada. After this is over, let’s go live in Boston where Dexter’s family home is.”

Jessie, already sweating profusely from the sun beating down on her back as soon as she got out of the car, said with a miserable expression.

“You shouldn’t talk like that during a mission. Saying things like ‘When the war is over, I’m going to marry my girlfriend back home’ is a surefire way to get killed.”

Himena said, lowering her voice.

“…Why?”

“I don’t know exactly. That’s what the senior agents told me.”

“…OSA is weird.”

Upon reaching a certain point in the mountain range, Dexter lowered his posture, lay flat on the ground, and carefully examined the abandoned airport through binoculars.

“How is it? Can you see anything?”

“…No. It doesn’t seem to be a problem with the binoculars, but it’s like someone deliberately smeared something sticky on the lenses.”

‘It’s blurry. Have they turned on a perception inhibitor?’

As if the abandoned airport was surrounded by fogged glass, only silhouettes were vaguely visible, and the situation inside couldn’t be seen clearly.

It seemed that a perception inhibitor, technology that makes it difficult for living beings or cameras to distinguish objects from the surrounding landscape, had been installed around the airport.

Since the output device of the perception inhibitor is also affected by the inhibitor’s effect, it was difficult to even detect the presence of the inhibitor itself.

This much was expected.

“Himena, the drone.”

“Got it.”

Soon, Himena took out a palm-sized small drone, a remote control, and sunglasses from her combat uniform pocket.

After putting on the sunglasses, Himena pressed the protruding part of the frame, and immediately the lens part of the sunglasses became transparent, displaying the view from the camera attached to the drone.

“If Dexy puts on the sunglasses too, the view will be shared. Try it.”

Dexter also took sunglasses from his pocket and pressed the button just like Himena, and the drone’s view was displayed to him as well.

“…Good. Let’s go.”

The small drone controlled by Himena flew up into the sky without making any sound.

A few minutes later, the small drone, capable of communicating over quite a long distance, safely reached the airspace above the airport.

“It doesn’t seem like the perception inhibitor is installed up to the ceiling.”

“There’s no reason to cover the ceiling.”

Himena saw an abomination slowly walking across the runway and lowered the drone for a camera zoom.

“Doesn’t it look familiar?”

The abomination, which looked like a normal person inflated like a balloon, resembled someone.

“I’m not sure. Can we hear sound too?”

“We could turn it on, but it drains the battery quickly, so it’s better to just keep the camera on.”

“Then there’s no choice…”

Seeing other strangely shaped abominations and obviously illegally created bizarre creatures moving between the runway and buildings, Himena showed her disgust.

“Ah, I just want to call in the Air Force and have them drop missiles…”

“And if they shoot down the fighter jets, are you going to pay for them, Himena?”

“…I could afford a couple.”

“Use that money to renovate the house in Boston later.”

“I’ll definitely do that. Ah, that’s the…”

The orbital bombardment ship Jupiter was being assembled by many people.

Since Jupiter was so large, it seemed they had disassembled it into as many pieces as possible when taking it out of storage and were now reassembling it.

Heavy parts were being carried by abominations or welded by strange-looking robots—phenomena that couldn’t be seen at OSA.

“They can assemble that… Is that even possible?”

Jessie, the only one in the group who had studied engineering, was watching the assembly scene with her hand over her mouth.

“Are those small ones construction ports? They’re so cute.”

“…You’re the first person I’ve heard call construction ports cute. Anyway, Jessie, how long do you think this will take?”

“…Probably not until the middle of the night.”

Jessie couldn’t help but be uncertain when asked to predict the assembly time of a ship she had never seen before.

“I can’t give an exact time, but it’ll probably be after 10 PM. Unless they bring in more people, the progress speed shouldn’t deviate much from expectations.”

“So even being generous, it won’t be completed until after sunset.”

“Yeah, probably. Even if they work faster, it would be 8 PM at the earliest.”

Dexter looked at his watch.

“There’s still time before the launch, but there’s no need to wait. We’ll have to find a way to sneak in as quietly as possible.”

Just as Dexter was about to take off his sunglasses and tell the group to go back to the van to gather weapons and infiltrate quietly…

A small sound like tinnitus reached Dexter’s ears.

‘What’s that sound?’

As Dexter turned his head toward the sound, he saw something long and cone-shaped flying toward his group.

“Everyone down!”

It was an anti-tank rocket.

Dexter jumped from his position, grabbed the heads of Judy and Emily, who were closest to the rocket, and forced them down.

-KWAAANG!

With a sound that seemed to shake the earth, Dexter’s group all lost consciousness.